First in a series
Re “Scott Ansman’s Voice from Behind a Prison Wall”
Forty two years and two weeks ago this morning, Marilyn Ansman gave birth to her son Scott. He grew up to be a career military man – until fatal fate flipped his life upside down.
On a sunny Friday afternoon in August 2007, Sgt. Scott Ansman of the National Guard, in a dispute at the Culver City Armory, his workplace, with girlfriend Joanne Crystal Harris, killed her. Calmly, he telephoned the Police Dept., from the Armory. He told them what happened and exactly where they could find him. Cops picked him up at 4:30, and he has been in custody ever since, seven years and three months.
A little less than two years after his arrest, in May 2009, Sgt. Ansman, before the almost disbelieving eyes of his wife, mother of their three children, and his mother, was convicted of murder with special circumstances. Ms. Harris was pregnant with a baby not believed to be his.
Sgt. Ansman was sentenced to a life term without possibility of parole. He is serving his time at the ironically named Pleasant Valley State Prison, a minimum-to-maximum facility in Coalinga, Fresno County, 200 miles north of Los Angeles.
Pleasant Valley has been home to notorious personalities as Sirhan B. Sirhan, who killed Bobby Kennedy, and Erik Menendez, one half of the illy reputed brother team that knocked off their parents.
Circling Back
This, however, is a story about 72-year-old Marilyn Ansman, a widow of modest means in ailing health.
She told the newspaper this morning she has not seen Scott in five years and six months, the fateful May 2009 morning when he was sent away for the rest of his natural life.
(To be continued)
