Dennis Lewis – Content Writer, Storyteller
Dennis Lewis is a storyteller and content strategist with expertise in SEO writing, B2B communications, and more.
For more than 20 years, he worked as a writing and English professor at universities in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Dennis has been at the University of Waterloo since 2018. He currently teaches in the University of Waterloo’s Arts First Program.
Dennis has written for the CBC National Radio News and for a variety of companies and subject matter experts in the private sector. His work has appeared in print and online journals.
Dennis really enjoys using his story-telling skills to help companies and individuals effectively get their message across to their target audiences. As a writer, he knows how important it is to be empathetic and to listen to his clients.
He understands intuitively that, when it comes to content, it isn’t just the SEO, it’s the content itself – impactful, meaningful, clearly written, and telling your story – that makes the difference.
Dennis’s other interests include contemporary and classic literature, history, physical fitness, and travel.
Memorial
The only light was the lamp,
or the glow from the mantrap,
day after day, they would burrow,
the fruits of their labour, that light.
And most days they’d emerge
from the dark, squinting at the light.
Most days, they’d emerge from dark,
feeling sweaty and dirty and used.
Most days they said they’d come,
but that day they left for the mines -
some, having waited whole lives,
having longed to follow in footsteps.
Yet, none of them did it themselves –
all their lives they spent in pursuit.
There, in the mines, for families,
they became a family themselves.
Their community revealed for all
in the minutes, and hours, and days,
in the dark, in the light of the lamp.
from A MORE PERFECT UNION (forthcoming)
THE POWER OF THE IMAGINATION – IN WORDS AND VOICE
Dennis LM Lewis’s creative writing explores the mystery of our unique human destinies and the stories we tell ourselves as those destinies are shaped, the stories told in public rhetoric, and the poetics of the portable self. He makes his home in Southern Ontario, known for its varied landscapes, fertile farmlands, and blend of city and rural areas. Its humid continental climate, with four distinct seasons, sometimes reminds him of the more distant homes where he was born and nurtured: South London, England and the Isle of Sheppey in Kent. He often visits Languedoc, in the South-West of France, and his love for its hot, dry summers, bold cuisine, and rugged landscape has led him to consider that region another home. He has travelled widely, including working for long periods in Southeast Asia and the Arabian Gulf.
Dennis writes fiction and poetry. He also performs and records his own work as well as classics of literature. He was awarded an Ontario Arts Council Grant in 2018 and won 2nd Prize in the 2016 Troubadour International Poetry Competition. He completed BA and MA degrees in English at the University of Toronto, and a PhD in Creative Writing and English at the University of Essex.
Born to Jamaican immigrant parents in London, England, Dennis has had since childhood a fascination with history and a passion for myths and storytelling. For him, London, with its rich associations with literary and artistic figures like Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Jonson, Milton, and JMW Turner, was a capital of the imagination as well as I well a geographical location. His love for history, art, music, and literature was nurtured within London and on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent. During those early years, his parents and their friends, through their speech, through their stories, and the music they loved, also gave him sense of a rich and exotic world in the Caribbean tropics.
One of his early childhood memories is of an old red paper folder across which he’d written the words “FUROR SCRIBENDI.” His rage for writing had begun with a desire not necessarily to see his name in print so much as something far simpler and more visceral: the physical and emotional pleasure of pushing a pen across clean, white sheet of paper and watching the sheet gradually filling up with the blue marks of his script. Beneath this pleasure there lurked the even more basic delight of writing a world into existence, creating. His childhood reading of Homer, the Greek myths, Virgil, and the sagas and legends of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Germany, and Iceland were formative experiences, nurturing in him a lifelong curiosity about the forms and content of great storytelling. They also instilled in him an understanding of the crucial components of narrative and inspired him to try and create his own personal epics.
Writing, for him, began partly as a need to make sense of and recognise order within this world. But over the years, he came to believe that creative writing as mainly concerned with communicating truthfully about what it means to be human. Writing was a means for him of imposing order upon his experiences, observations, and intuitions, but it was also a way he found to live more fully. It represents to him a commitment to life and living, an engagement with this existience of ours and the forms of life within it.
Some of Dennis’s favourite writers are Homer, John Milton, Friedrich Hölderlin, Tolstoy, D.H.Lawrence, W.H. Auden, and Csezlaw Milosz.
