Mark Michael Meyers was twelve years old in 1979 when the movie
Halloween
made its debuti n theaters. After seeing the movie with some friends he was immediately smitten with the villain whose name so resembled his very own.
The release of
Halloween II
two years later cemented his obsessive relationship with both the movie and the Michael Myers character. Mark soon insisted his friends and family start calling him by his middle name.
His mother, Suzan, and younger sister, April, were the only ones to take his insistence on being called Michael seriously. His mom gave in partially and started calling him Michael, but only when they were alone.
On the other hand, April, who worshipped her older brother, called him Michael all the time. Suzan fully expected Mark i.e. Michael to grow out of his strange fixation on the Myers character, sooner or later, so she thought very little of it—at first anyways.
But Mark's passion for the Michael Myers character only grew as he reached high school where he started to change the spelling of his last name from M-E-Y-E-R-S to M-Y-E-R-S on anything requiring his signature.
This intentional misspellings of his last name did not go over well with his father, Samuel, who, when he found out, administrated a proper beating to his son in an ill guided effort to set the boy on the Lord's "bright and shining path".
The family lived in Holdenfield, Iowa, a town halfway between Des Moines and Omaha, and just a bit west of Nowhere, USA. Holdenfield was your typical Midwest town: small and boring, which maybe contributed to Mark wanting to create another personality based on an adventurous villain.
Mark believed the similarities in spelling between his hometown of Holdenfield and the fictional hometown of Michael Myers in the Halloween movies-- Haddonfield—was not a mere coincidence, but instead he perceived it as validation of who he was— a real life Michael Myers.
Mark did not enjoy what anyone would refer to as a "normal childhood" even before he became fixated on his movie villain alter ego. This was wholly due to his father, a half demented minister, who preached too much and loved his family too little.
Suzan, on the other hand, was a former homecoming queen and cheerleader, and possessed that singular small town beauty which seemed to come natural to girls of the American Midwest.
Like a fine wine, as Suzan matured she seemed only to get better with age. She still possessed a full mane of lush, sunrise-golden blonde hair tumbling past her shoulders, still retained a nearly flawless peaches and cream complexion bronzed to a tanned perfection under the warm Iowa summer sun, still had those same dreamy blue eyes, still smiled easily, at least with her kids, and maybe most of important of all, she still exhibited a free spirted personality which she saved, almost exclusively, for her children. Finally there was her voluptuous body which thanks to a strict diet and exercise, was heavenly even into her mid-thirties.
Things only got worse as Mark reached his teen years forcing him to escape deeper into his Michael persona. Samuel was starting to emphasize his preaching's to his family with some not so loving heavy handed whacks.
"You shall not lust." Smack. "You shall not fornicate." Smack. "You shall not dress like a whore." Smack.
Suzan was planning on leaving him, but was just waiting for her hidden nest egg to grow big enough so she could take the kids away and live somewhere comfortably until she could find a decent job. But as Samuel became increasingly abusive, she moved her timeline up to the spring of 1983 regardless of her money situation. As fate would have it, her planned move never came to be as dramatic events conspired against her.
HALLOWEEN 1982
The minister hated Halloween, said it was the Devil's Holiday, so it was with a touch of irony he was savagely attacked on this very day. In the last six months, Samuel, frustrated with his son's obsession with some stupid movie villain, tried to beat him into becoming "normal" again.
It failed as Mark, with a simmering rage fueled by the beatings finally snapped. It was from this fiery rage his alter ego was to finally emerge and show its true self—if only to the father.
Samuel was preaching from the good book in the family living room of the evils of the Devil, lustful urges and the sexually depraved holiday people called Halloween. Blah, blah, blah, ad nauseam, when Suzan quietly asked when the sermon might come to an end so she could take eleven year old April out trick or treating.
Samuel flew into a rage, smacking his wife around for daring to question him, until finally, when his back was turned, Mark calmly proceeded to stab his father with a large butcher's knife several times before Suzan was able to pull him away.
Samuel's life hung in the balance for several days before he managed to pull through. After some negotiating Suzan and Samuel reached an agreement. Samuel's parents were loaded and willing to help obtain Mark the best legal defense and medical care money could buy, but only if Suzan promised to stay with Samuel and not seek a divorce. This little ploy was wholly engineered by Samuel as he suspected Suzan was planning on leaving him.
Backed into a corner Suzan agreed knowing without the money her son would be left to the whims of an uncaring legal system.
Michael, whatever was left of Mark disappeared the night of the stabbing, was fifteen at the time. Sent to a privately run criminal psychiatric care facility, he expressed no remorse over attacking and nearly killing his father.
Even more ominous, Mark regressed deeper into his Michael Myers identity by refusing to talk at all—just like the fictional Michael of movie fame. His refusal to show remorse, or to speak, caused the doctors to quickly write Michael off as a lost cause. Instead of receiving some much needed therapy, Michael, at the secret behest of his father, was filled full of drugs and pushed aside.
At first, Suzan, came to visit him frequently, but as her son continued to be unresponsive, it just became too painful to see him in such a cationic state. Her once frequent visits became, at first, infrequent, and then, after two more fruitless years with no change in his condition, slipped to maybe every other month.
In the spring of 1987, a new doctor was assigned to his case. Dr. Grant as it turned out, was quite different from Michael's former doctor as he actually took a caring interest in Mark.
Working behind Samuel's back, the doctor, after scaling back Mark's medication drastically, actually had him showing signs of improvement by the time he turned twenty. Such progress was painfully slow though, but still it gave Suzan a bit of hope.
Meanwhile, Suzan was just as miserable as ever being married to Samuel, although, as part of her agreement not to seek a divorce, she wrung a promise out of him not to be physically abusive to either her or April. Much to her surprise, this was a promise Samuel kept. Instead, he battered them both mentally and emotionally while being more domineering than ever, especially with the young teenaged April.
HALLOWEEN 1989
6: 45 am
The morning started out normal enough. Suzan woke up early to make breakfast and spend some time with April, now eighteen and a senior in high school. Over breakfast they discussed their plans for the day.
"I have an appointment at six thirty tonight out in Oakwood." Suzan told her. She was a real estate agent at Red Hawk Realty, the larger of Holdenfield's two realty companies.
"Jeez, Mom," April complained between bites of her toast, "Oakwood that is out a ways. What, at least a forty five minute drive from the office?"
"Yeah, it's out in the middle of nowhere, but the clients want to see the property and that is the only time they can go. So you know . . . duty calls. Well, what about you, what are your plans for this Halloween."
April sighed. "Dad is making me go to the church to help out with their Halloween party. I probably won't be home until seven thirty or so."
