The Cabbie Homicide

True story about a former classmate who murdered a cab driver during my senior year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oct 13, 1993. I remember that day as the day a friend of mine took the life of a cab driver in Itasca, Illinois. Nordic Hills Plaza is where the body was discarded. I have a lot of questions of that night of what went through his mind -- and wanting to know why he threw away his life at 17 years old. I remember the day after where he was walking down the halls bragging about how he killed the cab driver with another friend of his, Eric Wright. The person behind the murder was William Porris, here I am close to ten years later writing of this horrifying crime -- that would be in the years of Du Page County having its second homicide in 1993, the first was of a 27 year old woman who disappeared off of my street only to be found in a macabre display -- charred flesh with her hands tied behind her back on January 1993.
        But this is the story leading how long I have known Porris and in the years I have known him from middle school and high school -- I never thought he would actually do something that horrific, take someone's life without a weapon. As it was written in our school paper -- they recorded the horrific detail of how he lured out the cab driver with Eric Wright and their dates. The girls were the ones who did the call to the cab driver, as related to a co-worker I spoke with seven years later in November of 2000. The frightening thing is how the story came about in the car -- I asked him if he knew about the murder of a cab driver in 1993, it was a cold night that November one of the coldest Novembers. One of those that comes in the setting of a gothic tale. He was working at the same company as the would be victim -- the victim was a male in his 30's with a wife and two kids. I would have the dreams that haunt me about how the wife would see the demise of her husband at the hands of Porris -- and there was nothing I was able to say to warn them about it.
        Where it is in the memory of the night -- and the dreams that come in the vivid thoughts and tormented memory. It was what sank in on the day when I got the newspaper about the case -- it was a four page column reading Two Glenbard East students charged with first degree premeditated murder. I was looking at that in my Senior year -- the first thing in my mind was no it cannot f*****g be, there was no f*****g way that Billy Porris was capable of killing someone. Then the next thing I knew was that there was a clipping from The Daily Herold. It was almost out of the pages of a bad nightmare that I was not able to awake from -- the first thing I wanted to know from Porris was the reason why. It haunted me to this day -- where I knew someone who took another persons life. Here I am writing the nightmare of what happened ten years ago -- the thoughts that are still there are what would stay in the shadows wandering. I ask myself what demons haunted that b******s mind -- I thought of him as being just the typical troublemaker but never thought of him as being a murderer.
        Oct 13, 1993. That day was one that I knew that I lost my innocence, that innocence was gone because of the knowing that a friend of mine took the life of another -- another who had a family trying to scrape by. It is one thing that stayed in my memory all this time -- all those thoughts of knowing that how and why he had the urge to take another persons life. According to the reporter behind the story -- he was strung out with cocaine, and what he took in robbery/homicide was only $50. Killing someone for that much -- the f**k? All I can say now is the f**k -- why the f**k? God damn you Porris, you're a f*****g a*****e for bragging about killing a man. What he did was create a nightmare for the victims family who is reliving that day every night and for the friends who are close to him -- the friends are still trying to find out why would Porris be in the mind to actually kill someone.
        One as myself had not been able to put this one behind me because it would come back one way or another -- namely when I would look on the calendar and it would read Oct. 13. Then when I would see in the nightmares -- the headline, two youths tried for murder as adults, life in prison each. I remember what Eric said on the court stand, “I value human life -- just that the influence of cocaine made me want to kill.” The thought that was in my mind what I was able to see -- the horror, that knowing of what they did, hearing Porris bragging and boastful on how he killed the driver. Another close friend stated, “Billy, that is nothing to brag about. Especially if there is a police officer who might of bugged the place.” The thoughts as they haunt -- the monster inside of man, where it would drive one to have the free will to either pull the trigger or to kill a man so brutally in a way that Porris did with the cab driver.
        Where it is darkening in the mind of the motive -- the questions as there were many when they sat in the courtroom and the horror drawn out from the drama of the jury. And the discussion in the jury room would be left of the imagination -- where it would be in the mind that comes in the trial where murder was the case. October 13, 1993 -- horrors drawn from the nightmares of the years to come from that day -- the knowledge of a friend is never going to be in society, thrown his own life away by taking the life of a cab driver just scraping by to live in America where he thought he was going to make enough to raise his family had became the nightmare that haunts the rest of the life of the wife; knowing that was his last night alive.
        I come to the realization that it was Porris who did the murder -- but I was thinking he was making s**t up like he normally did. It was something that haunted my mind all that time -- a personal demon of knowing the horrid deed that Porris had done. The brutality of the murder is what I could not get over -- and how the f**k did he do something like that to call in for a cab, a sick way to go -- not a way to die, at the hands of an addict who was overly strung out..
        “You mean to tell me that you knew the murderer,” asked the Cab driver who was driving me from the sporting good store in Bloomingdale to the Wheaton Metra. He was looking at me with a form of disbelief in the sense of what I was saying was full of s**t, “I was supposed to do that call that night. The driver that died that night was a friend of mine,” he added. He was looking at me in the rear view mirror and had the question in his eyes, “How the f**k did you get caught up with him?“ ”He wasn't always the murderer they know him as now,“ was my answer, “he wasn't always that way.“
