The Diary of Ellen Becker

(This story contains sensitive content. It alludes to sexual violence and abuse)

Acknowledgements

Special Thanks to the Salt Lake City and Santa Fe police departments in the aid of the investigation of my sister Ruby Becker (Diana Maxwell). Your dedication to this case has returned her remains to her family so that she may be laid to rest in her hometown cemetery where her loved ones may mourn her. Perhaps my journal entries would have been able to help much sooner…

Dedication

This is for you my dear Ruby…I know Diana to many.

A Collection of Journal Entries written by Ellen Becker

August 12th 1968,

Dear Diary,

It is the last Monday before I start at a new school. I believe it is called Jupiter Middle School and honestly I couldn't think of a more appropriate name for a school in Salt Lake City. I believe all the schools in this city should be named after faraway planets. Everyone looks as if they are a part of the same alien species and I am just a lowly human visiting from a foreign world. Although they perhaps see me as the odd alien, that’s what happens when you’re new. Daddy is from Salt Lake City and now that I’ve seen this city for itself firsthand I can totally see it. My mom was from Salt Lake as well but she moved here when she was a little girl and apparently she liked it. I guess I’ll try my best but I’ll just treat it as just another city I will live in for a little bit before I move again, but why does have it be so boring here?

Daddy has been preoccupied with my new sister, he said she was adopted which means you have to go through a long process to purchase someone else’s baby. What a weird custom? But it seems nice…maybe I’ll do the same when I’m older. I'll buy a whole bunch of babies but only if they are as cute as Ruby. Ruby is only 5 but I can tell she’s going to be a model when she grows up, she is already so pretty and she is quite tall for her age. Daddy says the same thing, he says she is going to model just like my mother. Although that scar above her eye might turn away some gigs. Anyway, wish me luck in the 7th grade. Hopefully it goes well.

July 5th, 1969,

Dear Diary,

It’s Ruby’s 6th birthday. Yesterday she got a haircut for her special day. I didn’t like it whatsoever because it is way too short, it reaches her chin. It’s so…. What's a nice word for it? I suppose you can say vintage like one of those flapper girls. Ruby is quite a peculiar girl, she calls Daddy Tommy but Daddy won’t correct her. I mean his real name is Thomas, I’m pretty sure every child has called their Dad by their first name, I did because I like to see him get mad but he doesn’t get mad when Ruby calls him Tom, in fact he seems to enjoy it, he has this little glimmer in his eye. I’m going to call him Thomas today to see if he will get all red and puffy faced from anger, it makes me laugh every time…

Alright so it’s a bit later in the day, the “party” which wasn’t even a proper birthday party we just had a picnic was so boring. I couldn’t bring any of my friends and their younger siblings and obviously Ruby doesn’t have any friends. She's homeschooled. I’m grateful that I get to go out at least and have friends, I feel bad for Ruby.

January 1st 1970,

Dear Diary,

New Year, NEW DECADE. I had plans to go out with my friends Heather and Julie but Ruby needed me. Lately she hasn’t stopped crying, everything upsets her. I blame Dad, he doesn’t let her go out, he just keeps her trapped in this godforsaken house with no toys for her to play with and definitely no playmates except me of course. We’re only allowed to play house, she pretends to be the mother and she cooks and cleans while I pretend to be the baby which I guess is not too bad since I pretty much do nothing. So I had to stay inside the house all day and play with Ruby and make sure she doesn't cry all the time. Dad just says that she misses her baby and doesn't like when I go out all the time with my friends. He makes jokes like that all the time.

Oh by the way I totally forgot to write any entry on Christmas Day detailing all the gifts I got. I got so many dresses and quite a few books. Mostly they were journals so I can continue writing. He always sees me writing, he says I have a gift. I already have so many journals but they get filled up quickly with short stories, poems, and novel ideas. But don’t worry, he has no idea about this one, this is personal, just for me. For Christmas Ruby also got quite a few dresses, more toys for her to play house with like more pots, pans, and cleaning supplies. Poor Ruby, she just needs to tell Dad what she really wants for Christmas but she doesn’t speak very much. Oh but her best gift was this beautiful ring that has a gold band and a red gem on it. Dad placed it on her little ring finger, it was so cute. I’m going to ask for a similar ring for my birthday which is coming up… in February, so I guess it’s going to take a while.

