First Edition
5"x8" Trade Paperback
Retail: $14.95US
ISBN 978-1-933523-47-7
LCCN 2011937300

Also available as ebook
eISBN 978-1-933523-46-0

larger view of cover
chapter one >>>
buy the book
book details

TRANSFORMING DARKNESS TO LIGHT, for Giving
—Spiritual Lessons from My Life with a Serial Killer

Author: Travis F. Vining

Chapter 1

Revealing a Killer's Secrets

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

I started my day the same way I had started every other day for the past few years. I woke up, thanked God for this day and began to quiet my mind for meditation. This particular morning was going to require a little extra effort. I was headed out to a place that held some of my fondest memories of my dad. It was the place that I felt most connected to him as a young teenager. It was where we hunted, laughed and camped together. It is also where he buried his friend that he murdered, another experience that bonded us together.
      It was four-thirty A.M. I sat comfortably on our living room floor as the moonlight came streaming through our French Doors. It was our formal living room and we didn't have any furniture in it. I sat facing the moon as I quieted my mind. After this quiet time I ended with a few simple prayers, mostly about healing for my family and friends. My last thought before getting up was a hopeful prayer that whatever was to happen today would bring healing to others and that I would recognize my role in it. I felt peaceful as I finished with the sign of the cross. It was time to go.
      This morning was also a hunting trip that involved my father. We were hunting for a body. The body of my father's long time friend and associate that he had murdered twenty-two years earlier. It was my father's first victim. It was also the murder that revealed to me for the first time exactly who and what my father was all those years ago. Not that I accepted it at the time.
      He told me about his plan to kill his friend just before it happened. That was the murder that started it all. Now, it was about to end right where it all began. It was time to close this wound.
      It was an unusually cold January morning in Central Florida. In fact, it was one of the coldest weeks on record with temperatures in the high twenties and low thirties. It had also rained a great deal and there was a lot of water on the ground. I knew this was going to be a problem when looking for the body of my father's friend, but we went anyway.
      A couple of weeks earlier I had finally received what I had been hoping for. My dad sent me a written confession detailing exactly how and where he killed his friend. It was not easy getting this. It also revealed some very ugly truths about my father that were hard to process, but extremely important for me to see.
      To get him to confess I used the only leverage that I had with my father . . . money. I had mailed him money on Death Row for years and he had become very accustomed to having his snacks, television, reading materials, and most importantly, cigarettes. He had become too comfortable, in part, because taking these things away from him after twenty years on Death Row suddenly made being there intolerable for him. These extras were his only source of comfort and he had come to absolutely rely upon them.
      My father was sentenced to death for the murder of a diamond dealer in Orlando, Florida in 1990, and although he was the suspect in three other slayings at the time, he would get away with them for fourteen years—until I came forward in 2004 to help cold case detectives solve them. That is where justice began to enter the picture. Five years later, this is where it seemed to be coming to a close.
      When I began to put pressure on my dad by taking away his money, I was already responsible for his being convicted of two other murders. A few years earlier I had a life changing experience that brought back the memories of the time that I spent with my father, as his trusted confidante, when he was murdering people. I had traveled to Death Row and recorded a conversation with him. He had unknowingly confessed to these two murders, but I had been unable to get him to talk about his friend's murder . . . until now.
      Taking the prison comforts away from him whipped him into a frenzy that revealed to me just how dangerous my father still is. It opened a window into the mind of a sociopathic killer. My father wrote letters threatening to kill me and my family. These letters included details about what he fantasized about doing to me and my family. It was the vilest material that I have ever read, and it was directed at me, from my dad. It was hard to absorb at first, but then I began to see the beauty of it all.
      What I saw reminded me of just how lucky I was to be alive today. It also explained a lot about why I did, or didn't do, certain things all those years ago when my father was killing people.
      I was thinking about all of this as I drove towards the Deseret Ranch in Holopaw, Florida. It's a cattle ranch in the center of the state that includes tens of thousands of acres of beautiful pastures and woods. It was still dark and the drive there was about forty-five minutes. On the way, I began to reflect back on this whole journey. There was so much to think about, it was hard to get my mind around it.
      I would go from remembering what it felt like to be around him while he was committing these crimes to trying to understand his intense hatred for me now. That would lead me to think about the miracles that I had witnessed over the past few years, then back to my father again. It has been like this for me for years. I have a tendency to separate the miracles from the murders and experience them with completely different emotions.
      It's not easy to understand and to accept that they are connected and belong together, but they are. One cannot be separated from the other. Here in lies one of the problems in life that creates separation in so many of us. This separation is based on a very limited understanding of the world around us and that causes us to live with so much unnecessary fear. The removal of that fear takes work, courage, pain and faith. When it begins to become clear, and the seemingly senseless acts of suffering suddenly make sense, an incredible feeling of peace replaces that fear.