        “I went to middle school and high school with him. In fact we were in the same Science class in middle school and literature. He never paid attention to his studies -- always found himself in detention because of his habitual fighting and gang banging. I knew that he played hooky often -- more so in high school, used to go cut class to do lines of cocaine,” I responded, “I knew he was banging with some of the local gangs but murder was a shock to me -- I had not known that the m**********r was capable of something of this nature.” I took a long drag of my cigarette at this time, “He was the reason I wanted to do the story -- it would of been the first time I was writing a true crime piece. True people would think it would be morbid that I was writing about him in this way -- but I wanted to give the light of who Porris was before he did the murder or known as a murderer.”
        “Holy s**t,” the driver responded, “you are sure brave to write about this. I don't think if my friend was a murderer -- I would not of even tried to write about it. It would scare me so shitless that I could not even sleep at night. I bet that is what you are going through at times. Knowing that this haunts the living f**k out of you to the point where you know it has to be written.”
        With that I know it must be done -- this narrative in the sense that I try to find the words to describe that he had done, what Porris had done. The sin in the sense of the word as it is in my mind, thou shall not kill. The thought that plays in my mind and the dreams that haunt from it -- seeing Porris doing his life detention, that it haunts the mind being in the sense of the words. The once a good kid fucked himself beyond repair. Where a murder like that plays on the imagination in the sense of how the f**k did he hide it for that long -- where it eats away inside. Where he and Wright did not say a word about the murder until it was time for them to go to the trial for their sentence.
        Oct 13, 1993, the day on a calendar that killed the innocence of all the friends around Porris -- that knowledge of what Porris done haunts all who are around them, including one as myself. The first thing in my mind when I got that newspaper which read that Porris and Wright were named the prime suspects -- where that “What the f**k? Porris? Guilty of murder one? This cannot be -- oh my God this cannot be!!” It was the feeling of my heart was in my throat and could not breathe -- the nightmare as I was falling was coming into the surface and the voices of the courtroom where what I heard in my mind, that verdict given to two kids at the time -- then 16 and 17 years old, now in this year would be serving nine years of their life sentence. They never had the right to vote but now they would never have it because they blown their life away for a quick fix and fifty dollars. I continued to the cab driver, “He basically did an anonymous phone call with Eric saying that they admitted to the hideous deed of killing the innocent man.”
        The nightmares are where they described in the mind of the falling -- the verdict of the 12 saying that they are guilty. The sobbing of the mothers losing their sons to the system and the pounding hard on the gavel by the judge, “You will be handed to the custody of the department of corrections.” In the voice of the echo of the judge I found myself in my mind repeating the headline -- two Glenbard East students convicted of first degree murder. Addison and Itasca Police Department were on the hunt of two males of their description and was in the newspaper -- then hearing the voice of Porris himself bragging about the murder as it was no big deal and laughing about it.
        Oct. 13, 1993, the date in the mind that plays out in being the day that Porris had murdered with Eric Wright of the immigrant taxi cab driver from the Czech Republic, someone who was about in his mid thirties -- a year in the country, never thought that his last hours where going to be in the hands of two strung out junkie."
        Oct. 13, 1993, the day where one lost their innocence and walks around with memories of a county that was scarred by a murder that was done by two minors -- the appalling thought being done in at the hands of another. Where they follow in the footsteps of the first murderer -- the one who killed his brother before the eyes that are watching from above. The horror as it is within the mind that the voices being heard in the dream -- that I heard myself screaming -- it cannot be; there is no way in hell that he had killed someone. Even when I was sitting in the pews where Ms. Christina Jacobson could not see the torments inside. Living with the fact that a mutual friend of ours was a murderer. Though it was a year later after Porris was sentenced and incarcerated, it is still in the memory -- as I am writing it now nine years later. Where it is in the mind that the thoughts and nightmares remain of that day; it is a curse where that knowledge haunts one to the day where one is looking at their adult years. I have not written much of Christina Jacobson -- well in the light of the murder that Porris committed, where if she would find this somewhere she would have the thought in the mind that I have gone mad. Though from the dreams came from the driving madness of what Porris had done -- the hideous deed that he committed -- the strangling and punching the cab driver to death.
        No one cannot describe the horror as this -- the closest thing is being the words that are written of the original murder. In the eyes of the one who listens to sermons they would understand where this is described as the death his younger brother. Where I write of this description comes from the memory of the discussion with the cab driver who worked at the same company -- a former co-worker. Where it comes to the mind as it is written of this night -- the night of October 13, 1993. Nine years later -- Porris is still locked away, as he hears the slam of the door behind him and all the time in the world and his thoughts keeping him company. A b***h to his thoughts -- the thoughts as they rape him in his sleep in form of the nightmares, the gavel pounding down and handing him the guilty verdict against crimes of all humanity.