The Spectator
He was adept at conveying benevolent feelings listeners wanted to share, that could lead to benevolent actions. In the speeches he gave in the wake of mass killings he seemed in his element. Not only in Newtown but Aurora, Fort Hood, in Tucson and after the marathon bombing grief-counselling the bereft homeowners and local officials granting funds in the aftermath of recent hurricanes He delivered compassion with kind face from a decorous yet understated height. That seemed to be the role he liked to play on the world stage too. Doubtless it was the posture he’d have preferred for the Spring, or for that matter the civil war if only the stubborn leader had obeyed when he said it was time to go They said he had a wish to help that was larger-spirited than any of his predecessors though caution bordering on timidness kept him from speaking with Carter just once. He rooted for the good cause but ended up endorsing the acceptable on which the satisfied have always agreed. Watching over our world, he was its most benevolent spectator. - from A MORE PERFECT UNION: A SERIAL POEM (forthcoming)
Father
I’d come alone to carry on the search for father.
The institutional building where the search took place
was labyrinthine—there were many stairwells
and many doors to offices and apartments
in the stairwells. But this was where they’d told me
he would be. I entered a kind of vestibule area, where
many people crowded. At first, I seemed to know
where to look, but soon I got waylaid—at one point
in a restaurant-kitchen area, at another at a doctor’s
waiting room. An attractive, young bi-racial girl
passed by and told me that she too was looking
for her father. I followed her, but lost her amongst
another hubbub of people. I was still unhurried
and certain where I’d find my father. I imagined
him with a woman, charming her or already
engaged in sex. At this point, I asked a woman
in the corridor whether she’d seen a stocky,
muscular black man with a certain air about him,
and realised I was describing someone the woman—
a middle-aged black woman—would likely have found
irresistible. It struck me I should have mentioned
his advanced age. Later, I was sure I saw him at
the top of a stairwell, talking with a woman. I was
certain now I’d reach him. I went up the stairwell
where I thought he’d be, but was confronted with
door after door, one looking like another. I listened
at a door where I thought I heard voices—a woman
with a whining voice that could have been my mother’s.
But the door was not an entrance—it was some sort
of exit or back entrance. I continued up the winding
staircase until I was out on the street, and looked upon
row after row of multi-coloured doors to different
offices, houses and apartments. I realised then that
it was hopeless. I’d have to go back to the beginning.
– from A MORE PERFECT UNION: A SERIAL POEM (forthcoming)
Caucus Victory Speech
You said the time has come to move beyond the bitter
pettiness and anger, to end the strategy that’s been
all about division, and instead make it about addition;
to build a coalition of sorts because that’s how I’ll win,
and that’s how I’ll finally meet the challenges I face.
Doing so, I’ll be choosing hope over fear, you said.
The time has come to tell them, you said. They think their
money and influence speak much louder than my voice;
they don’t, you said. They don’t control my life, you said.
The time has come to be truly honest about my choice.
I said I want someone I can learn from, someone
who’ll listen to me and who I can learn from, even when we
disagree, who won’t just tell me what I want to hear,
but what I need to know. That could be me, you said.
– from A MORE PERFECT UNION: A SERIAL POEM (forthcoming)
A More Perfect Union
A forceful wind carries Jeremiah’s voice up to the rafters. Form some simple words and make a prophecy. Perfect? Of course, the answer time. And yet words the reality of their time. Tasked to run story. that in no other country on earth is story even possible. Blah, blah. It’s a story. One. Despite temptation to still. This is not to say that. At various stages some commentators. The press as well. On one end of the spectrum, I’ve heard alike. In unequivocal terms, and in some cases, pain. Of course. Remarks that could be considered Yes. Views? Absolutely. But weren’t simply. They weren’t simply. Instead, they expressed. As such, charged problems neither professed values nor ideals. Why associate snippets same way. But the truth is a man like me.
A man like me reaching out. up to the rafters. And in that single note— dry bones. These stories story. The blood rebuild. Like other predominantly experience in North America. This helps explain, perhaps. No more disown cringe. People like me are. Now, no longer look to crank or demagogue, no big leader
eloquence in aftermath. Race isn’t just America: to simplify— American. Understanding—recite. Legalized lack. After them. Who scratched and clawed. In public, in front of white morning. That—that that exists between the races. In fact, anxious global over time. Resentments aren’t always polite shape landscape bogus attention from the real right now. And contrary to the claims of union. Path burdens always turn the cheek. Yet path hope prosper. Believe in destiny and, yes, tomorrow. In the end, then, what is called well….choice in this moment, or change. That is Time. Not this time we want. This time we want. Something. Your story is one in millions too. Anyway, that
doesn’t say, by itself, what will be or that time prepared you.
– from A MORE PERFECT UNION: A SERIAL POEM (forthcoming)
Berlin
Berlin. extraordinary tonight. The journey. At the height
decided, like so many others, the forgotten world— the dream—
required promised. letter after letter. Yearning. somebody,
somewhere answered. I touched down at Tempelhof.
And that’s when—that’s when I knew this city. One fall day,
hundreds of thousands to the Tiergarten. Look at a wall.
Look at a wall where the bullet holes. That wall—the wall.