December 24th 1970,

Dear Diary,

Ruby Ruby Ruby, what an odd child. It’s gotten worse. So much worse you have no idea. She cries every single day it seems like for hours on end. The scariest thing happened on Halloween. While we were trick or treating she disappeared. It was the most horrible thing I’ve ever been through. I was with my friends and my dad says that he lost her. I was panicking, I thought he was going to call the police but he found her the next day. It was particularly frightening when you see all the scary stuff in the newspaper about missing children.

Now that I think about it she probably ran away, I would run away too. Never being allowed to go to school and have friends sounds terrible. I’ve tried to convince Daddy to let her go to school but he won’t have it. I want to run away too, home has just become odd, I’m forced to play house all the time with Ruby now, I don’t even remember the last time I called her by her name, she's just mommy now.

She’s been having nightmares lately so she's sleeping in Daddy’s room, I hope it helps. Last night she came to my room after her nightmare. We talked about it, apparently it was the same nightmare over and over again night after night. Ruby said in her dream she was trapped in the garden underneath the stone pathway. She was struggling to breath and she couldn't scream and everyone walked over her body. That’s quite a disturbing dream for a little girl I think. The worst dream I’ve ever had was showing up naked to school. Or once I fell off the top of the empire state building, but I only had the dream when I lived in New York. Anyways it’s about 1 pm, I woke up very late since I was up all night trying to soothe Ruby and get her to sleep. Dad left a note saying he and Ruby are going shopping for last minute supplies for our christmas eve party tonight. Although I don’t know why we need so many things, it's only us 3, it has only ever been the THREE of us.

***

The Globe

ACCOMPLISHED AUTHORS PUBLISHED CHILDHOOD DIARY SOLVES A 30 YEAR OLD COLD CASE

Andrew Leiber 12/01/2000

The disappearance of 4 year old Diana Maxwell rocked the small community of Westfield in Santa Fe, New Mexico. On February 9th, the child was abducted from her small home. There were no eyewitnesses. Some have criticized the parents of neglect as the child was playing in the front yard in the dark hours while the parents were inside the house preparing for dinner. The parents Robert and Tina Maxwell stated that they had Diana's older sibling, Bobby Maxwell (12) watching her. Bobby had snuck out to go play with friends in the neighborhood leaving the 4 year old to play in the front of the house, completely unattended. That is when it was presumed that Thomas H. Becker would have abducted Diana. This sparked a 30 year investigation with the Santa Fe Police Department which unfortunately only led to dead ends and outlandish suspects with no evidence to support their involvement in the crime. Some suspects included her brother, Bobby Maxwell with a possible motive being jealousy due to favoritism. Two other suspects included Tony Bennett and Diego Lopez, they had been previously convicted of similar crimes in the Santa Fe area. It wasn’t until the publication of famed author Ellen Becker’s diary which provided the first real break in the case. Ellen Becker is a New York Times best seller and has written the likes of “The Sins of Winter” and “Blood, Thieves and Pocket Watches”. Her diary entries had her father in Santa Fe at the time of the crime; she also had described distinct features to help identify Ruby as Diana Maxwell. Above this article are a couple of entries from the published diary that are quite interesting when looking at the entirety of the case and when you put Ellen Baker's reflection on her childhood it truly creates a chilling picture.

Ellen Baker talks of the obsession that her father had with her dead mother which he projected onto Diana. Diana was forced to take on a motherly role for Ellen. “As a child I thought I was being forced to play a game with Ruby or I suppose it is Diana. This game which our Dad forced us to play was House. Diana played my mother and I was supposed to refer to her only as mommy. She cooked and cleaned after us. I thought it was all a game, I only became very confused when my sister had to leave our room that we shared and moved into Thomas’s room. I can’t imagine the awful, disgusting things he could’ve done to her. I know that motherfucker is rotting in hell. He not only desecrated the innocence of a child but also the memory of my mother.” Thomas allegedly had altered Diana's looks to appear more like his deceased wife Renee Becker. The body of Diana Maxwell was found in the garden of the Beckers family home in Salt Lake City thanks to the cooperation of Ellen Becker. Her body was found wrapped in cloth and she was wearing the engagement ring that once belonged to Renee Becker but it was resized to fit the small finger of Diana. It was a large ruby ring with a gold band. Cause of death was asphyxiation, it is possible it was becoming too dangerous to keep Diana hostage any longer since Halloween of 1970 she attempted to run away per the diary entries. Her body was returned to her family and she was laid to rest at Westfield Cemetery in Santa Fe, New Mexico.