<\/p>\n
This time I centered on Worsham\u2019s past.\u00a0 I\u2019d been so busy up until now, just keeping pace with his outrageous lies and constant attacks, I hadn\u2019t had time to look backward.\u00a0 But meeting him, even aside from the whole sleazy menacing hand-licking thing, there was just something about him, in person, that felt\u2026 off.\u00a0 I told myself I could chalk it up to simple repulsion on a chemical level, but whatever it was, I seemed to feel it viscerally, as if even his DNA wasn\u2019t on the up and up.\u00a0 Who was this guy?\u00a0 Where did he come from and what made him the way he was?<\/p>\n You\u2019d think, in that day and age, no one would be able to hide from the media.\u00a0 And yet, when it came to Worsham, the paper trail was strangely opaque, convoluted, contradictory, and maddeningly incomplete.<\/p>\n I took it as a personal challenge, and a way to redeem myself.<\/p>\n No one seemed to know anything for sure; everyone had heard a version of his life, including people who worked for him or with him.\u00a0 One of the most persistent stories was that he was from a small town in Nebraska.\u00a0 Western Nebraska.\u00a0 Or was it southern?\u00a0 Or north central?\u00a0 The name of the town varied from telling to telling, too, even though in every one of the surprisingly few biographical articles, the person giving the information spoke as if he or she was a close personal friend from childhood.<\/p>\n Okay, I thought.\u00a0 I picked a direction and started calling court houses in the western part of the state, county by county.\u00a0 I could get like that when I got engaged, determined and systematic.\u00a0 Okay, obsessive.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t care if I had to go through every county in Nebraska.<\/p>\n This I did over the course of a week or so.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t often have large blocks of uninterrupted time.\u00a0 Bob\u2019s doctors had sent us on to another specialist, in the hopes that a new experimental trial might buy him some time.\u00a0 It broke my heart in a way.\u00a0 Bob was so weak by then, just slogging through yet another hospital took so much out of him.\u00a0 He utterly hated wheelchairs, hated me having to push him, but that week was a bad one, and there I was, wrangling the chair down new corridors, new hospital buildings, Bob loyally holding my laptop and bag on his lap.<\/p>\n So, I\u2019d worked my way through four counties so far.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t that easy.\u00a0 Those little rural communities aren\u2019t really professionally staffed, and the person who can help you is often busy with other business, or not even there the day you call \u2013 or maybe for days on end.\u00a0 I\u2019d just gotten my fourth negative from a really nice old gal who helpfully went and searched through the birth certificates herself.\u00a0 Nope.\u00a0 Not a sign of a Lester Worsham ever born there.<\/p>\n Bob had a bad night, that night.\u00a0 We had to rush him back to the emergency room, where they diagnosed a reaction to his latest med, the one he\u2019d begged for, the one he hoped would turn things around.\u00a0 By the time we got home, we both collapsed, and slept until after lunch.\u00a0 I missed my own deadline, and so I might have missed the story, too.\u00a0\u00a0 But that evening I got a call from a colleague at NOW whose job included monitoring the media.\u00a0 Worsham had just gone on air that day to share some shocking news.\u00a0 A gas leak had caused a massive explosion in his hometown of Cullen, Rooker County, Nebraska.\u00a0 The county courthouse was completely destroyed.<\/p>\n All county records were, of course, destroyed.<\/p>\n Oh, and 6 people were killed in the explosion.<\/p>\n Such a tragedy.<\/p>\n Cullen County had been next on my list to call.\u00a0 If I hadn\u2019t met him, hadn\u2019t actually gotten his measure, I might have been able to give Worsham the benefit of the doubt.\u00a0 Now, this guy simply scared the living daylights out of me.\u00a0 What the hell had I gotten myself into?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n < previous\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 next ><\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" < previous\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 next > I couldn\u2019t get Worsham out of my head.\u00a0 It felt like he\u2019d burrowed into my brain through that slimy handclasp. I writhed in discomfort every time I recalled the encounter, ashamed I … Continue reading ![\"file](\"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Photo11-150x200.jpg\")
<\/a>I couldn\u2019t get Worsham out of my head.\u00a0 It felt like he\u2019d burrowed into my brain through that slimy handclasp. I writhed in discomfort every time I recalled the encounter, ashamed I hadn\u2019t handled it more forcefully.\u00a0\u00a0 I dealt with my own sense of impotence the way I always did:\u00a0 I went digging again.<\/p>\n