The fall by the distance of an ocean. Prison camps and doors
open. Karl Marx Strasse. Markets. And secrets from a scientist.
Poppies in Afghanistan come to Berlin. Syria and China breed
tomorrow. Allow new walls. The walls. Races tribes and creeds;
We know—We know these walls. Never easy. Dry up the well.
Airlift planes appear in sky above the 21st century. The city—
those pilots and all the world will know the story. of Berlin—
– from A MORE PERFECT UNION: A SERIAL POEM (forthcoming)
Democratic National Convention
My great friend. We meet once more. Tonight,
more homes are watching our homes plummet.
More cars drive, more credit cards play politics.
Some women in Ohio find themselves disaster. A man
in Indiana explains how he feels; families sit on
their hands while major cities drown. Tonight,
friends, you’re here. On November 4th, you’ll talk.
Autoworkers show up everyday and try to work;
families watch their people go off; families pay
for college; students go back to sleep for hours;
I think about my mom who died before I knew her,
I listen to a worker. I hear a working woman talk,
I think about my aunt, her mother and grandmother.
I think—I…I have a better life. This has been mine.
I don’t know what father thinks. Or whose story wins.
– from A MORE PERFECT UNION: A SERIAL POEM (forthcoming)
Speech at Nasdaq
My faith is shaken when I call for confidence, or
I seek to renew this vision of trust, renew my spirit.
Faith—faith in what I call traditions, institutions,
faith in all of us together. Few recognise new terms
for this faith calling us and much of Wall Street
holds its breath…the tickers are being watched,
no hope really that headlines will bring better news.
But info must be shared, and wondering if all
this will spill. We know there is a need to renew
a psychic trust. We all believe the free market
is the engine, trust the invisible hand is guided
by a higher principle, always saying to ourselves
the tide will lift all the boats, we rise and fall as one;
and markets won’t be ravished in crisis of confidence—
– from A MORE PERFECT UNION: A SERIAL POEM (forthcoming)
President-Elect Victory Speech
people waited and believed this time; their voices. answer. we have never been individuals. we are,
and always will be, the answer that—that. tonight
we can put out our hands and bend them forwards.
once more. it’s been a long time, but tonight, we
all look forward. promise in the months ahead. want
this journey. campaigned and spoke. the streets train
home, and earned the new that’s coming. that debt
beyond. not hatched. draws strength. braves bitter doors,
stretches schools and churches. it grows up. rejected.
This victory. didn’t win. didn’t start. didn’t. But above all,
will never truly belong. belong. never for this. because
understand the enormity. even we know the challenges
that. we stand, the mountains risk, waking up in deserts.
– from A MORE PERFECT UNION: A SERIAL POEM (forthcoming)
Oil Spill Disaster
The people came out onto the streets and prayed each season,
for as the priest and the fisherman said,
They’re with us always, so we should come and pray again.
The long ceremony goes on though it took place weeks ago.
And still, they come and pray.
For tens of decades, they’ve talked and prayed.
For years, they’ve known the days were numbered.
They thought they saw the consequences
of their inaction.
There’ll be more damage before this siege is done,
they said.
They’d always said to serve and protect
So they believed they deserved to know the answer why.
But time and again, the path seemed blocked.
There was a swift, wide-ranging mobilisation,
five and a half million feet of boom had been laid
across the water.
Legions of cops in riot gear deployed across the cities.
But now it’s very clear that the problem here
runs much, much deeper—it was more
than a single event that does its damage
in a matter of minutes, months, or days—
Billions of gallons of black crude
had been spilled in the soil and water
like a hidden, yet swiftly moving black pandemic
spewed leagues deep in soil and water—
deep, deep beneath the surface,
and drilling underground.
– from A MORE PERFECT UNION: A SERIAL POEM (forthcoming)
An Imaginary Life – A Story Script
Have you ever wished you could live a different life? Assume the identity of someone who’s living a life much more exciting and interesting than the life you’re living currently? Just like the Jack Nicholson character in that 1975 film The Passenger. Perhaps you could have been born with or developed many more skillsets that would open new worlds of opportunity for you. Imagine the renewed sense of purpose you’d have and the respect and admiration people would have for you – if only you could be someone else.
Most of us, at some point in our lives, have wished we were someone else or had the sense of fulfilment and glamorous lifestyle of people who are more successful than we are. It all seems so much easier for them, doesn’t it?
“The imagination,” according to the Irish writer George Bernard Shaw, “is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine, and at last, you create what you will.”
But as you’ll hear, this story gives a sinister twist to the Shaw quotation.
As the parents of two smart boys, the Haldersons had a lot in their lives to be thankful for. They lived a life that, compared to most Americans, was wonderfully normal. They’d raised their two boys in DeForest in Wisconsin. It’s a suburb of Madison located in Dane County and one of the best places to live in Wisconsin. It’s sparsely populated – with just over 10,000 people – and is nice, spacious, and green, with lots of parks and above-average schools. It’s a perfect place for families and young professionals.
