People Who Knew Murderers Are Sharing “The Moment They Knew Something Was Off,” And Wow

2.

“It was my brother. He died when I was 13. He was 18 at the time. I knew he was capable from the time I was six and he was 11. He used to play death games. He would sit on my chest, use his knees to hold down my arms, suffocate me until I passed out, and then wake me up and do it again. There were days when he did this for an hour or more. That’s on top of the other kinds of abuse: anything you can think of has happened. One time, he made me stand in front of him while he punched me in the balls repeatedly. He wanted to ‘make me a man,’ and he wouldn’t stop until I didn’t flinch from the pain. I couldn’t tell any of this because I was more afraid of him than confident that my parents could or would do anything. He was my primary babysitter.”

“From 12 to 18, my brother got in a lot of trouble. He was arrested multiple times for assault. He was in and out of alternative programs like Outward Bound and Boot Camp. Finally, at 17, he was sentenced to 2 years in juvenile detention. He spent a year in and came out to live with a preacher in another nearby town. Eventually, they convinced the parole board he was rehabilitated, and over the objections of our local police, let him off all probation and parole. That preacher introduced him to friends of his, with whom my brother eventually moved in. He also met a girl.

They met right before summer started, and he was in love. To her, it was a summer fling. When she broke up with him, partly due to his controlling/abusive behavior, he lost it. He came back home one weekend to meet up with some friends. He also came to see us. Later, my mom would say she knew something was up with him, but that is all hindsight. Sunday night, he went back home.

Monday night, he killed his three roommates execution style with a gun he got from a friend who had perpetrated a burglary of our local hardware store. He also stole one of the victim’s cars. He then drove eight hours to where his ex was in college. He arrived pretty early Tuesday morning and somehow got into her dorm room.

Tuesday morning, he found his ex and shot her in the foot, threatened to kill her, and then locked himself, her, and a few of her dorm mates in a room. A 6-hour hostage standoff with police ensued.

Eventually, he stuck his head out the window one too many times, and a police sniper shot him right in the neck. He tried shooting at the cops as they stormed in, but he was dying. He died later in the hospital, and my family became national news for a short time.

When did I know? I knew the moment I was six and the bad times began. I thought I’d be his first victim. The day he died was the first day of my real life. A day without terror.”

—dnjprod