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There were more than a few people who claimed to be Will, and tried to take credit for his acts The police set up a special phone nuot the predictable glut of false claimants and confessors Open letters to various citizens, purportedly by Will, flowed to the News offices in a great streaot a couple of death threats: "An Open Letter to Marty McGraw… You started this, you son of a bitch, and now it's your turn…" A lot of people, in public and private, were ht be, and offered their reco There would be a third Nobody stopped at two One maybe, three maybe But nobody stopped at two
Will didn't disappoint, although his next pick may have surprised a lot of people "An Open Letter to Roswell Berry" was his heading, and he went on to identify the city's leading anti-abortion activist as an unindicted murderer "Your rhetoric has provoked violent action on the part of your followers tiain," Will asserted, "and on at least two occasions death has been the direct result The bo at the 137th Street clinic, the assassinations of the nurse and physician on Ralph Avenue, anton acts of murder Both times you have talked out of both sides of youryourself fro it as a means to an end, and a far lesser evil than abortion… You champion the unborn, but your interest in a fetus ends at birth You oppose birth control, oppose sex education, oppose any social prograht lessen the de, and seeainst
"THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE"
Berry was out of tohen the letter landed on Marty McGraw's desk He was in Oainst an abortion clinic "I a God's work," he told the TV cameras "It's His will that I continue, and I'll stack that up against the so-called will of the people any day" He told another interviewer that whatever business Will had with him would have to wait until he returned to New York, and he expected to be in Omaha for some time to come
God's will In AA, we're advised to pray only for knowledge of His will, and the power to carry it out My sponsor, Ji in the world to know God's will You just wait and see what happens, and that's it
It , but it evidently wasn't God's will that he continue He stayed in Omaha, just as he said he would, but when he returned to New York it was in a box
The maid found him in his room at the Omaha Hilton His killer, not without a sense of huer wrapped around his neck
It was the Omaha Police Department's case, of course, but they welcomed the two NYPD detectives who flew out to consult with thee information There was no evidence to link Berry's s of Vollled him out in his open letter, and this left room for speculation that soestion, had handled the matter on a local level
Will's next communication-sent, like all the others, to Marty McGraw-addressed that notion "Did I go off to Omaha to settle accounts with Mr Berry? Or did so to put up with Roswell Berry's disruption of that fair city's urban equilibrium, take matters into his own hands?
"My friend, what on earth does it matter? What difference can it possibly , as sohtly different context It is the will of the people that acts through me If indeed another pair of hands than mine stuck the knife in Roswell Berry's pitiless heart before girdling his neck with a coat hanger, it is as moot to ponder my own responsibility in the ave rise to my actions Each of us, alone or in concert, helps to express "THE PEOPLE'S WILL"
It was cleverly done Will wouldn't say whether he'd gone to O that it didn't matter one way or another At the sa to the fact that Berry had been stabbed The Omaha authorities had suppressed this (They would have liked to suppress the coat hanger as well, but it leaked, and the syood to expect the press to keep it under wraps It was easier to hold back the knife work, because it hadn't shown up until they had Roswell Berry on the autopsy table He'd been killed with a single stab wound to the heart, inflicted with one stroke of a narrow-bladed knife or dagger Death was virtually instantaneous and there was no bleeding to speak of, which is why the stabbing wasn't noticed at first, and why it ed to stay out of the papers)
Roswell Berry had looked like a difficult target He'd beenin a hotel with a good security setup, and escorted at all ti men in chinos and short-sleeved white shirts, with buzz haircuts and unss for Jesus," one commentator had styled theed to slip through their ranks and get in and out of their leader's hotel rooe