      I kept reminding myself of this fact as I remembered all the events that led up to this morning. Mostly, I was remembering the heavy stuff . . . the murders and what it felt like to be around my father before and after he killed these people. There was still an attraction to that feeling, as sick as it was. Although I am beginning to really see the beauty in all this, I am not yet able to stay in that peace without interruption.
      My thoughts were bouncing around a bit from crime to crime. It was still hard to put it all in some sort of nice and neat order. My dad killed four people and I was with him either before or immediately following all of these crimes. I now can remember vividly his behavior, his mannerisms. That's what I remember the most, his behavior.
      The guy we were looking for was his first murder. As I drove I thought about how it all started. We were in his car, driving down a beautiful country road in Apopka, Florida, when I asked my dad a question that would solidify my part in this. He was baiting me, I know that now. He wanted me to ask. He wanted to tell someone what he was going to do. What he was capable of. He really wanted to share this, and as his son, I accepted the role of confidante.
      He didn't give me any details, just that he had a land deal with his friend that would make him rich. I didn't understand, so he explained it to me. His friend's two million dollar piece of property in the Keys was about to be deeded to him in an imaginary land deal. The question that I asked, the one he was waiting for, hoping for . . . was simple. Why would he let that happen, couldn't he stop it after he learned that there were no buyers? His answer was just as simple and very clear. My dad looked at me as he studied my behavior and said, "He won't be around to dispute the deal." That cemented our relationship for the next seventeen months. I was now a part of this, and as much as I tried to deny it, I knew it. It made me sick, but I couldn't show it.
      For me, the most disturbing and confusing part of all this was being in the presence of your worst nightmare while still hoping that you can go to the very same source for protection from it. The feeling inside was total chaos, as if I were being drawn to, and pulled from, something at the same time . . . stuck with no apparent way out. I was reliving that experience as I came closer and closer to our old hunting camp.
      As I became more familiar with the area approaching the ranch, I began to drift off into memories of better days, hunting and fishing with my dad. I thought of him laughing, us drinking together and telling stories. Mostly how wonderful life was and how the whole world was in front of me. I so loved my dad and this was the place that we were closest. It was during these hunting trips that I felt closest to my dad. A father, as it turned out, that I never really knew.
      The emotional swings brought me to tears. I was listening to a song in my CD player that was all about the feelings that I was having. No coincidence, it was exactly what I needed to hear. The crying was pretty heavy, but it felt good. It didn't last long but there was an odd sort of closeness with my father involved in it. It was as if we were becoming closer than ever before. Maybe it's because the secrets were gone. I didn't resent what he had done any more. All these emotions were mixed in together, but it felt good, cleansing.
      I was beginning to understand just how connected he and I really were, and still are. I felt like everything was exactly as it was supposed to be. Making sense of these horrible crimes never seemed possible, but that is exactly what was happening. The power of forgiveness was shining a welcome light on the dark past, turning these once shadowy figures into beautiful spiritual lessons of peace.
      As my emotions went back and forth, the underlying feelings were gratitude, peace and anticipation. That may not make sense, but that is how I felt. I was getting much better at remembering those old feelings while staying grounded in peace. The key was that I wasn't afraid to go there anymore. It would continue to get easier still.
      As I came closer I began to focus more on all the miracles that I had witnessed since I re-opened this old wound and allowed it to begin to heal. As I approached the entrance to the Ranch the peace of it all settled back over me. Thank God for coincidences.
      When I pulled up a couple of big four-wheel drive trucks, along with some unmarked police cars, were waiting for me. It was kind of exciting. I really liked being around these guys because they were here to help me solve this. Many of my friends didn't understand what I was doing, and it was difficult to explain, but when it came to the crime aspect of this, these guys were all ears. They were interested, and they had experience with it. I liked the way it made me feel.
      One of the trucks had the cadaver dogs in the back. There were two of them. We exchanged some pleasantries, talked a little about what we were going to do and started heading down a long dirt road towards the entrance to the ranch. This place was, and still is, beautiful. It is a part of Florida that many people never get to see. I had spent a lot of time here, camping and hunting with my dad, and now I was being flooded with a whole new set of memories and feelings.
      After about a mile, on this heavily graded dirt road, surrounded by mostly brush and thick woods, we turned onto what we used to call the "yellow brick road." It is an old brick road that used to run across the state connecting Melbourne to Tampa. This is the only section of it that I have ever seen. It runs through some beautiful oak trees and wooded areas before opening up into endless pastures, wetlands and woods. It's like entering paradise through a nature-covered driveway that connects two very different worlds. It felt good to be back here.
      As we drove the property, I paid very close attention the roads. My father's confession of the crimes detailed where he buried his friend, stating that he used the Cadillac to get there. If his story was to work, the place we were headed had to be accessible by a car. So far, his story was checking out, but now we were about to enter the property through a locked gate, and according to the aerial map my father gave me, we had a couple of more miles to go into the woods before coming to the area that he had circled on the map.
