THE LOST SON OF SAM LETTERS

A Friendship Blossoms

In one letter, Gary Evans told Son of Sam how much he missed seeing him. "I miss visiting you, too," Son of Sam wrote back. In the same letter, Sam thanked Evans for supplying him with what was an endless array of fruit cocktail, juice and other snacks.

One note somebody had slipped into Sam's cell had frightened him, and he expressed to Evans that he was afraid to "go to sleep at night." The guy had called him a "cheap cocksucker" for not having snacks in his cell to steal, then went on to say that if Sam didn't fill his cell with "donuts, oatmeal pies, or nutty bars" and "chocolate," he was going "rip" the "veins out of" his "neck" while he was sleeping.

Evans was totally absorbed by these stories. It was important that the Son of Sam was sharing his life with him. He could hardly believe it. Sam, on the other hand, continually fed Evans's ego, complimenting him on his muscles and addressing him in a way he must have known would cater to Evans's grandiose thoughts of himself.

In his final few letters, before getting out of solitary during one stint, Sam talked about collecting "mouse droppings" on his "cell floor." He'd shoot the "shit pellets," he explained, using a homemade slingshot, at people who walked by his cell. He promised to bring a "bag" of "shit pellets" with him so he could show Evans how to do it. "You'll be impressed," Sam promised.

Son of Sam had sent Evans a copy of Muscle & Fitness magazine one day, but Evans sent it right back. To Evans's sheer horror, the editors had chosen to use an African-American bodybuilder in an article, which totally turned Evans off of the entire magazine.

"I forgot," wrote Sam, "how prejudice you are."