Like most of the folk in DeForest and most of their neighbours, Bart and Krista owned their own home. 50-year-old Bart was the main breadwinner. For years, he’d run his own accounting firm, servicing mostly small businesses, and had built up a reputation as a hardworking, money-savvy, and successful businessman. Krista was 53 and had always been there for her boys. She was a stay-at-home mum for them when they were growing up, and it was only long after the boys had both moved out and gone to college that she decided to get back into the workforce as a receptionist at a car company.
To their many friends and to all their neighbours, Bart and Krista were the dictionary definition of next-door-neighbourly wholesomeness. Both of them were kind, polite, and decent people. Bart was a stand-up kind of man who worked his whole life to provide the best for this family. He had a good head on his shoulders. He was always thinking long-term, working according to plan, cutting back on unnecessary expenses, and doing the right thing.
His wife, meanwhile, was the heart of the home, and for many of their neighbours, the heart of the community. She was a helicopter mum. She loved her boys, and she made it a point to always be there for them. Even after they moved out to go to college, she texted them both at least once a day, insisting they keep in touch and let her know what was going on in their lives. And outside of the home, she had a reputation for being someone who really cared. At work, she went out of her way to help resolve any customer issues. In her neighbourhood, she was known for always trying to make the lives of other people better in some way. And she loved to communicate and share. There was rarely a decision or event in her and her family’s lives that she didn’t discuss with her family and friends. If she was going shopping, she’d ask if friends or family members wanted her to pick something up for them. If she was going to travel and do something new, she’d let her friends know. Krista was a people person, and she loved to help others.
That’s how things appeared to Bart and Krista’s friends and neighbours. They were the ideal mum and dad, and everything was hunky dory at home with them. But for those living inside it, life in a wonderfully normal household is maybe not so wonderful. It can often seem downright stifling. Chandler Halderson knew that both his parents loved him in their way and that he was lucky to have an older brother like Mitchell, but sometimes, as with all families, they were all an enigma.
His dad was gone at work for so long he sometimes seemed like a stranger. And when he was at home, he was stern and serious. He made them do chores and constantly spoke about responsibilities. He wanted his sons to do well in school and had high expectations for them. Growing up, Chandler sometimes felt tension in the house because his father seemed to hold him and his brother to tough standards of honesty, hard work, respect, and good character. More than anything, Bart wanted them to make something of themselves.
Friends of the family were impressed by how well his dad handled money, but to Chandler, it seemed like he was overdoing it. His dad’s mind was always on the future, calculating, paying for the schooling of him and his brother, saving for retirement, planning for the future, fixing up the house. Everything had to go according to plan. Everything for him had to be cost-effective, but maybe his dad was just plain cheap.
As for his mum, she was loving, gentle, and supportive. But she was the classic smothering, busybody mum, often far too involved in the boys’ everyday lives. But Chandler and his brother knew it was because she cared deeply for them. She was a stay-at-home mum, so she saw to it that her boys were raised right. And from the time they were young, she insisted on open communication. The boys were always encouraged to share their feelings and what was going on in their lives.
Chandler’s brother Mitchell was 18 months older. After graduating from college in computer engineering, Mitchell had gone on to a high-salaried position in the tech industry. He got engaged to his long-time girlfriend, and they bought a house together. That had put some pressure on Chandler. He couldn’t wait to launch out on his own and make his mark in the world. In 2018, after graduating high school, he went off to college at Madison Area Technical College (MATC). He moved out of home and into an apartment with some friends from high school.
But due to plain bad luck and circumstances far beyond his control, by 2020 Chandler was back living with his parents and the family’s two dogs. This was upsetting to him. He found it hard not to compare his situation with his brother’s and the independent life he was leading. And now his parents – well, his dad really – were charging him a small amount for rent. They also – again, it was mainly his dad – imposed their rules on him. To Chandler, it seemed so unreasonable. Since he was a 23-year-old adult, he ought to be allowed to come and go when he pleased. But his dad ended the argument by saying since he was living under their roof, he had to obey their rules.
Nevertheless, Chandler soon learned to see this setback as just a temporary blip on his path to success. In fact, after some time, he started to do very well for himself. He’d gotten a salaried position at a big insurance firm called American Family. It was paying so well he’d soon be able to move out. He’d also found a way to use his superior swimming skills: he was working as a volunteer with the Department of Natural Resources and the local police in their Search and Rescue scuba team, helping to search for bodies and missing persons. At the same time, he was back at MATC again; he was in an IT program in Renewable Resource Engineering and taking a course in Solar Panelling. And then, outstanding news: he got hired by Elon Musk’s SpaceX. He had started working remotely, but in June he planned to move down to Florida, where they were based. His girlfriend Catherine or Cat was going to join him. They’d buy their own home, and he’d finally be on the same level as his brother Mitchell.
