In the aftermath of the violent incident at S-Mart on July 17th 2021, there was very little in the way of hard facts about what actually went down. Most of the shoppers or employees who had been closest to the incident were either dead or declined to speak with the press. The police conducted thorough interviews, but these records are sealed. The young college student who ended Ruth’s rampage with a decisive swipe of a machete returned to campus and has since refused to address the incident in any forum. She also refused to reply to any of my emails, telephone calls, direct messages on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Tik-Tok, and elected not to speak to me when I encountered her outside the main campus library at Michigan State University.
However, one woman who was present at the store that day did talk to interviewers. You may remember her from the lower-tier meme status she achieved as a result of those interviews; Daisy “Duckie” Lamont. I have attached a clip of her interview below. Please be warned; her account contains both graphic descriptions of violence and significant amounts of censored profanity.
Detroit News 9 aired a snippet of it, and the full clip was posted to their website. The internet got ahold of it and had a field day, I’m sure you remember. The clip was referred to as “creepy af,” commenters complained there were “too many bleeps,” and it caused many users of twitter to “lol” or “lmao.” The popular consensus in spaces both digital and analog regarding Duckie’s account was best summarized by @kypherthecipher who tweeted “OMG, this girl blazin’, LMAO.”
And indeed, it does sound like the account of a person who was “blazin.” The levitation, changes to Ruth’s physical appearance, and multi-octave singing voice can only be rationally explained as visual and auditory hallucinations. These can be caused by trauma, and Duckie did indeed describe going into shock just before witnessing these phenomena. Still, given Duckie’s appearance, general demeanor, and well-documented history of drug enthusiasm, the conclusion that she was simply “blazin” was an easy one to draw.
However, in subsequent days, as the internet made Duckie’s interview its newest plaything, Duckie herself did speak out on the topic in a series of tweets. She reiterated her position, tweeting “y’all can say whatever you want, none of you were there and none of you know. I was sober af and I saw what I saw but fuck it, nobody believes me anyway so I’m gonna drop it.”
But… what if she was telling the truth? What if, at 11:00 AM on a Saturday, Duckie Lamont was sober af? That would mean that at least two people in that S-Mart were displaying signs of psychosis. Duckie Lamont… and Ruth Kowalski.
And so… a pattern emerges. A pattern of violent attacks coupled with what is beginning to resemble mass hallucination. The skeptical reader may now be thinking ‘but Chester, this is just one incident! Surely there are other explanations!”
To that skeptical reader I would reply; IT ISN’T JUST ONE INCIDENT. In fact, the Ruth Kowalski Incident is just part of a pattern stretching back decades. Read on to learn more about the bloody history of S-Mart.
#blazin