"HOW SHALL WE THEN LIVE?" Francis Schaeffer

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Murder-suicide in my little neighborhood

[ This is not a good story.  You really don't need to read it. ]










They moved in across the street about a couple years after we did  A Dad, a Mom, an older brother and a younger brother my age.  The older brother was lively and funny, his name was Davey.  The younger brother was more serious but he and I got along well enough.   His name was Jimmy.  That's a picture of him.  He was 10 years of age when his father killed him and then committed suicide, apparently in response to his mother asking the father for a divorce and forcing the father to move out.



The father had visitation, came to pick up both boys one weekend but Davey didn't go.
The father took Jimmy to the motel where he was staying and shot him to death then turned the gun upon himself.

I really didn't live in "that kind of a neighborhood."  But I guess I did.

Jimmy wrote a suicide note;



It is a terrible thing.

Below is a picture of Jimmy's mother.



I suppose those are the detectives talking to her, I'm not sure.

My parents were very devout and we always went to church.  My father recognized, after the separation, that the father was struggling and he invited him to come to church one Sunday.  The father came and sat next to my Dad.  At the end of the service there was an "altar call" for people to come forward and give their lives to Jesus Christ vowing to follow after His ways, not ours.
So we're standing, singing the invitation hymn and the father is gripping the pew in front of him so hard that his knuckles are white.  But he didn't go ask for help, ask for salvation and he never came to church with us again.  Then a few/couple of weeks later  the father and Jimmy were dead.

"Sad" inadequately describes the story.  Decades later I still have trouble with it.
Davey and his Mom soon moved out of the neighborhood never to return.

I've often wondered how Davey is doing.  I hope he was able to find some hope, joy and love in his own life.  Maybe he became a follower of Jesus Christ.  I know my folks prayed for him and his Mom after the tragedy.  I hope he made it out of the family trauma alive.
He was funny, personable and he made the other kids in the neighborhood laugh.  He had a lot going for him.

I hope Davey made it.


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