But once again, Chandler had some bad luck. One night, on his way to the bathroom in the dark, he fell down the stairs. His father had heard a slight thud at the time. The accident had lasting repercussions on Chandler’s life. The doctors’ initial diagnosis was that he’d suffered some bruises and what appeared to be a mild concussion. But later on, it seemed that Chandler’s condition had worsened. He started losing feeling in his legs and wasn’t able to stand up for long periods of time or lift heavy objects. Evidently, there was severe nerve damage. And not only that: Chandler had brain bleed and an aneurysm, which could would need surgery. It was likely that due to nerve and spinal damage, he’d eventually become paralysed and have to be fitted with a colostomy bag.
Almost overnight, Chandler had lost everything. His physical condition affected his ability to do his work accurately at SpaceX, and they fired him. His intense migraines prevented him from focusing on his studies, and American Family was close to letting him go. He had to wear a neck brace and sleep on the couch at his parents’ house indefinitely.
Sometimes bad things seem to happen in a sequence. A couple weeks or so before, Chandler’s brother Mitchell had been hospitalised for type 1 diabetes. The parents had dropped everything to be there for Mitchell. Krista stayed by his side to look after him. She’d weep on the phone with her best friend as she revealed how worried she was. His mum had also recently got the news that she had skin cancer. And now, just when she’d digested that news and when his brother seemed to be out of danger, Chandler had his accident.
He felt frustrated and depressed. It felt so unfair to have the bright prospects of his life shattered like this. Fortunately, he was able to talk to Cat his girlfriend. She loved Chandler and would do almost anything for him. He could also talk to Cat’s mother Dulce and Dulce’s lover Cres. They understood his tense living situation with his parents, and just like Cat they wanted to take care of him. In fact, Cat’s mum had even offered to let him move into her house. But in spite of tensions with his parents, Chandler was a devoted son.
Chandler knew his mum and dad were under a lot of stress and that they were trying to keep it all together. That’s why it didn’t surprise him when his dad blew up at him that day on July 1st. He’d been in the den with his father and the two dogs. He started playing catch with one of the dogs, and while they were playing with the ball, the glass in front of his parents’ fireplace got broken. It was obviously an accident, but for Chandler’s dad it was the last straw. Chandler got a cut on his foot, and Bart also got cut. He was furious. Even though Chandler apologised and offered to clean up the glass, Bart yelled at him and sent him to his room: he’d clean it up himself.
Later, Chandler heard his dad talking with his mum about taking a short, much-needed vacation to their cabin up north. They’d already been making plans to carpool with another couple on the 4th July weekend. But why not go up a day earlier on Friday instead of Saturday? To Chandler, that seemed like a pleasant change. His parents were always so punctual and reliable. He was glad to hear they’d both play hooky and be a bit irresponsible for once.
He helped his mum and dad pack their things. He noticed they were bringing a large load of booze and lots of cash. He figured they planned to really let loose up there in Langlade County. But after his dad’s uproar the night before, Chandler kept his mouth shut. When he woke the following morning, they were gone. His mum had left a note reminding him to call their next-door neighbour if he needed help.
Chandler didn’t hear from his mum until the 4th July: she sent a text saying they’d got there safely and were going to a parade in town. It was a bit unusual for her to send just one text message after several days: she sometimes texted him and Mitchell several times in one day. But then again, the cellphone service was quite patchy up there near Sawyer Lake.
That was the last message Chandler, Mitchell or anyone else ever got from Krista’s phone. After July 4th, Krista and Bart were never heard from again. They never came back from their trip up to their cabin. In fact, police investigations would reveal they never even made it to their cabin. By the end of July, the remains of Chandler’s parents were found scattered at different locations around Wisconsin.
The mystery of what happened to Bart and Krista after they left their home on July 2nd shocked and perplexed everyone in the Deforest community. There were questions about why Krista, who was normally such an open book about all her comings and their goings, had been so secretive about this trip. There were questions about why Bart and Krista took such a large quantity of alcohol and cash with them on their trip. And there were questions about the mystery couple who’d picked them up that Friday morning. Who were these people? And what could have transpired that resulted in the body parts of Bart and Krista being found at various locations around Wisconsin?
“The imagination is the beginning of creation,” as George Bernard Shaw said. These savage crimes had their origin in one person’s imagination. Fuelled by unreasonable desires, an unlikely person concocted these crimes in the imagination. And that same person created the evil that they had willed. In fact, almost everything I’ve just recounted to you about the days leading up to the murder of Bart and Krista Halderson is a complete fabrication, a lie…the product of that one person’s perverse imagination. They were the lies that Chandler Halderson told to his girlfriend and her mother, his brother, his family, friends, neighbours, the media, to the police, to the world, and probably to himself.