      When I was a kid, the gate was where I left all the cares of the outside world behind. We didn't have cell phones back then, so when we entered the property, we were cut off from the outside world for days at a time. I was reminded of that feeling as we drove through the gate.
      It was strange, after all these years, coming back to this place of sacred memories with my dad, accompanied by homicide detectives, trucks and dogs. Like everything else, it was all mixed up together now. I couldn't help but think that he wasn't who I thought he was back then either, but man did I love him. Then, I wanted to be just like him, or so I thought.
      The best he ever treated me was when we were here. It wasn't the hunting that made this fun; it was sitting around the campfire, drinking and telling stories with my dad, my friend and uncle. Laughing is what we did the most. It's strange to think about now. It seemed so real, but nothing was as it seemed.
      There is a great deal of pasture land on this ranch, and it's very open. We were studying the aerial map from my father as we looked at the satellite images in the truck. The ranch includes thousands of acres, and it was hard to be sure from the ground if we were headed to the right spot. It was not far from the natural main road, just on the edge of a wooded area.
      The first place we stopped seemed to match, but something kept bothering me about it. There was a feed plot for deer, just like in the photo, but it was positioned differently on the map than on the ground. We began to search and they let the dogs out. I watched for awhile, hoping for something, but they seemed to be getting nowhere. As they were searching, I wandered off into the woods.
      This was near a place that we once camped, and I wanted to find that place. I am not sure why, but I am drawn to places where heavy, important, and emotional events happened in my life, and this was certainly one of them. It seems these places still hold some of that emotion in the air, almost like its part of the history, still there. I don't know if others feel that way, but I definitely have a much deeper experience of an event if I am where it actually took place.
      As I walked through the woods approaching our old campsite, I could feel the anticipation. It was a happy place, and it still felt that way. The site was still recognizable, and I stood there for a while, taking it all in. I completely forgot about why I was there, just enjoying the site.
      After a few minutes, when I realized they might be looking for me, I decided to go back, but it wasn't easy to leave. Once again, it was time to cross over from one reality to another. It still felt like I was going between two worlds. Well, actually three. This third world that I was experiencing was bringing the other two together, revealing a much bigger truth for me, a revelation that would explain so much of the unexplainable.
      When I returned to where they were, the police investigators were getting discouraged. It was cold, and there was a lot of water on the ground that made it difficult to use the dogs. I finally said something about the feed plot. They didn't seem to think it was a big deal until one of the guys found another spot on the satellite close by that matched the description better, so we moved.
      I jumped in the truck with the guy who decided to take another look, and we went on ahead while they cleaned up and rested the dogs. As we approached this new spot, I noticed that the road was easily accessible by car, all the way to the edge of the woods. The other spot was harder to reach, and that bothered me as well. Now we were on to something, and the detective knew it, too.
      Something inside was telling me this was it. It did match everything on the map, but that wasn't it, it was much deeper than that. My disappointment was being replaced with a sense of optimism and maybe even closure. I am not a big fan of using the word closure, but that is the only way to describe what I was feeling. I felt that I was getting close, and that excited me.
      This was also near another spot where we once camped, also described in his letter, and it all matched. The other detectives would join us after we walked the area for a while, but the dogs were cold and tired by now. They only spent a few minutes on the area before deciding to come back when the conditions were better and some of the water was gone.
      There was an area that my father described in his letter as a pond bog, surrounded by trees with a lone cypress tree on the corner of it. I was standing on that very spot. He wrote that the pond was dry when he buried his friend on May 31, 1987, but that it held water in the rainy season. This day, after all the rain we had, it was full of water, but you could tell it was temporary, just like in his letter.
      As I stood there, I knew this part of the journey was over. I was done trying to make right the past by solving these old murders. I ran from this trouble for years, and now it was all out there for everyone to see. I wasn't keeping my father's secrets anymore. These same secrets had almost killed me, but were now giving me back my freedom.
      One of the detectives asked how I felt about all this. I simply said, "I'm done with this. I will not be coming back out here. I know all I need to know and did all I needed to do."
      It's funny how if you really want to leave something like this behind, you have to go back through it before you can let it go. The reason for this seems to be more of a fact-finding mission than simply reliving the past. It was for me anyway.
      To let go of the past, I began to go back through the years to find out the truth about my dad. At least that's what I thought I was doing. This fact-finding mission revealed some truths about me too, and as it turned out, those were the ones that I needed to find the most. I had a lot of my father in me. The more I learned about him, the more I wanted it out of me . . . all of it.
      I had to look really hard to find the truth and it wasn't easy. My father wasn't the only one keeping secrets from me. I had become quite good at it myself.

