A family moved into a house in the cul-de-sac behind my street. The house had been vacant for awhile and was a bit run down, so everyone was really happy to see a family move in there. Right away, the family went about making some improvements. They put up a trellis with some flowering vines, planted a little tree in the barren yard, and began coaxing what was left of the grass to grow by copiously watering the remaining patches.
The family consisted of a middle-aged man, his wife, his 20ish daughter, his 11 year old, and his daughter's three year old boy. The daughter didn't have a husband and there didn't seem to be a boyfriend hanging around.
They were quiet people, at first. The mother didn't work. The man and his 20ish daughter were employed. I don't know what he did for a living but the daughter worked nights at a fast food restaurant.
I usually walked by their house twice a day on my way to and from the park. Sometimes, I would see the little three year old out front by himself. I occassionally saw the 11 year old. I saw the mother only once.
They lived there for about a year but didn't make any further upgrades to the house. After a bit, the house actually got shabbier. Then the neighbors in the cul-de-sac started complaining about the fighting. The neighbors said there were now loud arguments between the husband and his wife. Sometimes the cops would be summoned.
The fighting escalated. Now the husband wasn't going to his job. His car quit running and he just let it sit in the yard, broken. The eleven year old and the wife stayed inside. Sometimes the man would stand around outside drinking. Sometimes he and the daughter would get into arguments in the yard.
One Saturday, as I was heading to the park for my 6:00 PM run, I saw the man rummaging in the back of his old car. He was also drinking beer. There were several brown beer bottles littering the front yard. He drank down one bottle in a gulp and opened another in the few minutes it took me to pass the house. From inside the house, I heard the voice of the mother yelling for the eleven year old to clean something up.
When I walked back by at 7:30 PM, the house was quiet. Not even their dog was outside.
Sometime during the night, I was awakened by the barking and howling of the neighborhood dogs. The canine cacophany went on for several minutes. I yelled at my own dogs to shut up. I hauled them inside so they would be quiet. My husband got up to check the yard but everything was fine.
Sunday, I went out to take my walk and saw that the porchlight was still on at the neighbor's house. I was perturbed because the beer bottles were still in their yard. Some of the bottles were sitting in or had rolled into the street. When I got home I complained to my husband about the littering. He walked around the corner and knocked on the door. There was no answer.
Monday morning began with sirens and flashing lights.
This is what happened:
Saturday, the man and his daughter had a big blow out. She left for work as usual. But instead of going home Saturday or Sunday nights, she stayed at a friend's house.
Some time around midnight on Saturday, the man got up from the couch, wrapped a pillow around the barrel of a shotgun and proceed to shoot his sleeping wife, 11 year old son, and 3 year old grandson to death. He then sat for several hours waiting for his daughter to come home from work. When she didn't arrive at the usual time, he made several calls to her cell phone, which she ignored. During that time, he killed the family dog by drowning it in the bathtub. When the daughter still didn't return home Sunday, the man shot himself with a pistol that turned out to be stolen.
The poor daughter went to work on Saturday and Sunday, stayed at a friend's again Sunday night but returned home Monday morning to find her entire family dead.
After the tragedy we never heard anything else about the daughter. I can't fathom the horror of walking from room to room in that house finding one dead family member after another.
No one ever came to claim any of their belongings. The yard got weedier. The old car sat and mouldered. The police tape flapped in the wind until it flew into the street in shreds. The sad little tree in the front yard toasted in the summer heat, wilted and died.
In November, my husband and I walked around the corner and picked up the beer bottles.
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Comments: 28
The end result of domestic violence is death.
Perhaps he couldn't face losing what appears to have been a life-long dream to get his family out of poverty and into their own home.
Did the daughter contribute to her son's death? That would depend on whether the father showed any anger to the children and no one in the neighborhood ever heard or saw him yelling at either of the children. I don't think there's anyone to blame. We just don't know what the dynamics were. Obviously he was arguing with his wife and daughter. Probably about money. He didn't seem to have started really drinking a lot until toward the end.