Hello
I realize this is an old topic, but I have only become aware of this board as of about 5 minutes ago. I am no longer a JW, nor have I been since I was 17 (am now 30) by my own volition. I do periodic searches on Willie to see if there are any new things on his case and found this thread.
I find this topic very interesting as I knew Willie when we were kids. I shared bunk beds with him. My mother "studied" with his mother, Sandy starting in 1984 and we remained extremely close until they moved to their final house just shy of 2 years later. We still remained close after that, but didn't get to see them as often. Then we moved to SD in late 1986, but kept in touch by phone. On Christmas Day, 1990, I tried to phone Paul & Sandy to see how they were doing and say hello as I loved them and saw them as like an aunt & uncle and hadn't spoken to them in a few months. I saw Willie as a strange cousin. This was the day I found out he had murdered them. My life changed that day and I experienced heartbreak like I have not known even to this day.
You see, even as a child, Willie wasn't "normal". While my mom would study with his mom, I would study with Willie. He would spend the time asking me things like "If someone stripped you naked, stabbed you and threw you in a dumpster, what would you do?" Me being 10 replies, "Well, I guess I would cry and try to get out". But he would persist with these kinds of questions until I would obviously get uncomfortable and threaten to tell and he would stop. This was how he was. I never saw physical abuse. I think the strictness of growing up a JW is so mentally confining it tends towards abuse. But I stayed with the family for significant periods of time and I firmly and wholeheartedly swear no malicious abuse was going on. And the strictness of the religion is no reason to murder your parents pre-meditatedly and rape your mother's body before robbing them and running away.
If any of you have contact with Willie, my name is Hillari. My maiden name was Osmond. I'm Bekki's daughter. Just ask him. He's a liar if he says he doesn't know me.
I understand the anger a lot of us have towards the organization. I have quite a bit myself. But please, don't see Willie as the victim in this. He most certainly is not. Whatever you want to project on these true victims that you probably had never met, please know that they deserved better than what they got.