Calligraphy Process
Sam Siatta was deep in a tequila haze, so staggeringly drunk that he would later say he retained no memory of the crime he was beginning to commit. It was a few minutes after 2 a.m. on April 13, 2014. Siatta had just forced his way into a single-story home in Normal, Ill., a college town on the prairie about 130 miles southwest of Chicago. A Marine Corps veteran of the war in Afghanistan, he was a 24-year-old freshman studying on the G.I. Bill at the university nearby, Illinois State. He had a record of valor in infantry combat and no criminal past. He also had no clear reason to have entered someone else's home, no motive that prosecutors would be able to point to at trial — no intention to rob, no indication that he knew or had even seen before any of the three young female teaching students who lived inside, or the boyfriends who were with two of them. Two of the women and one of the men had awakened minutes earlier when they thought they heard someone opening and closing the front door. It had been an unnerving sensation, the feeling that an intruder had stepped into the home. They tried to settle themselves and return to bed, only to be jolted by a house-shaking bang — the sound of Siatta hitting the back door with such force that he splintered the jamb. The door swung open into a dining area. Siatta strode into the unfamiliar space, just around the block from the similarly sized home where he rented a room. A little more than six feet tall and weighing about 175 pounds, he was a thoroughly trained veteran of a small-unit ground war and heavily tattooed, with red tally marks on his sternum indicating seven Taliban kills from 2009 and 2010. His former company commander would later tell a trial judge that of the 388 troops he led in Afghanistan, Siatta was the man the militants feared most. The women cowered behind a flimsy bedroom door. One of them dialed 911. Another clutched a stubby kitchen knife. Since leaving the corps in 2012, Siatta had been unable to switch off the habits of war.
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Sam Siatta was deep in a tequila haze, so staggeringly drunk that he would later say he retained no memory of the crime he was beginning to commit. It was a few minutes after 2 a.m. on April 13, 2014. Siatta had just forced his way into a single-story home in Normal, Ill., a college town on the prairie about 130 miles southwest of Chicago. A Marine Corps veteran of the war in Afghanistan, he was a 24-year-old freshman studying on the G.I. Bill at the university nearby, Illinois State. He had a record of valor in infantry combat and no criminal past. He also had no clear reason to have entered someone else's home, no motive that prosecutors would be able to point to at trial — no intention to rob, no indication that he knew or had even seen before any of the three young female teaching students who lived inside, or the boyfriends who were with two of them. Two of the women and one of the men had awakened minutes earlier when they thought they heard someone opening and closing the front door. It had been an unnerving sensation, the feeling that an intruder had stepped into the home. They tried to settle themselves and return to bed, only to be jolted by a house-shaking bang — the sound of Siatta hitting the back door with such force that he splintered the jamb. The door swung open into a dining area. Siatta strode into the unfamiliar space, just around the block from the similarly sized home where he rented a room. A little more than six feet tall and weighing about 175 pounds, he was a thoroughly trained veteran of a small-unit ground war and heavily tattooed, with red tally marks on his sternum indicating seven Taliban kills from 2009 and 2010. His former company commander would later tell a trial judge that of the 388 troops he led in Afghanistan, Siatta was the man the militants feared most. The women cowered behind a flimsy bedroom door. One of them dialed 911. Another clutched a stubby kitchen knife. Since leaving the corps in 2012, Siatta had been unable to switch off the habits of war.
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Sam Siatta was deep in a tequila haze, so staggeringly drunk that he would later say he retained no memory of the crime he was beginning to commit. It was a few minutes after 2 a.m. on April 13, 2014. Siatta had just forced his way into a single-story home in Normal, Ill., a college town on the prairie about 130 miles southwest of Chicago. A Marine Corps veteran of the war in Afghanistan, he was a 24-year-old freshman studying on the G.I. Bill at the university nearby, Illinois State. He had a record of valor in infantry combat and no criminal past. He also had no clear reason to have entered someone else's home, no motive that prosecutors would be able to point to at trial — no intention to rob, no indication that he knew or had even seen before any of the three young female teaching students who lived inside, or the boyfriends who were with two of them. Two of the women and one of the men had awakened minutes earlier when they thought they heard someone opening and closing the front door. It had been an unnerving sensation, the feeling that an intruder had stepped into the home. They tried to settle themselves and return to bed, only to be jolted by a house-shaking bang — the sound of Siatta hitting the back door with such force that he splintered the jamb. The door swung open into a dining area. Siatta strode into the unfamiliar space, just around the block from the similarly sized home where he rented a room. A little more than six feet tall and weighing about 175 pounds, he was a thoroughly trained veteran of a small-unit ground war and heavily tattooed, with red tally marks on his sternum indicating seven Taliban kills from 2009 and 2010. His former company commander would later tell a trial judge that of the 388 troops he led in Afghanistan, Siatta was the man the militants feared most. The women cowered behind a flimsy bedroom door. One of them dialed 911. Another clutched a stubby kitchen knife. Since leaving the corps in 2012, Siatta had been unable to switch off the habits of war.
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Sam Siatta was deep in a tequila haze, so staggeringly drunk that he would later say he retained no memory of the crime he was beginning to commit. It was a few minutes after 2 a.m. on April 13, 2014. Siatta had just forced his way into a single-story home in Normal, Ill., a college town on the prairie about 130 miles southwest of Chicago. A Marine Corps veteran of the war in Afghanistan, he was a 24-year-old freshman studying on the G.I. Bill at the university nearby, Illinois State. He had a record of valor in infantry combat and no criminal past. He also had no clear reason to have entered someone else's home, no motive that prosecutors would be able to point to at trial — no intention to rob, no indication that he knew or had even seen before any of the three young female teaching students who lived inside, or the boyfriends who were with two of them. Two of the women and one of the men had awakened minutes earlier when they thought they heard someone opening and closing the front door. It had been an unnerving sensation, the feeling that an intruder had stepped into the home. They tried to settle themselves and return to bed, only to be jolted by a house-shaking bang — the sound of Siatta hitting the back door with such force that he splintered the jamb. The door swung open into a dining area. Siatta strode into the unfamiliar space, just around the block from the similarly sized home where he rented a room. A little more than six feet tall and weighing about 175 pounds, he was a thoroughly trained veteran of a small-unit ground war and heavily tattooed, with red tally marks on his sternum indicating seven Taliban kills from 2009 and 2010. His former company commander would later tell a trial judge that of the 388 troops he led in Afghanistan, Siatta was the man the militants feared most. The women cowered behind a flimsy bedroom door. One of them dialed 911. Another clutched a stubby kitchen knife. Since leaving the corps in 2012, Siatta had been unable to switch off the habits of war.
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