Tom was attracted to the Carlos Castaneda books. They started with The Teaching of Don Juan. I think it was easy for Tom to read these, and imagine himself with spiritual powers. He collected shaman artifacts’. I remember one such, some big bead on a string. He tied it tightly around my neck so the bead pressed hard against my neck, below the adams apple. I remember this because of how strange I felt. He also told me once that he could do anything “they” could do, referring, I guess, to the shamans. He then preceded to tell me of a dream-battle against a sorceress, and that the conflict in a dream that they both had, resolved whatever conflict that was between them. I bet Tom won the shamanic battle.
Extraterrestrial Spirits
In Half Moon Bay, where Tom lived, there was a breakwater consisting of a line of giant rocks, set into the water to break the incoming waves. Tom told of a practice, like a meditation practice, where he would walk over these rocks without paying any attention to where his feet went. He just trusted himself or his spirits to place his feet where he would not fall into the ocean.
Tom told me that he was surrounded by invisible-to-normal-people extraterrestrial spirits that just hung around him, waiting for something, he didn’t know what. He speculated that maybe they were feeding on his energy. He said that the Berkeley Psychic Institute would not let him into their building, because all these spirits upset their psychics.
Pilgrimage to India (or so he said)
After many years living in Moss Beach Tom told me and other family members that he was going away for a long time to visit Satya Sai Baba in India; that he would be in spiritual retreat and be out of contact.
We took him at his word, and he just dropped out of sight and contact. It turns out he was not in India but had rented a ritzy house right next to the SF Bay in Belvedere, the most wealthy enclave in Marin County. He had cut off contact with us mere mortals, and enjoyed life as a rich man. I heard stories later about his going to the SF Opera with Werner Earhart, originator of EST and wealthy in his own right. Tom was dressed in a tux, maybe the white tux he had made for him.
I also heard a story where Tarthang Tulku was going to dedicate an invisible stupa to Tom, so Tom flew to Odiyan in a helicopter. After he landed, he invited Tarthang Tulku to take a helicopter ride with him. When his offer was refused, Tom got back into the chopper and flew away, without attending the dedication. This was a time where Tom would have worn his white tux.
Tom maintained contact with a very few people during this time. One was his daughter, Laurel, another was a mutual friend Bob Amacker.
Some felt Tom was a Spiritual Teacher
Tom tried a few times to guide me though a visualization process where I would go into some old ruins, through a door and into a hallways with many doors on each side. I was to select a door and search within, in the dirt, for a treasure. He tried it a couple of times, but I got nothing from it. I don’t feel like much of a visualizer, and Tom was so good at it.
At Tom’s memorial service, which I held at my house on S 14th street in San Jose, there were a number of women, very emotional, and talking like Tom was their spiritual teacher. This is all I knew about this part of his life. I think that maybe these women were friends of Loretta, a woman who Tom was close to after Roxanne, I don’t know much about her or their relationship.
Tom’s death—Murdered in Belvedere
It was late in the morning. I was at work, at Boschert. They told me that Lucille was here to see me, and she was waiting outside. I don’t remember what she looked like; I just remember her telling me that my brother had been murdered. I remember leaning against a wall, shaking with tears. Mother had not been told. I called her, and tried to tell her to stay put; I would be there in about an hour. She kept asking what was wrong and finally I told her over the phone, and then drove to see her in her grief. The next day I drove her to Marin Country to view Tom’s corpse in the morgue. His face was heavily beaten in. Mother pulled down the sheet and I saw the rough-sewn “Y”-incision, and not knowing about autopsies, fell on the floor, crying and thinking, “What else did they do to him?”
Tom’s body was found by his housekeeper, who was Alan Watts’ daughter. I think her name was Lisa. The police said that he must have let the person in; Tom was wearing no shoes, like he had been relaxing in the evening. Someone came to the door, Tom let them in. He was beaten to death by some kind of club or pole. Tom had such a thing, but it was gone when the police searched his house. After the beating, he was garroted, choked with a wire, to make sure he was dead. There was a briefcase with $30,000 in a closet. I heard that Tom had three emeralds clutched in his hand, maybe some kind of magic talisman. It didn’t work. The Belvedere police department had never dealt with a murder before. They seemed to have no idea who did it. The only suspect I heard of was our old friend, Bob Amacker. He had the means, since he was a martial arts master, who regularly worked out with iron staffs. The police also thought that he had motive. They had found some writing on Tom’s computer that featured a story about a love affair with Bob’s wife, who I think was pregnant at the time. I heard this story from Bob directly, one evening where he came, disheveled, to my house. I had lived there more than a decade and he never visited me before, nor had he ever visited me in San Jose, though he lived in San Francisco for many years. Bob told a story about being questioned intensely by the police. But this went nowhere, though Bob spent a few days in jail while under investigation. Much of what I know of this came directly from Bob, as he told me, I guess to relieve his internal tension.
I held a memorial service for my brother at my house (the one I had bought from Tom) at 196 S. 14th, in San Jose. Maybe there were 50 people there, many of whom were older women that I had never met. I wrote a ceremony with several “releasing” rituals. I felt this would be needed, due to the nature of his death. In one of these, I had people throw violet roses into a fire. Tom has particularly loved this color of rose. In another I had people write words to Tom, and then tie them onto a helium balloon and release them into the sky. Tom’s son, David, just wouldn’t let go of his balloon.
Roxanne was involved financially with Tom; he tried to do this with people he knew. For example, he offered to our mother to let her “invest” with him and he would pay her a hefty interest rate. I bet he did this with Roxanne. Anyway, she hatched a plan where we would say that somehow all the ancient Tibetan bronzes were ours (various family members) and Tom was merely storing them for us. She thought that this would get them released by the police, since the investigation was going nowhere. One family member would not go along, Crystal, David’s wife. He father was a cop, and I think she just didn’t feel right about it. So the IRS seized all his assets (he hadn’t paid federal taxes for years). The fantastic collection of bronze was sold at auction by Butterfields’s, a well known upscale art auction house.
Mother and some other people, including David, went to Tom’s house to go through his personal possessions to take what they wanted before everything was impounded by the police. I would not go with them; I did not want to go to the place where my brother was murdered. I think David took some of his father’s fancy clothes. Tom had two Mercedes SL 220 roadsters. I think somehow David (and Laurel??) got one or two of these. That was all the inheritance they would ever get from their father. Laurel was the only family member that Tom stayed in contact with. She visited him at the Belvedere house, a number of times, I think, and had other dealings with him.
I think what probably happened is something like this: Tom had talked about starting dealings with what he called “the East Coast Baddies.” Maybe he moved to escape them? Who knows? Maybe he had a problem with cash flow, and didn’t make the payments they wanted? The murder was violent enough where it might be seen as an example of what happens to someone who doesn’t pay their debts. And the garroting was a “pro” detail.
Tom thought he could out smart or out trickey anyone. Maybe not. Tom certainly was a legendary kind of guy, bigger than life in many ways.