Justice for Hazel Evans
Elias wiped away the sweat stinging his eyes. He fought to free the last bolt on the Chevy’s oil pan suspended above him. Black oil dripped from the truck. This was Travis Holt’s truck. Too young to own a truck like this. “Damn Travis and this stupid squatted Chevy,” Elias said to no one in particular. The shop was quiet today. There was no one in the other bay, Jeremiah stepped out for lunch, and the only other sound was an old George Jones song coming from the shop radio. As he jerked and cussed and wiped the oil from his face, the music stopped, and an announcer broke in:
We interrupt this broadcast with breaking news. Witnesses are reporting an active shooter situation at Hope Springs Elementary. We are told police are at the scene, and they are asking everyone to stay away. We have no further details at this time, but we will keep you updated as the story develops.
Hope Springs. Hazel’s school. Elias tore out of the shop and ran like a madman. His phone rang. Sarah. “Elias, did you…” she said, and through labored breaths as he ran, he said, “Almost there.” As he rounded the corner of Main Street and Goshen Rd, he saw the scene. Firetrucks created a barrier to the main entrance of the school, and every police unit in Hope Springs was blocking the perimeter. The front-line police officers, guns drawn, used the vehicles as shields as younger officers set up a barrier and pushed the crowd back to the far end of the parking lot.
Elias tried to run past the crowd but was stopped when two officers grabbed him. He struggled to push through, to explain that his Hazel was in there, but it was no use. Within minutes, Sarah found him in the crowd, among the other parents, families and the growing sea of onlookers. Elias and Sarah stood for what seemed like hours with no update, just holding each other as the midday sun beat on them with its oppressive heat.
Murmurs spread through the crowd. Joe Montgomery must’ve come right from the construction site, still in his mud-crusted jeans and boots. Joe whispered to someone on the other side of him, Elias couldn’t hear, and then Joe turned and told Elias he heard it was all was over. The crowd was miserable, sweating in the direct sunlight, sick with panic, but still there was no official word.
Suddenly, firefighters and EMTs rushed into the building. The flurry of activity told Elias that Joe was right. He tried to ask an officer what was going on, but the officer waived him off. Elias could hear chatter all around him. It was one shooter. No, it was multiple shooters, Columbine-style. They had a bomb, so we were waiting for the bomb squad. The shooter was dead. The shooter was not dead. Elias tried to ignore them while they waited in the blinding sun.
Finally, a pink-faced sergeant, Jimmy Barnes, who used to pump gas at Elias’s shop when he was a kid, asked the parents to follow him into the school and away from the media. Once inside the building, Elias thought the hallway looked like any other time he’d been in the building when school let out. The halls were empty, but the lights were still on, and Elias could hear muffled talking and police radio chatter from somewhere deep within in the school. Barnes told the parents to wait in the hall so he could speak to each one privately. He entered the classroom through a front door, while another officer was stationed at the rear.
Slowly, painfully, Barnes called family names to come into the room and then shut the door behind them. After a few minutes of talking, which Elias could not make out, the parents would file out the back door, holding each other up for support, but looking relieved. This continued until Elias thought he would explode. He wanted to kick the door in and grab little Jimmy by his fat face and demand to know what’s going on.
“Mr. and Mrs. Grace?” Barnes said and the couple followed him in. Elias recognized them from the Christmas show. Their little girl was in Hazel’s class.
“God, I can’t stand it!” he said to Sarah and rubbed his greasy hands over his face, leaving black streaks of oil and sweat across his cheeks. Sarah grabbed his hands and looked him in the face.
“Elias, patience,” she said calmly. “Pray with me. That’s all we can do.” Elias relaxed a little – Sarah had that effect on him, and he wrapped his arms around her. “I love you, and I’m sure Hazel is fine. Just pray with me.” Elias felt a little better. Thank God for Sarah.
Then Susan Grace screamed.
A bolt of terror shook the parents, and their worry and prayer was replaced with sickening dread. Elias gripped Sarah with all his might, closed his eyes, and prayed for the Grace family and for his family.
Barnes peeked his head out the door. “Elias? You and Sarah want to come in?” he said. An inconsolable Mrs. Grace was nearly carried out by Mr. Grace and the other officer, who escorted them down the hall.
