Everyone rushed to their cars.That is when Dennis grabbed an SKS assault rifle out of the hands of one of his Dad's friends, and aimed it at Martell. But he just aimed it at him and then turned towards the last car to leave. Chris' car. The one carrying Jesse, Tiffany and Jason in the back seat and Chris and Adrian in the front.They heard glass break, but didn't realize the extent of what had happened until they were a little ways down the road.
Chris said they were all screaming. Little did he know, but Jesse and Jason's screams had been silenced before the car even took off. He looked into his rear view mirror and saw Jesse. He said it looked like half of his face was gone. Then he looked back at Jason. His head was up against the window, so he couldn't see the damage to his head. But he did see the blood all over. Jason had been shot twice through his body and once through the head. Jesse had been shot once in the top of his neck, the bullet rested in his left lung, and once through the head. The bullet exited through the right side of his face. Chris drove to Cost Cutter's parking lot and jumped out of the car, while it was still rolling, and used the pay phone to call 911.
After we had stood in that parking lot, clinging to each other, for what seemed an eternity, staring at the car with our son's lifeless body in it, Adrian was brought back. We went to him and just held him. His mother, Kim and her sisters, Mona and Michele, were all there with us. I don't know what we would have done without them. Cost Cutter's kept us supplied with coffee and the officers gave us blankets. The whole time we were there, all we wanted to do was go to that car, hold our baby, kiss him goodbye and tell him that we loved him. As the night went by, more and more of their friends showed up. The parking lot was filled with people, including the police and the media. It must have been around 10 p.m. when the medical examiner came to remove the boys from the car. They had it draped off so no one could see, but that didn't stop one News station from filming it. We later saw on TV, them removing our precious baby in a white body bag. Officer Pince gave us keys to the motel across the street and told us to wait for him over there. We watched the news broadcasts and called another friend. I also called my family in Oregon. 2 hours went by, so Ken and I walked back over to the parking lot. They were just loading the car up onto a flatbed. As the car was raised, the tarps separated and we could see all the blood on the windows. It was horrendous. Then we went back to the motel. About 45 minutes later, Officer Pince came over. He told what we had already heard and gave us cards with phone numbers to call in the morning. He was very compassionate. We got home at 2:10 a.m., the morning of May 31.
OUR LIVES WITHOUT JESSE
Our lives were forever changed on the night of May 30, 2000. Walking into our house that next morning was surreal. It felt like it must have been happening to someone else, not to us. Ken let Swisher out and I made coffee, I think. My God, to say we were in a daze, has to be a major understatement. We walked into Jesse's room. His bed was as he had left it. Unmade, waiting for him to come back to, which he never did. He had an empty bowl and glass sitting on the floor. Those stayed there for a few days longer. We just gathered in all the images of his small world. We then opened the door to the other bedroom where he kept his clothes. Ken stood there and took a deep breath. He said he was breathing him in. I did the same. His smell was everywhere.
I said that maybe I would go take a shower. I walked into our bathroom and saw the shower massage hanging down in the tub. Jesse had been the last one to bathe that morning. Since he had the cast on his leg, he had to sit in the tub and rinse with the shower massage. He always forgot to hang it back up. His towel was heaped on top of the towel bar. I don't know how many times I had told him to hang it up right, so it would dry, but he never did. That towel stayed there for 2 weeks after that morning. I was crying so hard, that Ken came in to see if I was alright. Of course we weren't alright, but you know what I mean. He looked over at the tub and went to hang the shower nozzle back up. That is when my husband finally lost it. We just held each other, our bodies wracked with such a pain we thought we never would survive. Our baby was gone. How were we suppose to go on without him?
Later on, we turned on the radio, just to have some noise in the house. Swisher stayed in Jesse's room on his bed and wouldn't leave it. She knew he wasn't coming home. A song came on that we had never heard before. It was called, "He's My Son" by Marc Schultz. We hadn't really heard anything else on the radio that morning, but when that song was playing, we sat there, side by side, and wept. For the rest of the early morning, we just sat, talked and held on to each other. Ken said, "It's so ironic. I get all the guns out of the house to protect him, and then some asshole blows him away!"
Dee had given us her cell phone to use and we started making calls to let people know what had happened to our baby. Anthony Bovan, who was at the fight, came over around noon. He told us that he had seen everything. Ken asked him if he would talk to the police and give a statement. He said that he would, so we called the police. They came and picked him up and took him to the station to make a statement. We were to find out later during the trial, that he also had a gun.
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