Excerpt©2011 Travis F. Vining

About the Author:

Travis F. Vining is an inspirational and educational Spiritual Teacher who lived the real-life horrors of learning his father was a serial killer. In a search for the Truth, this nightmare became an inspirational journey of faith, hope and miracles.

The former travel executive now speaks to dozens of groups a year, detailing his experience with his father and the spiritual journey that followed, allowing him to turn the liabilities of his childhood and early adult life into one of his greatest assets. He also teaches A Course In ForGiving and facilitates intensive healing retreats that focus on family of origin issues.

Now a loving husband and father, he has found forgiveness, love and absolute faith and has devoted his life to helping others overcome these same difficulties. He lives in the Orlando area with his wife and daughter.

His website is www.victorythroughpeace.com.

TRANSFORMING DARKNESS TO LIGHT, for Giving
—Spiritual Lessons from My Life with a Serial Killer
Author: Travis F. Vining

To purchase from your local independent bookseller click here:

Purchase at amazon.com

Purchase at barnes&noble.com

Purchase at booksamillion.com:

All Bella Rosa Books titles are available through Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Brodart, Follett, BWI, The Book House, Inc., Emery-Pratt, Ambassador Books.

Booksellers, Schools, Libraries, and individuals can also purchase direct from Bella Rosa Books. For quantity discounts contact sales@bellarosabooks.com .