“Here’s what we know,” Barnes said after closing the door. “Eighteen-year-old Jeremy Blackwood entered the school through an unsecured rear door, armed with an assault rifle. We believe he fired at random. It only lasted a few minutes, until one of the teachers, Mr. Hernandez, tackled him,” Barnes said. Elias thought Jimmy was dictating a police report.
“Cut the shit, Jimmy,” Elias said. “Where’s Hazel?”
Barnes exhaled deeply and put his hand on Elias’s shoulder. Sarah tightened her grip on Elias hands, and Barnes continued, “I’m sorry, Elias, we believe Hazel was one of the children killed.”
Sarah screamed, a guttural high-pitched shriek that reached into Elias’s soul and tore it from his body. They gripped each other, sobbing and shaking, before slowly collapsing to the classroom floor. Barnes mumbled some instructions to them while another officer tried to escort them out of the room and to the cafeteria, where parents needed to identify the little bodies. Elias later believed that Sarah left every bit of her soul in that classroom that day.
That evening the local news team would tell the world, “At approximately 11:45 a.m. this morning, eighteen-year-old Jeremy Blackwood entered Hope Springs Elementary School armed with a fully loaded assault rifle, carrying a bag with hundreds of additional rounds and two smaller handguns. He entered the first room he saw, Ms. Carolyn Fillmore’s third-grade class, and opened fire. Ms. Fillmore took heroic actions to shield the children. Within minutes, another teacher, twenty-seven-year-old Miguel Hernandez, tackled the gunman in the classroom and was able to subdue him until police arrived. The gunman was taken into custody with minor injuries. Several students sustained injuries and were transported to the hospital for treatment. Sadly, the teacher Carolyn Fillmore, age 24, and students Lilly Grace, age 8, Noah Fitzgerald, age 7, and Hazel Evans, age 8, were tragically killed.”
For days after, in a fog of pain and grief, they quietly wept, relying on family and community for meals and prayers. They pantomimed normal life but were lost in their own separate realms of misery. Once the funeral was over, and he closed the casket on Hazel - his eternal sleeping angel - the blackness settled in for good.
Sarah’s once joyous smile never reappeared, forever lost in the abyss of her broken heart. Elias grew darker, angry and vengeful. Jeremy Blackwood should die. That seed of thought took root in his mind, and for two years while awaiting trial it grew deeper and taller and stronger, until it was a mighty oak of hatred and wrath. For two years they waited for justice for their Hazel, with Sarah turning to God and prayer, and Elias sitting in his living room chair with one thing on his mind – vengeance.
* * *
Elias and Sarah attended every day of trial. Not speaking to each other, or the other parents, but just sitting in the gallery, Sarah holding her Bible, and Elias never taking his eyes off the cold-blooded killer. Elias paid close attention to the security in the courthouse and tried every day to think of how to smuggle in a small caliber gun or a knife, to put an end to all of this. To put an end to Jeremy Blackwood. The trial was short, only a few days, and the evidence was overwhelming. Mr. Gardner, the prosecutor, told them the defendant had demanded a public trial. At the end, while the jury deliberated, Mr. Gardner explained the possible verdicts and sentences to the numb parents.
“Of course, it’s possible they find him not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect, in which case he’ll spend his life in an institution receiving care,” Mr. Gardner said. Elias set his jaw like stone and clenched his hammer of a fist. The thought of this murderer escaping justice set his cold heart ablaze with fire.
“But if he’s guilty,” Gardner continued, “the newly enacted Lex Talionis Law, or law of retribution, could be applied.” The parents looked confused, so he went on. “This was created as a compromise between opposing sides of the death penalty debate. The Supreme Court ruled that capital punishment as administered by the state was ‘cruel and unusual,’ but it left the door open for ‘private action,’ which means a way for private citizens to carry out the punishment. Under the new law, if he is found guilty by a unanimous jury, and sentenced to death, any one of you has the option to carry out his execution, however you see fit. It’s optional, so you don’t have to, or if you change your mind at any time, he would be sentenced to life without parole.”
