I grew up out in the country in a little town twenty miles south of Charleston, South Carolina.

My relatives are still there.

We weren’t rich but it was good childhood.

I used to love to hunt and fish.  I killed a lot of squirrels, raccoons, rabbits and deer.

When I was thirteen or fourteen, I had a bolt-action 12 gauge six shot. 

The gun would turn you upside down! You had to hold it right or it would knock you down.

Guns are a serious thing. You have to use good judgment because a gun is a dangerous tool. You have to use your head. 

Getting mad at someone and killing someone...that’s not the way.

I know the feeling of losing someone because I lost my son to gun violence.

It happened in 2012. We’d been together for 36 years, since the day he was born. We had a good relationship. We were friends—father and son, but friends too.

I have no idea why they killed him.

They lured him into a back street and shot him three times in the chest. 

I couldn’t give the slightest reason why someone would have killed him.

I don’t know why that happened. 

I really don’t. I know that he loved to be out with everybody. He was a nice person, as far as I know.  There must have been some kind of misunderstanding that he and someone had, and he got lured into the wrong place and got killed. 

I don’t know why he got killed. 

The law never found out who killed him or why.  I just left the area before I killed someone. It would have probably been the wrong person.

I needed to go somewhere so I came to Charlotte. I was homeless for awhile but now my life is more stable. 

Things are going well for me. Now I often go back to Charleston to visit my family.  I take the bus back there and visit my mother on all the holidays. My son had two kids. I still see my grandkids every time I go to Charleston.  They are doing great. 

I do miss my son.

I miss him every day.