totally opinionated. absolutely self-involved. so, when he invited lynn and charlie to visit him in georgia i basically told my sister not to bother to bring him. stay as long as she wanted. leave her old man at home. and on one of those visits, mark told lynn exactly how he felt. i said, how can you let someone run your life and forget about yourself? afterwards, he sat down and wrote many of the same things in a harshly worded letter to fred. i wrote that letter. i signed the letter. i handed it to my sister, and i dared her to give it to him. did you think she actually would? i didn t know, but she did. that took guts. it did. it did. and frankly, mark was pleased when, a few years later, after a quarter century of marriage,
but wasn t going to happen, by the look of it. even though they kept talking to fred. we kept going to the husband. playing dumb, of course, but hoping he d panic and call el cubano. i mean, at the point we were calling almost every day but, again, trying to give a reason so he wouldn t become more suspicious than what he was. oh, just one more question, sir. exactly. i felt like columbo. oh, one more, sir. this was a game, of course, with deadly consequences. death also has a way of bringing people together. lynn was a private woman, had very few friends beyond her son charlie and yet. we had a big service for her. it was amazing how many people came out for my mother. it was nice. i just remember at that point i couldn t even cry. it was just still just depressed
excited because it was just great to be able to think of getting away from him. and then, finally, more than a year later lynn hired family law attorney lisa brandon. what did she tell you she wanted from you? she wanted a fair division of the property. but, said lisa, fred controlled all the finances. so she didn t know how much money they had as a family? no, no idea. how much money did they have, this family? well, including the equity in the home, probably $6 million to $7 million. which in a legal separation by california law would be split down the middle. but lisa said lynn told her fred would never part with any of that money. lynn also told her about fred s physical abuse. and so with a pending separation lisa worried about lynn and charlie s safety. i wanted her to move out of the home with charlie. she wouldn t do it.
mother. co-dependent. love/hate. call it what you want. she got married, moved to california with a brand new husband. it didn t work out. ended pretty quickly. but then one day she went to a ball game, dodgers versus somebody, who knows? and she found him. the right guy. her guy. fred schockner. he was almost 14 years older than she was but didn t seem to matter. didn t hurt either that fred was a very successful man. anyway, this time it clicked. they had an intimate wedding on a boat off the california coast. the captain did the honors, and they lived alone together in that house in bixby knolls until finally, after 11 years, they had a son who grew up to be charlie. as parents, they encouraged him to try new things. it was one of the olympics. and we were watching gymnastics, and i turned around to my parents and go, i m going to do
like everything you see on tv. you never think it s going to be you. no, no, no, it s surreal, very much so. what does that loss feel like? yeah, i can t put it into words. it was tremendous. it was awful. i immediately call mark, and i m babbling on the phone. like i can t even speak. mark jicha is charlie s uncle, lynn s brother. after the initial shock, there s disbelief. i didn t burst into tears right away. i didn t start screaming. i was just stunned. lynn grew up in ohio. she was the baby of the family, the only girl. here she is with her two older brothers, jon and mark. but lynn was not like them. she was a tentative girl, whereas my brother and i were very outgoing. their father died young. lynn often fought with her