The other families murmured things like “two wrongs don’t make a right,” or “thou shalt not kill.” Each family, for their own reasons, told the prosecutor they couldn’t go through with taking a life, even the life of their child’s murderer. Sarah nodded along with the comments, clutching a small, framed picture of Hazel standing in front of their door smiling radiantly on her first day of kindergarten.
Listening to this, Elias’s heart filled with outrage. “No one?” he asked looking around at the other parents. “Not one of you has the courage to give this son of a bitch what he deserves?” Sarah looked at her husband in disbelief. The families held on to each other, eyes glistening, watching Elias with fear and pity.
Gardner tried to reason with him. “Look, you’re a good man, Elias, ” he said, “and you’ve suffered a traumatic loss. You all have. But killing him won’t bring Hazel back. It won’t cure the pain you and Sarah feel. But it’ll change you as a person, Elias, forever. You have to think about whether this is the right choice for you and Sarah.” Sarah’s eyes pleaded with him, but Elias didn’t even look at her.
As expected, the verdict was unanimously guilty. Gardner, with a heavy tone, informed the court that the Lex Talionis law was in play, as one person is willing to carry out the execution, if allowed. The judge peered over the bench as Elias stood resolute. The judge addressed him. “Sir, what is your name?”
“Elias Evans, sir,” he said.
“You’re the father of Hazel Evans?”
“Yes sir.”
“And you believe that the defendant should die for his crimes?
“Yes sir.”
“And you, sir, are absolutely sure you want to carry out this punishment yourself?”
“Yes sir.”
“Mr. Evans, have you spoken with your wife about this?”
“Yes sir.”
“And she agrees with your decision?”
“No sir.”
“Mr. Evans, are you prepared to kill another human being?”
“I’ve been ready for two years, your Honor.”
“Very well,” he said, and then delivered the instructions on when the actual sentencing would take place.
As they drove home, Sarah finally found her voice. “Elias,” she said, “I don’t know you anymore. Who are you? I don’t think it’s right, killing another person. You’re not that type of man. You’re a good, sweet man. It’s hard to believe you’re the same man that rocked our Hazel as a baby when she cried at night or cheered her on during her soccer games. Elias, only God can judge that man. His punishment will be enough.”
He was unmoved. “The court has judged him,” Elias replied hotly, “and the law has given us the right to impose justice.”
“Just because it’s legal,” she said, “doesn’t make it right. As far as I’m concerned, it’s no better than what that man did.”
* * *
For the next month, while awaiting the sentencing date, Elias made it his sole purpose to research different methods of killing. He considered the “humane” choice – shooting him. Eye for an eye, and all that. No, this bastard doesn’t deserve humane. He considered something more personal – beating him to death with a baseball bat. Some days, when his storm raged heaviest, he thought of cutting off pieces of his body over several hours, while Jeremy Blackwood slowly bled to death.
Elias was consumed by revenge, and Sarah sank further into desolation. Elias hadn’t noticed the little changes. She ate less at dinner, slouched over her plate, and picked at her food, and over time her once healthy frame turned ghostly and gaunt. She spent more time with the pastor and her church friends, or sitting alone reading her Bible. Elias quit the church completely. Either God could have stopped this, and he refused, or he couldn’t stop it, so he’s worthless.
The sentencing day finally arrived, and in a packed courtroom, the judge allowed the families to make statements before he imposed the sentence. Mrs. Grace told the court how her Lilly had just gotten a puppy, and how she wanted to be a doctor for animals when she grew up. Ms. Fitzgerald was there alone since Mr. Fitzgerald, having collapsed under the weight of his grief, and sitting in the backyard where their son once played so happily, put the barrel of his shotgun in his mouth. She told the court that little Noah was the sweetest little boy and asked why God had taken so long to bless them with a baby, only to take him away? Sarah chose not to speak but just held her Bible to her chest and dabbed her eyes with tissue.
Elias stood tall and strong at the podium. He stared into the eyes of Jeremy Blackwood, opened his mouth, and spoke what was in his soul.
“Mr. Blackwood,” he said, “The Devil himself is in you. What I see here is pure evil, a soul that can’t be redeemed. Others have called on us to pray, to search deep within our hearts and to forgive you. They say only God can judge you and no punishment by man will compare to the judgment of the Lord.” His eyes grew darker, jaw more rigid, as he continued. The storm raged on.
