Wednesday, July 20, 2011

December 31, 2010 - Part 3

The following is the story my son's girlfriend told us.

She was at work the evening of December 30th, 2010 until 9:00 p.m. or so at the Coliseum Bar. Alex went with her as he often did. Alex helped her set up and prep for the next night - New Years Eve. The owner of the bar said to give him a couple of free drinks for helping out. She said he had a couple of beers and then she served him two Captain Morgan Cokes.

One of her friends was there and had a little too much to drink so Alex drove the friends car to her home as it was close by and his girlfriend followed. They spent some time there. Alex had a couple shots of whiskey there.

Alex was hungry and tired and had to work the next morning. Now, the girlfriend said that Alex was drunk at this time and he wanted to go to Perkins Restaurant and eat. They left about 12:30 a.m. or so to go to Perkins. She said Alex fell asleep on the way so she decided to go through the drive-through at McDonald's instead. On the way to McDonald's driving down Highway 55 she said Alex woke up and told her to pull over, he wasn't feeling well . . . which she did. He opened the door got out and spit a few times, got back in and said, "Can we go to Perkins now?" She told him he was too tired and he asked, "Perkins now?" So they went.

They were sitting at Perkins, ordered their meal and Alex fell asleep waiting for the food. His girlfriend woke him and told him she would get the food boxed up and they would take it home and eat it there. Alex went out to the vehicle and waited for her there, falling asleep.

She drove them home and woke Alex when they got there, got him into the house and to the bedroom to get ready for bed. He went to the bathroom and then to the bedroom where his girlfriend was. He shut the door and stood in front of it and then called her, "a fucking bitch." She said she was surprised because he never acted like this before and she couldn't believe it. She then asked Alex why he was being like this and told him she was going to the kitchen to eat. She said he then shoved her and again called her, "a fucking bitch" and told her she wasn't leaving and shoved her a second time knocking over a small table and lamp. She then said she went to the bathroom to take a bath and it would give Alex time to calm down. She shut the bathroom door and then said Alex kicked it in. She then told him she was going for a drive and give him time to calm down.

She left and drove a little ways and called her friend AA to tell her what happened and asked if she could spend the night at her place. This was about 1:30 a.m. that she left home and about 10 minutes or so later went back home to get a few things and let Alex know she would be back in the morning to then take him to work as he had no vehicle to drive.

She parked in the driveway, went in the front door and said it was quiet and she thought maybe Alex fell asleep. She was going to the bedroom and walked by the bathroom seeing Alex lying on the floor with his gun lying on him. He was on his side between the toilet and the bathtub. She said she didn't see a wound but thought he shot himself in the head. She shook his leg to see if he would move and he didn't. She then jumped over him into the bathtub, saw a bullet in the tub and called her friend AA again and asked what to do, she thinks Alex is dead. Her friend told her to call 911, which she then did.

The police asked her to wait outside for them to arrive. She said she then got out of the bathroom and home being very careful not to touch anything because she's watched enough CSI (or some show like it) to know not to mess up any evidence and went outside. She wanted to call me but didn't have my home number.

While his girlfriend told her story her mother had interjected several times, "It was the whiskey. It messes up the mind. It's the whiskey, it's the whiskey."

The police questioned her at the scene and asked her to submit to a gun residue test, which she said pissed her off but she did it. When they took Alex's body away she wanted to run over to him and hit him for doing this.

She said Alex never acted like this before and never talked about killing himself but thought the whiskey changed him. Everything was going great for him . . . her dad was getting him a $20 per hour job, school was going well, there was no reason Alex would have done this other than the whiskey. Her mother then repeated what she said before.

My neighbor's son then said he was going to try getting back with Alex after the first of the year and apologize to him for being angry with him. The girlfriend told my neighbor's son how much Alex missed him and that after the first of the year Alex was going to call him and how she was encouraging him to do so.

Before my son's girlfriend and her mother left, her mother asked me to make sure to include her daughter in all the arrangments. I said I didn't have many pictures of Alex as an adult so I asked his girlfriend to put a picture board together since she had so many pictures of him, which she agreed to do.