A Note From Paula Martin

When and where I met Heath... Exact time frames

I am bad with but I guess it was the winter of 1998 before

 a couple of months before New Years because we had

a going back to Ohio party for him before he left to go

get Jesse and Ben...Anyway, I met him at my Pizza Hut,

he had came in and talked to Shane my supervisor at the

time about being a delivery driver for us, Shane liked him

a lot and wanted to hire him so I told him to go ahead... LOL

I met Heath a few days later when he came in to bring me his

car insurance copy and paperwork... The first time we met he

was drunk, LOL... He started as my only day delivery driver

and at the time he was living right behind the store with his

girlfriend that he came down here for, From what I understood

 he had been living on the streets in Topeka waiting on her to

move here... Thats where he wrote most of the poetry you have

 posted on his site, he had met all of these homeless people and

 developed a relationship with them... They inspired the poems

 in the little Ying Yang poetry book, he didn't write anything

more  in it after he left Topeka... Anyway, after working a few

 days he and Gerry hit it off... Gerry (my cousin) and room mate

at the time and Heath became inseparable... And they both

became intolerable for me... Always smoking, drinking and

playing music... every night,

 all night, non-stop... And Heath loved to pick on me and I hated it!!!

 Over the coarse of a couple of months he had started kinda dating a

 girl from work, Makenzie Miles and his girlfriend found out and

 kicked him out (all of this happened within a week of him coming

 back from Ohio with Jesse & Ben) and that's how he (they) ended

 up living by my dumpster... Gerry would let him in after I went to

 bed I found out later, LOL... I didn't want him moving in so I

 wouldn't let him stay every night even though he might has well

 have just moved in he was always there... Him and Jesse were

 still close at the time and I had let Jesse move in... so it became

 3 against "me" and Heath started sleeping in the kids room since

 they were still living at their dads at the time... Heath and I had

 a real LOVE/HATE relationship from the very beginning, LOL...

And I will get you more later, I need to cook dinner for my crew...

Paula

P.S. And just to remind you... Heath loved you so much, he

would tell us stories about all of the crazy shit you guys used

to do laughing his ass off the whole time... He loved you a

lot... and I know he never would have done what he did on

purpose... Drugs and Whiskey took him away from us, drinking

always made him get the gun out (he used to piss me off so bad

pointing it at me and himself when he was drunk and pissed

off so I wasn't surprised that he had shot himself being a

dumbass, like I said I had seen it many times before)...

But suicide? He never would have hurt us if he had been

in control that night, the more I think about it the more I

 know it's true, he had too much going for him, he had

too many plans, he had set long term goals, people who

 don't want to live don't make plans like that... It was an

 accident I know that is the truth and I would put my life

 on that... You have to believe that too...
 

I hope none of this has upset you, I don't like bringing

 up what happened but I just wanted you to know from

 someone who knew him probably better than anyone

else what I thought... I know what it looked like, I know

 what the police report said and I know what he made

PJ think at the time it was happening (remember I had

been in the same situation with him quite a few times before)...

And I know in my heart that he did NOT want things to end like that.