All of these crimes began with a simple lie. When Chandler flunked out of college and moved back in with his parents, he suffered an almost unbearable loss of face. Many young people have experienced something similar: they leave home and taste independence for the first time, together with all the temptations that life at college offers. And they go off the rails. Later, chastised by their parents and humbled by experience, they get their lives back on track, and become more disciplined and focused.
But for Chandler, the move back home was an unacceptable failure. While he was back at his parents’ house, submitting once more to their rules, his brother Mitchell had scored a salaried position in a tech firm and had moved into his own house with the girl of his dreams. Chandler, by contrast, felt like a loser – looked down on by the world and disrespected by his parents. He felt he had to keep up some semblance of a front at least.
He told his parents, Cat, and the people around him he was still in college. That thing that happened at MATC the year before, that had nothing to do with him – just bad luck. And now he was doing just great. He made up fake online course schedules – just to make sure that Cat and all the others would believe he had his stuff together. He was going places. Sometimes he told Cat he couldn’t hang out with her; he had a project due, he said, and then, just to make his lie even more convincing, he created an entire fake school project. That’s how dedicated he was to the lie.
Another of Chandler’s lies was his claim that he had a salaried position at American Family Insurance. His dad, being an accountant, would ask him questions everyday – “Why don’t you ever have any money?” “Why haven’t you paid any rent?” And Chandler would tell him a lie to cover up his initial lie: “Well, I’m a salary guy, but they were accidentally paying me hourly, so they just held my pay checks until they fixed it.” Then, it was, “I gave them the wrong direct deposit info.” And later: “They were going to pay me so much money that when they deposited it in the bank, they thought it might look fake.”
Having an imaginary job can solve a lot of hassles in your life and prevent a lot of awkward questions. But a problem arises when your dad works from home too and he’s a conscientious, early rising accountant. To keep his dad off his case, Chandler had to get up early too and pretend to log into his imaginary employer’s account. There are documented email exchanges between Chandler and his dad with Bart asking, “Hey, are you up for your meeting?” and Chandler replying, “Yeah!” over and over again. And what did Chandler do after he got up early for his pretend job? Why, he sat on his computer all day playing video games with gamers from around the world.
Something had to give though: Chandler was working all day at a job that didn’t exist, his father was asking uncomfortable questions, and so he had to figure out something else. Eventually, he hit on it: the best way out of one fictional job is one that’s even more fictional. And so, around May 2021, Chandler told his parents that the job at American Family wasn’t going so well. He’d decided to get a new job: he was going to join Elon Musk. “I work at SpaceX,” he wrote to Cat his girlfriend. “I have a follow-up interview for Florida tomorrow.” And then, “Shoot, I got the job. I have training next week over the computer, leave June 11 and start June 14.”
But the other lie – the one about college got beyond Chandler’s control. He’d first enrolled at MATC in the spring of 2018, so by 2021 he was supposed to be approaching the date for a graduation he would never have. And so, when his dad demanded to see his transcripts and college receipts for tax purposes, Chandler had to come up with something. With his home computer, he created an email account for an imaginary college advisor he called Daniel Speith. He then sent emails to himself from this fake account, offering help and informing himself that the college was in the process of upgrading its entire computer network and service would likely be disrupted. Later on, Chandler would write emails to Speith complaining of the difficulty he was having obtaining his transcripts and demanding a meeting. He’d show his father the email chain to confirm that there was a failed system within the college’s computer network. Bart demanded to be included in the email chain, and after he demanded a meeting with the imaginary advisor, Chandler bought a burner phone and gave his dad a fake number for Daniel Speith. After Bart spoke with Speith, he sent an email to Krista saying that the advisor sounded a lot like Chandler. But Bart still hadn’t cottoned on to his son’s game. Chandler created other imaginary college advisors – Alyssa Brandt and Aaron Hoover.
Bart’s correspondence with these fake college advisors – really with his own son – continued for more than a year. Until one day, he’d had enough: on June 29th, he phoned MATC and pretended to be Chandler to try and finally get some info on what was going on.
WI v. Chandler Halderson Trial Day 9 – Omar Jobe – Enrollment Coordinator
0:00-0:41:
IN: “I’m trying to get an appointment…”
OUT: …online and request it.”
Bart spoke with Omar Jobe, an enrolment coordinator at MATC. Bart’s manner with Jobe was blunt and combative. That’s because he believed that he and his son had been given the runaround for over a year by MATC as they’d tried to get Chandler’s transcripts, clarify exactly what degree program he was enrolled in, and find out why he hadn’t been allowed to graduate yet.
