With weirdness comes being an outcast when you live in a small town. I grew up in Spokane Washington — a strange town, usually the second largest city in Washington or very close to it, and the place where three very separate deaths greatly impacted my life.
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I was in second grade when a woman, Debra Eik, shot her two sons, Brandon (6) and Brian (11) and then herself (Seattle Times article here). I knew Brandon from the playground, Brian survived but I didn't hear much else about it.
When the story broke a dieting drug called fenfluramine/phentermine or fen-phen was blamed. It was pulled at the FDA's request two months after the murder/suicide in November of 1997. Ed Eik, Debra's husband, sued the company who made fen-phen and the doctor who prescribed it to her in 2000. A case was pending for the same doctor in 2001 by the Washington State Court of Appeals for over-prescribing hundreds of diet pills to his patients.
Ed Eik still lives in Spokane and owns a motorcycle shop I've been to with my father.
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It was revealed he had stabbed his father and strangled his mother. He came to school the next day as if nothing had happened and when co-workers noticed his parents didn't show up to work (his mother was a much-loved math teacher at another school) someone checked on them, saw blood coming out of the house and called the police. When questioned he said they had gotten into an argument the night before, they went on a walk and he hadn't seen them since.
When the police arrested him he uttered "Go on with what you're gonna do. Book me. I'm gonna cry myself to sleep later. Let's get this going."
At the time I was the photo-editor of the yearbook and got to voice an opinion on whether or not his senior photo should remain in our book. We decided yes, we should leave it in, if only for referencing in the future as someone we knew and went to school with.
He was convicted of two counts of 1st degree murder — he linked the zip-ties he used to strangle his mother with together which showed premeditation. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole four months shy of my graduation date.
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These deaths have effected me in various ways.
The first deaths perhaps taught me, at 7, that someday I would die and that day might not come as well-planned as I would hope. It also taught me that even those trusted to protect and nurture children can turn to violence.
Being from a small town, and being weird, I was mortified when news coverage of the boy who murdered his parents focused on teenage ramblings from his Myspace page and photos of him wearing a black trench coat. For the first time someone I knew had their social media profile used against them in public, vilifying them forever. Even at 15 the local media's comparison of him wearing a black trench coat to Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold who killed over a dozen people seemed repugnant. To this day the lack of compassion for this young man who is bipolar, suffers from depression, and was being faced with eviction by his parents worries me. If he felt his best and only option was killing his parents to avoid his problems we as a society have completely failed at treating and assisting families facing mental illnesses.
The first deaths perhaps taught me, at 7, that someday I would die and that day might not come as well-planned as I would hope. It also taught me that even those trusted to protect and nurture children can turn to violence.
Being from a small town, and being weird, I was mortified when news coverage of the boy who murdered his parents focused on teenage ramblings from his Myspace page and photos of him wearing a black trench coat. For the first time someone I knew had their social media profile used against them in public, vilifying them forever. Even at 15 the local media's comparison of him wearing a black trench coat to Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold who killed over a dozen people seemed repugnant. To this day the lack of compassion for this young man who is bipolar, suffers from depression, and was being faced with eviction by his parents worries me. If he felt his best and only option was killing his parents to avoid his problems we as a society have completely failed at treating and assisting families facing mental illnesses.
I was prompted to write this post for a rather strange reason. I read the article "Tyler Hadley's Killer Party" by Nathaniel Rich on the Rolling Stone website which details the grisly murders of Mary Jo and Blake Hadley by their 17-year-old son, Tyler. The brutal murders reminded me of the boy from high school and reading the comments his classmates made reminded me of 7 years ago when everyone tried to figure out whether they were disgusted, scared, worried, mad, or excited by what happened.
"I was like damn, brother," says Mike. "That's creepy as hell. I can't believe we partied last night where there was dead people." After Mike gave an interview to a local news reporter, he got 30 Facebook friend requests. "They were like, "I seen you on the news, bro!' I was like, 'Yeah, it was awesome!'""I wasn't upset when I heard," says the 16-year-old cheerleader. "I wasn't scared, or disgusted. It's not like I knew him personally. I was just in awe."When Anthony Snook found out about the Hadley murders, he thought, "Wow. I just went to the party of a lifetime. It's messed up what he did, but 20 years from now, I'll be able to say I was there. I hate Port St. Lucie, but that's kind of cool."
And while I definitely wouldn't describe it as "kind of cool" that brutal death has followed me through my life I do find it somewhat fascinating and it has changed the way I view a great many things.
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