by standing and facing a blank wall, flexing his arms into a goofy bodybuilder pose, and becoming rigid for several long minutes. Gary tried to speak to him, but he was gone. Ten minutes passed, and Ron didn't flinch. He stared at the ceiling without making a sound or moving a muscle. Twenty minutes passed, and Gary was ready to bolt. After thirty very long minutes, Ron snapped out of it but still would not speak to Gary.
Fortunately, the staff soon arrived and took Ron to his room. He told a doctor, "I just wanted to come here because I needed a place to go to at this time." He was given lithium, for depression, and Navane, an antipsychotic drug used to treat schizophrenia. Once he was stabilized, he checked himself out, against the advice of his doctors, and within a few days was back in Ada.
Gary 's next road trip with his brother-in-law was to Dallas, to a Christian mission program for ex-cons and addicts. Gary 's pastor had met Ron and wanted to help. Quietly, the pastor confided to Gary, "Ron's lights are on, but no one's home."
They checked into the facility in Dallas. When Ron was situated, Gary said good-bye. In doing so, he slipped Ron $50 in cash, a violation of the rules, though neither knew it. Gary returned to Oklahoma, and so did Ron. Within hours of checking in, he had used the cash to purchase a bus ticket back to Ada and arrived not long after Gary. His next admission to Central State was not voluntary. On March 21, nine days after being discharged, Ron attempted suicide by swallowing twenty Navane pills. His reason, given to a nurse, was that he was depressed because he could not find a job. He was stabilized and placed on proper medication, which he stopped taking after the third day. His doctors concluded that he was a danger to himself and others and recommended a twenty-eight-day treatment at Central State. On March 24, he was discharged. Back in Ada, Ron found a room behind a small house on Twelfth Street, on the west side of town. He had no kitchen and no plumbing. To shower, when he bathed, he used a water hose behind the house. Annette took him food and tried to care for him. During one visit she noticed his wrists were bleeding. He'd cut them with a razor, he said, so that he could suffer like all the others who'd suffered so much because of him. He wanted to die and be with his parents, the two people he'd hurt so much. She begged him to go see a doctor, but he refused. He also refused to get help at the mental services office, where he'd been so many times.
He was completely off his medications.
The old man who owned the house was kind to Ron. Rent was cheap, often free. In the garage there was an ancient lawn mower with one wheel missing. Ron pushed it up and down the streets of Ada, mowing lawns for $5 and giving the money to his landlord. On April 4, the Ada police received a call from a residence on the west block of Tenth Street. The home owner informed the patrolman that he had to leave town and he feared for the safety of his family because Ron Williamson had been roaming through the neighborhood at all hours of the night. Evidently, the home owner knew Ron and was watching carefully. He told the cop that Ron had made four trips to the Circle K convenience store and two or three to Love's convenience store, all in one night. The policeman was sympathetic-everyone knew Ron was acting weird-but there was no law against walking the streets after midnight. He promised to patrol the area. On April 10, at three in the morning, the police received a call from a clerk at the Circle K. Ron Williamson had been in several times, acting really strange. While Officer Jeff Smith was making his report, the suspect showed up again. Smith asked "Ronnie" to leave, which he did.
An hour later Ron walked to the jail and rang the buzzer and announced that he wanted to confess several crimes that he had committed in his past. He was given a form for a voluntary statement and began writing. He admitted to stealing a purse four years earlier at the Coach-light, stealing a gun from a home, touching two girls on their