Defending My Life: Surviving a Bully's Torture

"Looking back, I realize just how much I feared Dickie Hellerman on the morning I shot and killed him out in the backwoods of my parents' property."
From that jarring opening line, "Defending My Life: Surviving a Bully's Torture" is the compelling journey of an innocent young man who faces repeated encounters with a bully. Based on true events, the story is told by Justin Bailey who recounts the traumatic occurrences that ultimately drove him to the horrific killing and its consequences.
Justin is a seemingly carefree junior in high school where he is in the drama club and on the wrestling team. His free time is spent with friends and dreaming of pretty girls. Yet his life becomes increasingly complex as he encounters the unpredictable and volatile behavior of the problem-drinking bully. Along the way, Justin meets Maria, the gorgeous girl who becomes his first love, but trouble escalates when Justin's antagonist is attracted to her as well.
"Defending My Life: Surviving a Bully's Torture" is an honest account of a maturing 17-year-old facing life, love, overwhelming fears and extreme guilt. He yearns for a "normal" existence following the incident but discovers that such a wish will only be achieved through tremendous mental struggles.

C. Michael Smith has served in research; teaching and administrative positions at Louisiana State University, the University of Idaho and Kansas State University, where he is presently a Professor of Entomology. He has conducted research on arthropod resistance in forages, soybean, rice and wheat for over 30 years, and is currently studying constitutive and expressed genes involved in cereal resistance to aphids. In 2002, he served as a Fulbright Lecturer and Research Scholar at the Czech Agricultural University in Prague.