Author's Note

Now those who went to school with me -- will remember this story in part, I just changed the spelling slightly with the guilty bastard who murdered the cabdriver. This happened in my senior year, warning not for the weak of heart.

Reviews

[PersephoneInBlue]

I felt that there should have been some explanation of why the narrator didn't call the police when he heard Porris talking about the murder at school. Maybe you could say Porris threatened to kill him too or kill his family? Otherwise he seems like kind of a coward. If he is supposed to be a coward this should be made more clear. I'm only 13 and you can bet I'd tell my parents to call the police if a kid I knew was bragging about killing someone! Since he is still in high school he should tell his parents, at least if he is meant to be a likable character.

Other than that, the idea for this story was pretty good, but I caught a lot of grammar/spelling/punctuation mistakes. For example, the last sentence in the first paragraph is an awful run-on that should really be 3 sentences, and it's not the only one. In fact most of the sentences could be made shorter and/or more clear. A second draft plus an explanation for the narrator not telling on the killer could make this story really good!

[bob baupader]

Nice job not turning the guy in. I've seen more frightening things then what you paint as a background.

[James Watts]

Nice work. Was a chilling piece and I ever so enjoyed reading it. There was a nice flow and it made the entire work seem so natural. Good Job.

[Scot Savage]

An excellent, if not frightening piece. Since this one is tue as well, I'm not going to make a joke about it unlike "Accident Revisited." The fact that it was under "Biography/memoir" should have tipped me off that this was a true story!

[Rie Sheridan Rose]

What a terrible thing to have happen to you, Nick! The repetition of the date was very powerful. I personally think that it would benefit from a more linear organization, but that is obviously just me. :)

[Pauline Ramsey]

Great piece hon, for me, I thought the best part was how you tied it off in the end. A fitting ending for a great piece.

[Rory Cassidy]

I really like this one, and like Arc said, this one doesn't get at all airy as others tend to. I gotta say, this one REALLY freaked me out. I think the thing that was so good about it is that it is more of a phsycological horror piece, if it is a horror piece at all. I would definately like to see more stuff like this by writers like you here on the cafe. And by the way, if you haven't for some reason read Phil Kuhlman's writing, you really should. I recommend his sci-fi piece Shock, which is one of his best, in my opinion.
-Rory

[Arc]

Dude, that was awesome. Very groovy prose-style; I almost felt a rap/hip-hop feel to some parts of it; and in other parts near song. Solid, too; didn't get too airy as some tend to. I was almost lead to believe that the narrator was the killer. Rock on.

The Haydo Arc

17/4/2007

[The Vampire Guide]

Very well written! The story grabbed my attention and I couldn't stop reading. Your style is very smooth and well organized it was as if I were watching a movie it was so vivid in my mind. You are a very talented writer!

-Aksel

[Mishel Rosario Reyes]

Intense, in the end William Porris becomes a victum of the system by bein raped. The only thing is you could've put more incite on the vitum's death, the cabi driver, and maybe a twist, but then again you had it in the end, great ending, great read, :) ---Mishel