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$5.00 / Issue 56

No idea why.
I couldn’t give the slightest
reason why someone would
have killed him.

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I grew up in the country in a little town twenty miles
south of Charleston.

All my family is still there.

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We weren’t rich but it was good childhood.

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I used to love to hunt and fish.

I killed a lot of squirrels, raccoons, rabbits and deer.

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When I was thirteen or fourteen, I had a bolt-action
12 gauge six shot.

The gun would turn you upside down. You had to hold
it right or it would knock you down.

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Guns are a serious thing.

You have to use good judgement because a gun is a
dangerous tool.

You have to use your head.

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Getting mad at someone and killing someone…that’s
not the way.

I know the feeling of losing someone.

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I lost my son to gun violence.

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It happened in 2012.

We’d been together for 36 years, since he was born.

We had a good relationship. We were friends—father
and son, but friends too.

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They lured him into a back street and shot him three
times in the chest.

I couldn’t give the slightest reason why someone would
have killed him.

I don’t know why that happened.

I really don’t. I know that he loved to be out with ev­
erybody. He was a nice person, as far as I know. There
must have been some kind of misunderstanding that
he and someone had, and he got lured into the wrong
place and got killed.

I don’t know why he got killed.

I wasn’t there and he was.

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The law never found out who killed him or why.

I just left the area before I killed someone. It would
have probably been the wrong person.

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I needed to go somewhere so I came to Charlotte.

I was homeless for awhile but now my life is more
stable. Things are going well for me.

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Now I often go back to Charleston to visit my family.

I take the bus back there and visit my mother on all the
holidays. My son had two kids. I still see my grandkids
every time I go to Charleston.

They are doing great.

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I do miss my son.

I just miss him. I miss him, that’s all I can say. I miss
him every day.

I miss him.

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