Posts by Jonah

…or at least that’s what the guy who called my dad said.

I was brushing my teeth this morning at 7:25 when my phone rang with a local number.  

“This is the El Paso County Sheriff’s office.  Is this Joanna?  Are you alright?”

“Yes…?”

“Are you able to speak freely?”

“Yes, I’m at home with my husband.  We’re getting ready to go to work.”

“Can you verify your parents’ address?”

Well, I know they’re on Ford Drive, and there’s a 1, 4, and 5 in the address, plus an additional one of those, though I can never remember which.  I just turn left at the red mailbox when I go over there.  I guessed, and Berck said, “That’s not their address!”  As noted before, I have a hard time remembering numbers, even with the police.

The dispatcher didn’t seem to care.  “And you’re okay? Your father called us very upset and said someone called him and said he was holding you at gunpoint and was demanding money.”

I looked outside.  An inch or two of snow had fallen that night.  There weren’t even any recent tire tracks on our ally.  Nothing but rabbit footprints outside.  “No, there’s no one here but us.”

“Okay.  We’re going to see if we can get the caller to meet us somewhere to drop off the money and see if we can get this resolved.  Can you verify your address?  We’re sending a deputy to make sure you’re okay.  You said you were getting ready to leave for work.  Can you stay at your house until the deputy either arrives or contacts you by phone?”

We waited 45 minutes.  I spent the time sending an e-mail to my office manager saying I’d be late and then shoveling the driveway.

Berck finally insisted I call the Teller County Sheriff and see if we could go to work.   The dispatcher said she had no idea what I was talking about, that El Paso County Sheriff’s office hadn’t contacted them, but if they did, she would let them know that I had checked in and was fine.  She added, “Oh, yeah, that’s a scam that’s going around.  We got three of those last week.”

I’d called Dad to let him know I was fine and sent both him and Mom text messages, in case they were still talking to the police and couldn’t answer.  Dad texted me back and said he’d call in a little bit.

When I did talk to Dad, he said he’d dropped Mom off at the airport to fly to Mobile this morning.  A number he didn’t recognize called his mobile phone.  He thought there was a possibility that it was the airline, so he answered.  A guy with what sounded to him like a Latin accent said that there had been a horrible accident involving a relative and did he have any relatives in town.  Dad said he had a daughter.  Then the guy said that he had a gun but that he wouldn’t hurt me unless Dad gave him money.  While they were talking, Dad had put his phone on mute and called 911 so the police could hear the conversation as well.  A deputy also showed up almost right away.

That’s about when I got my call.

The caller eventually demanded that Dad go to Safeway and wire him money.  So he’s probably not even in the country.

Then Mom texted me.  She had just landed in Dallas and wanted to know what my text message was about.

Today is the first Christmas we’ve spent alone.  Unless you count Christmas ’07, whenBerck got the last flight from O’Hare to Colorado Springs, getting in late at night.  Berck has a bad cold, possibly the flu, and has been pitiful all day.  I made myself some cheese eggs and bacon for breakfast, making lots, fully expecting Berck to steal about half of it.  But he must really feel bad, because he only had one piece of bacon and a forkful of eggs.  For Christmas dinner we warmed up some breakfast burritos Berck got from a New Zealender who comes by his work and sells them.  Berck did brew a double batch of beer but then apparently  expected me to clean up from it.

It was nice to have a relaxing day at home, though.  We opened up presents in the morning, and I video chatted with Ben in Mobile and Mom and Dad who are visiting the Baileys in Seattle.  Berck and I went through a few plastic tubs of his dad’s that have been in storage in the garage, tossing a lot of it in the trash, keeping some of it, and putting some in a box to take to Goodwill.  The sort of things we found ranged from a dusty quarter of a roll of Tums (trash) to a set of surgical tools engraved with Dr. Kelsey’s initials (keep).

With as crazy as life has been lately, it was really nice to not have to do anything all day on a Wednesday.  And we get to have the same schedule next week.

Maybe Berck will be feeling better by then and we’ll even cook the duck I bought at the store yesterday.

Here’s one of the neighborhood deer watching Berck brew out on our deck today.  I think he may have won an argument with a hammock.

Today I have an especially good reason to be thankful.

See this blue car? It’s in the middle of a crime scene. In my parents’ front yard.

Berck and I took a load of firewood to my parents’ house today. As we were pulling into their driveway, we noticed an unmarked cop car with its lights on down the road at the other corner of their lot. The cop car followed us down the driveway, bleeped its siren, and a tiny deputy stepped out and demanded to know why we didn’t stop. (We were stopped.) She asked if we lived here, and I told her my dad did. She said that there was a car parked among the trees in the front yard and it was an active crime scene and to please not come down there. Berck asked her what it was, and she said it involved a homicide.

I went over and found Dad, who was working on the shed. (Mom is in Seattle.) He said his neighbor had called him this morning, asking why there a blue car parked in his front yard. Dad went out and looked at it and called the Sheriff’s department. When the deputies arrived, they were concerned because the house was unlocked and Dad wasn’t in it, because was working in the shed. They told him that they were so glad he called because that was a missing piece of the puzzle they needed.

The deputy still there came back up the driveway and asked Dad what time he’d seen the car. We looked on his phone and saw that his neighbor had called at 8:54 that morning. She had Dad fill out a form. She showed us a picture of this guy and asked if we’d ever seen him before (the news posted his picture several hours later).

She said there were two homicides and one other shooting victim, but that was all she could tell us. She warned Dad that the media might converge on his house once they found out that’s where the car was found, and if they did, she’d put up crime scene tape across the driveway so they wouldn’t drive up, but that she’d put it high enough so Dad could drive in and out if he needed to.

She said they were pretty sure they knew who the shooter was. She said they thought he knew at least one of the victims and at least one of the other victims just happened to get in the way. She said her department had it on their to do list yesterday to see if they could find this guy, but something else had come up and they hadn’t been able to. That night he shot three people.

So we’re not really sure of all the details, but it appears this guy shot someone during a burglary not too far from their house, shot someone else the next road down from their house, then ditched his car in my parents’ front yard.

Today I’m grateful my Dad is okay!

We tried to buy this house last summer.  Someone else snapped it up before we could.  (Our process was delayed by being evacuated by the Waldo Canyon Fire and our loan guy being evacuated as well.)

It’s been burned completely to the foundation in the Black Forest Fire. All the houses but one on that road are.