THE PAST SELF-THAT PUZZLES, THE PRESENT SELF THAT UNRAVELS:
NOTES ON THE MURDER OF A MISSIONARY AND HIS SONS
Zyzzyva, No. 122, Winter 2022
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The Mayurbhanj Leprosy Home. Left to right: Tim Staines, Megan, Graham Staines, Phillip Staines, Bob, Becca, me. The man in the brown shirt to the right of the man in the hat is Dr. Das. The two girls in front of Phillip and Becca had been cured of leprosy and lived at the home. I believe Gladys, Graham's wife, took this photo. It is, as far as anyone knows, the last photo of Graham, Tim, and Phillip alive.
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Rural India. Midnight. No lights. No electricity. Inexpressibly dark. On the outskirts of a small village, a lone Jeep, silent beneath a canopy of trees. Inside, a man and his two young sons sleep in the back end. It is January. Unusually cold. Before settling in, the man stuffs straw under the Jeep as a crude form of insulation. He piles even more on top.
This is a mistake.
A group of men who have been hiding in the trees emerge. They surround the jeep. They barricade the doors.
Metal rods. Thick wooden sticks.
They light the straw on fire.
Slowly the Jeep begins to burn.
Slowly, the man burns. His oldest son burns. His youngest son burns.
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These are the opening sentences of my essay that appears in the most recent issue of Zyzzyva. It explores the murders of the Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two young sons, Phillip and Tim, who were burned while sleeping in the back of their Jeep in the state of Orissa (now Odisha), in January of 1999. I was with Graham, Phillip and Tim roughly two weeks before they were tragically and horrifically killed. In this essay, which took 20 years to write, I ask a series of (increasingly disturbing) questions about who and what may have precipitated their murders--including my own culpability.
I began writing this piece in response to the release of the 2019 film, The Least of These, which both honors Graham's life and also tries to explain the killings. I was frustrated with the film's rationale for their deaths, so I began my own research. I've assembled this page to provide more documentation of my time in India and more information on the murders than we were able to include in the issue.
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Cover of India Today, Feb. 8. 1999
Timeline and diagram of how we believe the murders happened, plus the controversial photograph of the charred bodies (from India Today)
Graham's iconic Willy Jeep that my colleagues and I rode to and from the tribal areas in. I rode in this jeep to the train station the day we left Baripada.
The last photo I took of Graham. Here, he is describing one of the arrows made by residents of the Mayurbhanj Leprosy Home.
Part of our schedule in Orissa. Rebecca and Megan actually stayed at the Leprosy home with Graham and his family.
After the murders, we were scheduled to travel to Jagdalpur, in the state of Madya Pradesh, where the previous year, Christian missionaries had been murdered. There was considerable fear our lives were in danger. Security was increased all over the area.
Over the long life of this essay, I ran different versions by several people for additional insight, feedback, and clarification. I'd like to thank Megan Kamerick, Jill Ramsey, Carol Edgarian, Victoria Chang, Ryan Van Meter, Chris Haven, Mike Spencer, Brandon Brown, and Jonathan Silverman for invaluable input. Special thanks to Oscar Villalon and Laura Cogan for continuing to leave the Zyzzyva light on for me.