Thrasher Banks
speaker
112 appearances
3 recordings
1 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard Dec 2024
Thrasher Banks’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
In this letter, Tim implied that he was in love with my mom, that he wanted her all to himself, and if he couldn't have her, neither could Mick. This was news to me. But could this really have been what motivated Tim? Or was he just trying to manipulate my mom?
In the end, the letter from Tim wasn't enough to help Mick. For a while, my mom didn't know how to move forward and maintaining a relationship with Mick while he was incarcerated was becoming a burden.
Life had to go on, obviously. How did you... How did you do that?
Eventually my mom decided she was ready to start dating again. She wanted a stable partner to help raise me and my sister. That's when she met Ben.
The way my mom describes it is that me and my sister chose Ben for her because we both connected with him right away. We even have the same birthday, which we'd end up celebrating together over the next 15 years. There was still one problem though.
As we all got closer with Ben over the next few months, my mom knew she had to make a difficult decision regarding Mick.
After my mom's last visit with Mick, we cut off contact with him and tried to move on with our lives. But as I got older, I couldn't stop thinking about Mick and wondering how he was doing. One day, when I was in middle school, I found all of his belongings in our shed. My mom had kept them out there.
His clothes, his favorite leather jacket, and his CD collection, which was mostly thrash metal from the 1980s. Through my newfound obsession with Slayer and early Metallica, I started to feel a connection with Mick. In study hall, I'd write him letters that I had no intention of sending, but it helped me cope with the situation.
It seemed like no matter how hard I tried to forget about Mick, there was always a reminder. On the first day of high school, I was sitting in music theory class and heard someone singing behind me. My best friend at the time, Dustin, and I were starting a band together, so we were interested in whoever this singer was.
It turned out it was Keir Smiley, Mick's attorney's son that I went to kindergarten with. So we asked him to join our band called Time Wasted. It wasn't until I moved out of my mom's house to go to college that I would actually write to Mick. At that point, my mom and Ben had split up and Mick hadn't heard from us in close to 15 years.
A couple weeks later, there was a letter waiting for me in his familiar cursive handwriting. It read, I got your letter and pictures last night. I was so happy to hear from you. The pictures of you, Kara, and Carrie put a huge smile on my face. Carrie did an outstanding job raising you two, which really isn't a surprise.
You turned out just the way I always thought you would, smart and handsome, although you're a little taller than I remember. I'm glad you're a Slayer fan. They're my favorite band in the world. The parole board is just too unpredictable. I don't believe they'll ever parole me. It is what it is. My max out date is 2026, though, so they can't keep me forever. It's a rotten system, ain't it?
I never stopped thinking about you. Even after I lost contact with your mom, I always thought that I would never see you again. That was just awful. You'll always be bubs to me. Stay cool. As always, Mick. Mick sounded pretty defeated about the parole board and his chances of getting a sentence lessened. But all in all, he sounded like the Mick I remembered.
When I sent this letter, my mom also included a letter of her own. Initially, she was on the fence about it, but I think seeing how much I wanted to connect with Mick helped her realize it was something she wanted too. Carrie, I got your letter the same day you sent it. Sorry it took me so long to answer. I got the pictures of everyone. I have to admit, it brought a few tears.
You've done an awesome job raising them. They really are beautiful. I always wondered how everyone was doing. Being locked up all this time has made me wonder how I haven't lost my mind yet. I agree, it's going to be weird calling you grandma, but you'll get used to it after a while. I still have dreams about you. Sometimes we're traveling, other times just walking together and it feels real.
I'm happy that you found happiness, Carrie. I'd rather be good friends than no friends at all. You take care. Mick." Three years after reestablishing contact with Mick, I decided that I was ready to visit him in prison. He was at Madison Correctional in London, Ohio at the time.
As I got through security and told the guard who I was there to see, he was surprised and told me that Mick never had visitors. It turned out I was the first person to visit him since the day my mom cut ties with him 17 years earlier. It was awkward at first, but after we warmed up, he seemed just like the Mick I remembered as a kid.
That was back in 2015, and at that point, I'd already started researching everything I'd found in the box. Back then, I still believed that he didn't shoot Cindy. It wasn't until a few years later, while digging through the box, that I'd learned that wasn't true. In the box, there's hundreds of letters, and I'd eventually read through all of them.
That's how I found this letter Mick wrote my mom from jail in August of 1995. So here's a letter he wrote you in August of 95. He said, Carrie, I'm gonna tell you a little secret. I'm ashamed to admit, but I was scared of Tim. I've been scared of Tim for about two years. He's not the same Tim I knew before he moved in with us.
I guess it was the night he rolled us in Cambridge that started me to look at Tim differently. Ever since then, I wondered what really made him tick. I wanted to tell you how Tim scared me, but I'm ashamed and embarrassed to admit this to you in person. I'd be afraid you wouldn't feel safe around me anymore. It's not his size, we know that. It's his mental ability that scared me.
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