The Rest of the Story

Read this post first.
The detectives arrived and decided that I needed to go in the ambulance with the mother. In some ways, I am glad. I didn’t have to disturb the girl’s body so when I see her in my nightmares, she is surrounded in the peaceful setting in which I found her. I did not have to help put her in a body bag. In other ways, it insulted me to be shipped off with the mom who at the time I thought had done the shooting. She was trying to talk but her brain injury jumbled her words. She said words but they had no meaning, they did not go together. Our local hospital could not handle her injury so they diverted the ambulance to the next town 45 minutes away.
I need to say now that I get car sick in the back of any vehicle. A wild ride running code in the back of an ambulance with a person that has grey matter and blood dripping out of the side of her head smelling ripe because she has lost control of her bowels was not my idea of a pleasant afternoon. I never want to see the back end of an ambulance again.
For the longest time, we were stumped. A neighbor finally said that they saw the 14 year old son in the alley that morning. He and his grandfather had told us that he spent the night at his grandfather’s house. We found the gun at the grandfather’s. The kid did the shooting. It turns out that the mom is actually the step-mom and the girl was a step-sister. He was mad because he thought that he had to do the dishes more than she did! He told us that he shot the mom first and then went to his step-sister’s room and shot her. He showed no remorse and even seemed disappointed that the step-mom didn’t die. She is permanently screwed up. He said that he went into his brother’s room to shoot him but decided that he was too young to die.
Our state laws at that time prevented him from being charged with murder. He had to be charged as a delinquent which meant that he got sent off to a juvenile facility until he could complete their program. This kid was very smart and ripped through the program. He was back at school for his senior year. I was working graduation when he graduated. As he walked by me, he looked me in the eye and thumped his cap with his index finger. Chills ran down my spine.
About two years later, a 12 year old in our town shot and killed his mother because she told him not to play with a bow and arrow in the house. The detective on the case brought me six pictures including one of each of the boys. Same hair cut, same build, same glasses frames, looked like twins but were not kin to each other. I could not tell them apart! Very weird! If I ever teach a child that looks like them, I am going to be very nice and get far far away!