“But God can’t be trusted to impose justice. If God was just, your mother would have had an abortion. If He was just, God would have struck you with lightning at the schoolhouse door. If He was truly just, He would have saved my Hazel from your wrath. No, God can’t be trusted. You can beg for forgiveness, you can accept Jesus into your heart, but even so, if the court allows, I’ll take great pride in killing you, for the good of these families, and for the good of humanity.” Elias sat down, stone-faced and smoldering. Some parents wept softly and held each other. Elias and Sarah sat next to each other, but alone, like strangers.
The judge cleared his throat, and with the courtroom’s attention, he imposed the sentence. “Mr. Blackwood, please rise.”
The boy did as he was told.
“Mr. Blackwood, you have been found guilty of four counts of homicide in the first degree by a unanimous jury of your peers. I have to tell you that in the seventeen years I’ve sat on this bench, I’ve seen my share of horrendous crimes. Never did I imagine I would preside over the case of a young man who so willingly, and with malice aforethought, planned and carried out the execution of innocent children. Before this court imposes your sentence, do you have anything you wish to say to the parents of your victims?”
The courtroom fell into absolute silence as all heads turned to the killer. He stared directly at the judge, never once looking at the parents. His lawyer leaned to him and whispered something, which caused Blackwood to shake his head ever so slightly.
“Mr. Blackwood?” the judge asked again.
“No,” he said. That one word was all he had spoken during the entire trial.
“Very well,” the judge continued. “Not once have you sought to explain your actions that day. You’ve called no witnesses in your defense, either during the trial or during this sentencing phase. You demanded a public trial and put these grieving parents through hell all over again, for no purpose whatsoever. Clearly, you have no remorse, and it’s the opinion of this court that you’re beyond rehabilitation. Therefore, this court sentences you to death, if there is a willing member of the public who will carry out the sentence.”
This time all eyes shot to Elias, who stood up prominently in the gallery, eyes burning into Jeremy Blackwood’s soul, as if Elias were ready to carry out the execution right now, in this very courtroom, with his bare hands.
“I am willing,” Elias said.
“Very well,” the judge said. “Mr. Blackwood, barring a change of heart from Mr. Evans or a reprieve from the appellate court, you are hereby sentenced to die by the hand of Mr. Evans.”
* * *
From that day forward, Sarah and Elias rarely spoke. Date nights, dinners out, Sunday donuts after church, laughing together while watching TV – those were remnants of a different life, one Elias could barely believe were real. He and Sarah shared space, like strangers in a prison cell, one solely focused on killing, and one a mere ghost.
During the required six-month waiting period, while the appellate court performed its expedited review, Elias searched the internet, read books, and watched movies, all to find the best method of retributive justice. He had decided on the method without discussing it with Sarah. On a cold overcast Tuesday morning, Mr. Gardner called – the court set the execution date in two weeks. Elias thanked him and hung up.
On the chosen day, Elias rose early, showered, ate a solitary breakfast of coffee and toast, and then sat in his chair with his Bible for the first time in years. He rejected a God that couldn’t or wouldn’t save his baby, but he also believed he was performing divine justice. Sarah quietly joined him, sitting in her chair, with her Bible. With a voice that was barely a whisper, she said, “Elias, I am encouraged to see you consulting the Word before you act today. I hope and pray the Lord can soften your heart, allow you to forgive, and keep you from becoming a killer.” Elias looked at his wife, whom he once loved so much, and saw only a stranger. She was an old woman now, looking at him with sunken eyes on a face so youthful and joyous, but now ashy and gray.
He didn’t speak, but rather closed his Bible, stood, and left the home alone.
As he approached the prison gates, Elias slowed at the crowd of protesters jeering and waving signs pleading for Blackwood’s life. In the past, Elias recalled, these types of signs would be aimed at the governor or Supreme Court, but today, the heat of this mob’s fire was directed only at him. He drove on trying his hardest to avoid eye contact with his neighbors, including Ms. Fitzgerald and Mrs. Grace. They are pleading for this killer’s life!
