The Face Of Beauty & Innocence Gets Lost ~ If A Twisted Path Is Taken

One thing I find quite amazing is how much the arrest, and guilty verdict changes the faces of women who are convicted of serious crimes.

Lucy Letby went from the face of sweet innocence, to looking like a totally different person, with defeat in her posture, her eyes and features muted, and slanted downward, with no spark left in her demeanour. It was like the lights flickered, and then went out in her dark soul. It seems like she got old overnight. 

In some earlier pictures before her arrest, she looks effervescent, bright and sparkly, like a flaxen Asti Spumante. Her mug shot flew the crystal champagne coupe. Now the fizz is off, and the taste insipid.     

Jodi Arias went from the confident blonde bombshell, to a mousy plain Jane, with long stringy hair, and unattractive glasses. Compared to her former self, they looked like two different people. Instead of using her hair to attract men, and generate sex appeal, she used it to hide her face in shame during the trial. Same hair – different chair. This time she was on the hot seat, in a whole different snapshot.

Melanie McGuire went from the beaming, witty, flirty, curly haired seductress, to looking like a stressed out hag. She squints her eyes, purses her lips, and it almost seems like her forehead got so low, she appears to be primitive. Her appearance became more antediluvian, like the countenance of a hunter out in the wild. She unwittingly adopted a face to match the barbaric crime she committed.

Lori Vallow aged at least fifteen years during her trial. She was attractive a few years ago, but even though she is only 50 years old, she looks much older, haggard, and literally has the crimes etched into her facial expression, like crevasses on a jagged ledge.

She looks like she took too many trips into outer space. Her makeup cannot cover, or support her crumbling foundation. Her “space craft” is empty, hollow and hallowed. The carefully crafted plot has lost its propellant. The doom and gloom was a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is too bad she took so many people with her, on that factitious, and simulated flying saucer ride.

In many ways these women used their looks, charm, and sex appeal to attract men, feign innocence, and snake it into a web of deception, and destruction. In every case, they targeted those who trusted them the most. 

It also seems like one of the first things taken away from them – was their looks. When they got caught in the snare of their own making, the game was over. They managed to checkmate and undo themselves, in spite of all the foxiness, guile, and shrewdness in the world. They unwittingly turned themselves into hellcat shrews. 

For all their cleverness, there is an underlying addle-brain, crazy as a loon, dumb as a sack of hammers, and mad as a meat axe, all rolled into one. 

Like the crime of Melanie McGuire, another supposedly intelligent, and darling nurse. Imagine cutting your spouse into pieces, and then packing him into your own three piece set of designer luggage, to be disposed of in Chesapeake Bay? It is like something out of a horror movie. 

Yet in her mind, it was as if magical thinking was going to send that luggage over the horizon, into another universe, where it could dissolve into the end of the rainbow, and become like little drops of dew on butterfly wings.

The pot of gold was within her reach after all. He was just a means to an end. Her devoted and unsuspecting hubby had the privilege of being at one with a universal cosmic conscience, floating in the bay. Maybe she convinced herself she did him a favour. 

Although these women lost their freedom in the process of it all, they lost something that was probably more important to them than anything. They lost their sex appeal, their charm, and their beguiling enchantment. They could no longer entice a fly on the wall, or the slime on a bog.

Each one of them, at one time had it all. They attracted men. They had careers, a home, money, families, and big dreams. They had everything, and it was not enough. They wanted more. They wove themselves into a web, until it became the fabric and essence of who they were. But by then they were hopelessly entangled. They embarked on a course that trapped them. They did it to themselves.

We are all aging, and we all lose our youthful beauty. There is much to be said for having peace of mind. Without it we cannot age gracefully. What is on our minds, and in our hearts – shows on our face. We wear it, and cannot even take it off, or wash it off.

It reinforces the notion that looks are only skin deep, and there is a far more important aura or presence that comes from within. Clearly our motives end up having a profound effect on our appearance.

For these women, and anyone who has done horrific crimes, they tend to deny it. But the best thing they could do for themselves, is admit it, and allow the remorse to genuinely flood over them.

We all have to admit the wrong, and harm we have done, and seek forgiveness. Living a life of denial just etches those lines in deeper. Healing is a very long process. Without forgiveness, healing cannot even begin. All healing begins on the inside, and works it way outward. 

As they went on their life’s journey, these women became vain in their own conceit, and used their sex appeal in a way that brought them down, along with many others who crossed their paths.

Clearly vanity is short lived. It might even be one of the shortest distances between two points. As the crow flies, the crows feet are sure to leave their mark beside our eyes. The trickster who lies, ends up with a soul, as black as the crow. 

Copyright Valerie J. Hayes and Quiet West (2023). Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author/owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Valerie J. Hayes and Quiet West with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.