Hitchhiker Frank Dryman decided he would rather drive himself than take kindness from cafe owner Clarence Pellett who had picked him up on the highway. So Dryman coolly drew out a hidden pistol, ordered Mr. Pellett out of his own car and began shooting him. He emptied the gun in Pellett's back. Then, while Pellett died in agony in the freezing snow, Dryman drove off in triumph.That was in 1951 in Montana.
Dryman was soon caught and put in prison for the vicious murder. But he received a conditional parole after just 20 years. He skipped out and disappeared, eventually making a new life for himself and eluding authorities for decades.
However, Clarence Pellett's grandson, Dr. Clem Pellett, wasn't resting easy. After growing up and going through his family's history, he learned the things his parents had been too grief-stricken to ever talk about. Clem wanted closure -- and he wanted justice. He hired a private detective to find the escaped killer. And finally, Frank Dryman, alias Victor Houston, is now back in prison.
But Dryman is as unrepentant and self-centered as ever. He admits he's never lost sleep over murdering Clarence Pellett. He never bothers to think of it, let alone feel remorse for his brutal crime. "To be honest, I didn't even remember the victim's name."
And the criminal even denies the right of Clem Pellett to seek justice. "I can't blame him for what he did. But I think it was so wrong he spent so much money getting me here. I feel it is unfair."
Unfair, he says? This from a murderer who already cheated the hangman by becoming a celebrity in the 50s for those campaigning against the death penalty? This from a murderer who screamed at his original sentencing that he would escape and gun down the judge, the members of the jury and even people in the courtroom audience? This from a murderer who received an extremely lenient sentence and yet who still couldn't be bothered by the conditions of his parole?
Unfair?
Saddest of all in reading this account is knowing that these sentiments of a vain and violent murderer are all too close to the ethos of the Entitlement Society which now dominates our politics. Justice, morality, individual responsibility -- they are all overwhelmed by false compassion, irresponsibility, victimization, blame and selfishness.
Therefore I'd like to go on record as applauding the efforts of Clem Pellett to track down his grandfather's killer and bring him back to prison. It is an act that brings some measure of solace to his family, I'm sure.
But it also brings some measure of sanity to the culture at large.