0:42 -0:51:
IN: “Yeah, I tried requesting…
OUT: …not willing to do that again.”
Towards the end of the call, the pieces started to come together. Omar Jobe’s answers revealed that Chandler wasn’t even enrolled in any program. Finally, Bart asked for the people whose names he’d seen so often in Chandler’s email correspondence: Daniel Speith, Alyssa Brandt, and Aaron Hoover.
12:53-14:34:
IN: “Do you know or have an Alyssa Brandt…”
OUT: …you’re welcome.”
You can hear the gradual shifts in emotion in the father’s voice, as he goes from righteous anger, at what he believes is the college’s bungling, to the realisation that his son had led him up the garden path.
These words, recorded on Tuesday, June 29th 2021, were the last recorded words of Bart while he was still alive. Shortly after, Bart sent a text message to his son: “I spoke with Omar Jobe.” That text message ultimately sealed the fates of Bart and his wife Krista.
The events of the next 24 hours are a bit murky. But detectives obtained the records of Chandler’s phone and computer, the security cameras of the Halderson’s neighbours in DeForest, and the sworn testimony of Cat, her mother Dulce, Dulce’s lover Cres, and numerous others.
After his phone conversation with MATC enrolment coordinator Omar Jobe, Bart’s calendar shows that he made an appointment for himself and his son to have an on-campus meeting with the college officials whose names his son had given him on Thursday July 1st at 3 pm. Of course, none of those college officials were real. Bart knew that, and the appointment that he made for himself and his son makes it clear that Chandler knew that Bart knew. The jig was up, and there was no way for Chandler to wriggle his way out.
At 7:26, on the morning of Thursday July 1st, Chandler sent a desperate text to Cat: “I hardly slept.” And then at 7:27: “Stuff hasn’t been going well for me lately. Just trying to plan for the next thing to fuck me over.”
At 7:51 a.m., he wrote, “I had a great future planned; it’s falling apart.”
He sent no more texts to Cat until hours later at 1:04 pm: “I overheard they [his parents] might go to the cabin with their friends, but I don’t know.”
At about 2:15 pm, Bart Halderson was evidently getting ready to go with Chandler to their 3 o’clock meeting at MATC. He sent this text message to his son: “I’m ready whenever you are.”
Bart’s phone was never used again. No ever saw him again. The neighbourhood where the Haldersons live, in which there are security cameras at every house, never saw Bart again.
At about 3 pm, when he was supposed to go with Chandler to their meeting at MATC, Bart was shot by his son several times in the back with a high-powered rifle.
After shooting his dad, Chandler texted his mum at work: “Dad’s phone died. Text or call me. And get soda on your way home. I have an extra hour of work.”
Of course, Chandler didn’t have an extra hour of work; he didn’t actually have a job. But this extra hour allowed him to prepare for what he was about to do next.
His mother responded to Chandler’s text in her usual upbeat, loving way: “Okay, I can. [Smiley Face].” Those were the last words of Krista alive. Shortly afterwards, at about 5 pm, neighbourhood security cameras showed Krista pulling up in her car, getting out, and walking into the Halderson house. She was never seen alive again.
Investigators aren’t exactly sure how Chandler murdered his mother, whether he used the same rifle he used to shoot his father; or whether he shot her in the back, bludgeoned her to death, or simply strangled her.
But they have a note that Chandler created on his phone, in which he lists his weekend chores: “H202 Lemon, door handles, move your shit upstairs, get a job, and clean the floor.” H2O is the chemical name for hydrogen peroxide, a household cleaner used to clean up blood.
He spent the rest of the day cleaning the house, and then he took a shower and Facetimed Cat from the shower. Afterwards, they said their good nights, but Chandler didn’t go to bed. Instead, he went to a gas station to buy several large bags of ice. He needed the ice to store his parents’ bodies.
Later that night, the evidence shows, he used hand-saws, an axe, and scissors from around the house to decapitate his parents and cut up their limbs. He stored their dismembered bodies in the house’s freezers. After this bloody business, he cleaned up the house as best he could. But police would still find blood spatter all around the house.
Chandler’s initial plan to dispose of his parents’ bodies was to burn them piecemeal in the fireplace. Late that night and over the next night, neighbours smelled what they thought was someone having a barbecue. The burning went on all night. A distant neighbour’s security camera caught the light from the Halderson fireplace flickering throughout the night. At one point, Chandler lost control of the fire and tried to cool it with water. There was evidence of an explosion which shattered the glass in the fireplace. And police would later find remnants of human skulls in the fireplace’s ash trap.
Over the weekend of July 3rd to 4th Chandler spent time with his girlfriend, but at certain times when he’d told her he’d be at home, his phone records show that he was out by Wisconsin River dumping his mother’s remains.