Inside the prison grounds, Elias found himself the only family member present. The other families were invited to watch the execution, as was traditional, but no one appeared inside the chamber. Within a few moments, the judge appeared, followed by a shackled Jeremy Blackwood, who had to be held up by guards. Elias did not recognize the man. Not even a man – more like a small boy. After two months in this environment, knowing he would die, Jeremy Blackwood looked like a frightened child. His desperate eyes darted from one guard to another, then to the judge, and finally to Elias. His eyes were red and swollen and his chest was heaving.
The judge read out the sentence again, then turned to Elias. “Mr. Evans, are you sure you wish to carry out this sentence?”
“Yes sir,” Elias said with conviction, and the boy began weeping.
“What is the chosen method of death?”
Elias addressed the boy. “You have committed a grievous sin against my family, and I pray God will send you to burn in Hell. Today, you will burn for your crime, as you will burn for all eternity.”
The judge cast his eyes downward, and the boy sobbed and begged with the weight of the realization. “Please, sir! I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Please, I prayed for forgiveness, oh God, oh God, please don’t do this!” Mr. Gardner whispered Elias’s name under his breath, but Elias held up an unforgiving hand. Elias’s frozen heart could not be melted by the desperate pleas. The judge whispered something to a guard, motioning to a room. Elias retrieved the can of gasoline from his truck, and the guard escorted the condemned man and his executioner into a secure chamber.
The boy’s pleas intensified and reached a feverish pitch as he was chained to a pole in the center of the chamber. He pulled and tugged like a trapped animal, until he finally collapsed in despair, soaked in urine and sweat. His eyes frantically searched for mercy that would not come. Elias held up his gas can – heavy with a full five gallons. As he splashed the fuel over the boy, the pleas once again intensified. The fumes burned Elias’s eyes and nose. He made a trail of gas from the boy to the other side of the chamber, twenty feet away. Huge ventilation fans whirred overhead. For the last time, he looked at his Hazel’s killer. They met eyes for a moment, then Elias lit the flame.
The piercing shrieks shook Elias. They reminded him of a trapped animal, desperate and frantically feral. Elias couldn’t believe a man was capable of making this sound. The boy thrashed back and forth as his clothes burned away and his skin began to blister and melt. The smell of gasoline, burning hair, and cooking flesh filled the chamber. Elias vomited onto the ground. He looked for help, a guard or anyone that could put the boy out of his misery. No help came. Elias stood alone with the consequences of his actions. Within a few minutes the boy stopped moving, slumped against the pole, and the only sound Elias heard was the crackling and popping of the fire. Elias, overcome by the magnitude of what he had witnessed, banged on the door until it was opened, and he ran from the chamber.
The sense of peace and closure he had expected never came. Jeremy Blackwood’s screams and pleas for mercy were burned into his mind forever. He imagined that is how the frightened schoolchildren, including his Hazel, felt that fateful day. Running, screaming, begging for mercy, not understanding how a person could be so cruel.
Sarah was right. He felt transformed, dark and murderous, disgusting, as if he were the criminal. He needed to go to his wife and seek her forgiveness. Tears flowed down his cheeks as he thought about how much Sarah had endured. She had suffered in grim silence while Elias focused on retribution, and now he just wanted to burst through the front door, throw himself at her feet, and plead for mercy. He just hoped she was home.
The truck screeched to a stop in the driveway and Elias ran to the door. “Sarah?” he yelled from the doorway. Silence. He searched through the house – first the living room where they once watched Hazel play on the floor with her Barbies, then the kitchen where he recalled a beaming Hazel eagerly blowing out the candles on her birthday cake, always vanilla cake with pink icing and sprinkles. He thought maybe Sarah had gone to church to pray, but as he climbed the stairs and flung open the bedroom door, he found Sarah lying on her bed, resting, eternally peaceful at last. The note beside her empty pill bottle read:
My Elias, I prayed fervently that the Lord would come into your heart and change your mind. I clung to hope that my darling Hazel’s father, who was so kind and loving, still possessed some speck of humanity. I know it’s gone now. I heard on the radio that you went ahead with your plan. I guess the Lord saw fit not to answer my prayers, for His own reasons which I cannot understand.
You are right – maybe God cannot be trusted to impose justice. If God were just, you would have died with Hazel that day. I’ve already asked the Lord’s forgiveness, and when I see our baby again in paradise, I’ll tell her that daddy still loves her, and God willing, we will all be together again one day.