Joseph Wintergreen

Biography
Joseph Chad Wintergreen (born October 14, 1981) was born in Austin, Texas to Canadian-American couple, Chad and Pauline Wintergreen. He had six older brothers, Liam, Ryan, Dylan, Tyler, Buzz, and Sean; he also had a younger sister Casey.

His father worked at a high school as a geometry teacher and his mother was a part-time 911 dispatcher.

Moving to Florida
Prior to starting kindergarten, his father received a job promotion and his family moved to Miami, Florida where he moved into Maria Tachimi's neighborhood and right next door to her and her family.

While his parents and some movers took some boxes into the new house, Joseph got a bit bored and decided to check out his new neighborhood when he saw a little girl playing with her Transformers action figures and reading her Dragon Ball manga, which was quite unusual. She was also wearing a Miami Heat basketball cap.

Later Life
29 years passed since the tragic and timely death of his childhood friend Maria, Joseph is now a single father of eight adopted kids. He has a 4-year-old Canadian daughter named Annabelle, a 3-year-old Italian son named Mio, 2-year-old South Korean twin daughters named Sa-rang and Yeong-Cha, a 5-year-old Japanese son named Akira, 4-year-old Chinese twin daughters named Yu Ling and Mei, and a 2-year-old son from Hong Kong named Seng.

Personality
Joseph is a kind, sweet and thoughtful boy. He defended Maria from her female classmates whenever they bullied her and stuck right by her side. He made a vow that he would always protect her from those cruel, heartless girls.

When she was brutally murdered by Josephine and Susie, Joseph blamed himself and believed that it was all his fault that she died, feeling like that he had broken a promise to her. He would never forgive himself for what happened to Maria.

After Maria's funeral, Joseph was feeling overwhelmingly guilty of letting Maria die that he tried to kill himself by hanging himself in his bedroom with a neck-tie whilst suspended in mid-air by the ceiling fan but he was stopped by his mother who happened to be walking down the hallway.

Maria's death drove Joseph into depression.

Quotes
"Hey, you! Leave her alone!"

Maria was a very special person in my life.

The day my best friend died, my whole entire world was shattered. I did not know how to handle it. What eight-year-old kid like me would?

Mom came into my room and sat next to me on my bed and said, "Joseph, she is gone. The police found Maria...but it was too late. She was found beaten and stabbed to death in the school basement..." She was holding a present wrapped up in green, blue and gold wrapping paper caked in Maria's blood. It had a tag that read, "To my best friend, Joseph Wintergreen. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, from Maria Tachimi. Arigato for being my friend. When me and my family move back to Japan, we will always be best friends, forever."

When Maria was alive, I often came to her house, one thing I noticed, if she was tickled, she would look very annoyed, no laughter, no begging, she wasn’t ticklish, while she would strike your hand if you tried to touch her feet.

My mom was basically Satsuki’s only friend, Satsuki had things thrown at her, she was punched, had her manga snatched off her.

The November 20th 1989 entry in Maria’s diary, is 100% true, That’s.....child abduction, Maria told me tarot cards were commonly used in her family and her grandfather’s relative, Saoirse called Maria “The World”, her mother “High Priestess” and her father “Judgement”, Ichiro and Mikey were called “The Hierophant” and “The Hermit” respectively, She sometimes called Mikey “Hermit” as an affectionate nickname, Derek thinks Maria should of been brought to a Christian foster home.

Maria when she was playing sports was quite durable, She was called the shield, You could tackle her, run into her, even push her to the ground and she’ll still be fine.

I wish I could tell my best friend’s Bad Ending self that the world is not about abusing others and that’s not what it had to offer, but, Maria told me stories like hers don’t have happy endings to them.