On Sunday the 4th July, Chandler sent a message to himself using his mother’s phone, announcing that Krista and Bart had arrived safely at their cabin. Later that day, Chandler and Cat visited the farm belonging to Cres, the lover of Cat’s mother. Cres has a swimming pool on her property, and under the pretext of the benefits for his health, Chandler asked if he could come back and use it.
Cres was surprised when Chandler showed up the following day, on Monday to use the pool, but she allowed him to use it. When she went to check on him, she saw him instead walking out of the woods. Police would later find the body parts of his father buried in these same woods.
On Wednesday 7th July, Chandler walked into the Dane County Sheriff’s to report his parents missing. Detectives interviewed him later that night, and he told them the story that I’ve already recounted to you. The detectives noticed that Bart and Krista’s cars were still parked in their garage.
On Thursday 8th July, the police found Bart’s body parts on Cres’s farm in the area where Chandler had been seen. They also found a pair of scissors, a saw blade and bolt cutters hidden in a nearby water tank. In the meantime, Chandler had been growing increasingly alarmed by the large police presence outside his home. He did a Google search for the terms “body found Wisconsin” and “dismembered body found.” Later, he asked a neighbour if their Ring doorbell might have captured video of the road or the Halderson home. That night, Detectives Brian Shunk and William Hendrickson of the Dane County Sheriff’s Office took Chandler in for further questioning.
Chandler Halderson Interrogation Police Interview
0:18 – 0:27
IN: “What’s going on…?”
OUT: …a little bit more, okay?”
Chandler said that he was still feeling the effects of concussion from his imaginary injury, but over the next hour and 40 minutes or so, he fabricated another story about the sequence of events that began on Wednesday, 30th June.
4:39 – 6:16
IN: “I was with my dad…”
OUT: “…I believe so, yeah.”
As the interview progressed, the detectives took down pages of notes and appeared to allow themselves to be led by Chandler. Their apparent gullibility made Chandler increasingly more confident as he embellished his story with more details.
18:06 – 18:29
IN: “That’s where they told me…”
OUT: “…talk while he eats.”
Chandler’s addition of these tiny mundane details of his parents’ every day habits showed how confident he’d become. It seemed as if he himself believed the story he was telling. At one point, the detectives asked why his parents’ blood was found spattered about the house, and Chandler provided them with a stunning answer.
1:23:37 – 1:25:24
IN: “Well, my dad scratches his psoriasis…”
OUT: “…can’t feel it anymore.”
The detectives flipped through their pages of notes without speaking for a minute or so. Chandler suddenly became uncertain. The detectives asked several questions about his parents’ cabin. And then they turned the tables on Chandler.
1:32:44 – 1:32:58
IN: “We got all the background, I think.”
OUT: “…the truthful version.”
Stunned, Chandler looked from one detective to the other. For a moment, it seemed as if the thought of jumping up and running to escape crossed his mind. But how could he? Where would he go? He was trapped.
For the first time, perhaps, in many years, he would be forced to face up to the consequences of his lies.
1:32:59 – 1:33:54
IN: “So, we have like 20 pages…”
OUT: “yeah, okay…”
Chandler shook his head in denial, hung his head down, then looked up, then twitched and fidgeted like a trapped wild creature. His entire imaginary world had come crashing to a halt.
1:34:20 – 1:35:12
IN: “You’re under arrest.”
OUT: “…and I think you know that.”
The detectives arrested Chandler for giving them false information about his parents’ disappearance. He offered to tell them everything. “You don’t know the full story.” Then he said he didn’t feel bad about what he did.
He was charged with 8 counts including his parents’ murders, mutilating a corpse, hiding a corpse, and providing false information about a missing person. He plead not guilty.
The defence did not call any witnesses; neither did it bring Chandler to the stand. They reasoned that because he was a noted liar the jury would not be inclined to believe a word he said. The prosecution’s case against Chandler had been built over eight days of testimony and dozens of witnesses, and in the later days of the trial, the more substantial evidence of DNA and fingerprints.
Yet, for all this, the defence still claimed in their closing argument there was no proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Chandler had in fact committed these horrific crimes.
Everybody lies, they said. Everybody fabricates the world according to their desires, the world they want to live in. “And what does it matter?” Did Chandler’s lies provide a motive for his crimes? Did the mere fact that he lived within his imagination necessitate murder?
There are plenty of reasons to doubt that a first-degree intentional homicide occurred, they said. Yet oddly, they could provide no substantial reasons for this doubt. They wished to question the assumptions behind the accusations against Chandler, but they refused to call him to refute those assumptions.
The defence raised the big question as to why someone would commit crimes of such primordial brutality – the murder and desecration of one’s own parents. Of course, the prosecution was under no obligation to prove a motive. But yet it’s a question that lingers with us still, long after the trial and sentencing.
Chandler was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.