I can only speculate the thoughts, emotions, and goings-on in the home of Rocco Joe Rigano on that 1999 September afternoon when he lumbered to the mail box at the curb of his south city home to discover a letter, mixed in with the normal days junk mail, from his recently exd grandson-in-law:

Dear Grandpa,

Im writing this letter partially to save face, but mainly to try and find some help for Mindy. I still care for her and worry about her deeply. However, now that the divorce is final, some truths need to be aired.

I dont know what stories have been told about me, but I can assure you that I never cheated on my wife nor was I having an affair with anyone. In fact, to this day, I have yet to go on a date with or pursue the company of another woman and probably wont for some time.

I left Mindy because she has a serious problem that I just couldnt deal with anymore. Confronting Rich and Phillis with it did no good and talking about it with Mindy on numerous occasions was useless too. Somebody needs to help save Mindy from herself.

For Mindy and Alexs sakes, please read this letter.

For the first four years of our marriage Mindy was in control of the family checkbook. Every week for four years, I signed my paycheck and handed to my wife so that she could deposit it and take care of the bills. I received the occasional call from a creditor now and then, and every so often one of the utilities would be shut off, which Mindy always seemed to have an excuse for. Once in a while, Id get fed-up and would take over the responsibility of paying the bills, pay them off, chalk it up to poor bookkeeping and give the responsibility back to Mindy. I didnt want to hurt her feelings or make her feel as though I didnt trust her, so I tried not to intervene too often.

Then, what seemed like all at once, the phone calls started pouring in from creditors and one by one, the utilities were being shut off and the landlord was threatening to evict us for being four months behind with our rent. (Because of this, our rent was raised by $20.00 per month as well).

With this, I confiscated the checkbook, opened an account in only my name and began to take care of these debts plus the everyday expenses as well. Between bounced checks, overdrawn bank accounts, several unpaid credit card bills, a repossessed car, unpaid doctor/dentist bills, unpaid rent, late utilities, numerous unpaid catalog orders, and goods confiscated from a storage shed due to lack of payment, I found myself in the hole for close to thirty thousand dollars!

I somehow managed to pay off all of the debts that I knew of, in a matter of a few years, between working 60-plus hours per week at Lieman Plumbing and cutting grass about 20 hours per week on the side with my friend Elmer. All the while never having quality time for family and/or personal life.

Around the time I was starting to see daylight and was nearly out of debt, I received a phone call at work from a collection agency stating that I owed $838.20 to Mercantile Bank to make good on some checks that had been written on an account that I thought had been closed. Two days after receiving that call, I fielded a call, also at work, from a collector with the wireless phone company informing me that I owed them $932.56 for Mindys unpaid cell phone bill .... this was all around July of 1997.

With this new-found information, I finally decided to seek outside help. I sat down at my parents house with my mom and Rich and Phillis [Mindys parents] and informed them of this on-going problem. It was at that time that I discovered just how bad it truly was. Phillis was full of information for me, and it seemed that everything I told her, she had already known and had been helping Mindy to hide it from me. That night, Phillis informed my mother and Rich and I of the numerous times that Mindy had been incarcerated for writing bad checks. She also told us that Mindy had, without permission, opened a credit card in the name of Phillis Smith [Mindys mothers name] and charged it to the limit.

That same night we all confronted Mindy about all of these things and she denied none of them (obviously because she couldnt). A promise was made to me by Mindy, that these things would never happen again.

Although it was a little down the road, it did happen again. Around early October 1998, I received a phone call from Mindys friend Karen asking me to see her after work about something.... I had no idea just how tragic this particular something was going to be.