On the left are the stairs to the top floor of the house. Jason came up these. We did not hear him because he said nothing and moved quietly, and his truck had been parked some distance away so that we would not see him drive up. He had entered through the back downstairs door by the kitchen. The dog did not bark. It knew him. We were talking about what we wanted to do with our weekend. It was Saturday, May 7, 2011, noon. There was a farmer’s market coming up soon, the first one for the year in Napa. Brittany offered to make tea. I said sure. We were in the room you see on the lower right hand side of the diagram.
She went to the bathroom immediately adjacent our room that we shared with the handyman/other boarder who was living in the bedroom you see at the top righthand side of the diagram. I was sitting on the bed, using the computer. She turned on the tap in the bathroom to rinse the electric kettle.
There were two sharp bangs, not actually very loud. The house echoed oddly. There were no screams, no cries, no words. The children at the end of the cul de sac had fireworks a few days before. I thought they had bigger ones. I picked up my cell phone to call 9-1-1 and ask the police to come confiscate them before someone was hurt. I didn’t know it, but Brittany was already dead where you see the 1 on the diagram.
The other bedroom door opened. There were another half-dozen bangs in rapid succession. You will note the 2 on the diagram. He hadn’t been expected. Jason was getting rattled. It was overkill. Point blank from less than two feet away.
He heard me say “Hello” to the dispatcher. He entered my room. He held the gun in my face. There was eye contact. I held very, very still and kept the eye contact, looking at him hard. I thought that my only hope was to make him SEE ME. Make myself be a person to him. Make him look in my eyes. It was less than a foot away. He pulled the trigger. It jammed. Multiple times. He was holding it sideways, like a gangster in a music video. He shook it, looked down the barrel, left the room.
I jumped up, pushed Brittany’s massage table in front of the door, locked it, crouched down in the corner where you see the 3. He got angry. I was on the phone with the police. He screamed things. He fired through the door. The bullet ricocheted off the metal frame of the massage table. It hit me in the ankle. I didn’t feel it. I was on the phone with the dispatcher. It was 12:04. My phone said so. It seemed shorter and longer. He was yelling. I tried to adjust position. Slipped. Looked down. Saw blood. Told them I’d been shot. I didn’t know how many times, I thought probably only once, but I hadn’t felt that one.
There were two more shots.
There were no more shots. The SWAT team came. They yelled for him through loudspeakers, then broke into the house. I was still on the phone with 911. The dispatcher told me to move away from the door and stand in the middle of the room with my hands on the back of my head and the phone on speaker. I did. The SWAT team broke in. Cuffed me. Frisked me.
They lead me out into the hallway. I was having trouble keeping my footing. My ankle was weird and bleeding a lot. It was slick. The floors were hardwood. It still didn’t hurt. I saw Brittany. She was on her back, still holding the kettle. The tap was still running. Her chin was tilted back, there were medics. She wasn’t moving. All I could see of her head was the underside of her jaw. I have been told that was a good thing. She was wearing purple leopard fuzzy pajama pants, jelly-bean print panties from the Jelly Belly factory down the road, and a grey Henley with no bra. Her toenails were teal. So were mine. We’d gotten silly and painted them the night before. I kept mine until it all chipped off.
They moved me past her quickly. Maybe half a second. A SWAT officer blocked my view on purpose. I saw even less of the other victim. He was dead. I knew that. He had no medics. He had no chest. He was all over the walls and the door.
Jason was lying where you see the 4, sprawled across the top of the stairs. He was still alive. His chest was heaving. He was squirming. He was making noises like a broken whistle in a bag of jelly. He had no face. One of his teeth was sticking in the floor. They asked me to identify the shooter. Clothes. Beard. Gun. I verified them all. I wanted to step on him. On his twitching hurting face hole. But I didn’t want him on me, and they made me step over him.
They said he took twenty minutes to die. They say the others were dead before they hit the floor. I’m glad.
They took me outside. There were police, medics, press. I did what I was told. They checked my hands with some kind of swab and took me out of the cuffs. I couldn’t have my phone back. I was in my pajamas. I was bloody. The medic put a gauze pad on my ankle and taped it. It soaked through. They added another. It soaked through. They didn’t add any more. I went to the hospital, the police station, the hotel. I talked a lot, calmly, to official people, then got my phone back from the police and talked a lot, calmly, to all the people who weren’t next of kin who were in the phone numbers who the police wouldn’t call. Her friends. Her clients. Her godmother.
I can remember just fine.
Her birthday is this week. She would have been 29. She isn’t.
Yet ANOTHER account, similar, but with embellished/different details
Let me draw you a diagram.
[image of house layout]
On the left are the stairs to the top floor of the house. Jason came up these. We did not hear him because he said nothing and moved quietly, and his truck had been parked some distance away so that we would not see him drive up. He had entered through the back downstairs door by the kitchen. The dog did not bark. It knew him. We were talking about what we wanted to do with our weekend. It was Saturday, May 7, 2011, noon. There was a farmer’s market coming up soon, the first one for the year in Napa. Brittany offered to make tea. I said sure. We were in the room you see on the lower right hand side of the diagram.
She went to the bathroom immediately adjacent our room that we shared with the handyman/other boarder who was living in the bedroom you see at the top righthand side of the diagram. I was sitting on the bed, using the computer. She turned on the tap in the bathroom to rinse the electric kettle.
There were two sharp bangs, not actually very loud. The house echoed oddly. There were no screams, no cries, no words. The children at the end of the cul de sac had fireworks a few days before. I thought they had bigger ones. I picked up my cell phone to call 9-1-1 and ask the police to come confiscate them before someone was hurt. I didn’t know it, but Brittany was already dead where you see the 1 on the diagram.
The other bedroom door opened. There were another half-dozen bangs in rapid succession. You will note the 2 on the diagram. He hadn’t been expected. Jason was getting rattled. It was overkill. Point blank from less than two feet away.
He heard me say “Hello” to the dispatcher. He entered my room. He held the gun in my face. There was eye contact. I held very, very still and kept the eye contact, looking at him hard. I thought that my only hope was to make him SEE ME. Make myself be a person to him. Make him look in my eyes. It was less than a foot away. He pulled the trigger. It jammed. Multiple times. He was holding it sideways, like a gangster in a music video. He shook it, looked down the barrel, left the room.
I jumped up, pushed Brittany’s massage table in front of the door, locked it, crouched down in the corner where you see the 3. He got angry. I was on the phone with the police. He screamed things. He fired through the door. The bullet ricocheted off the metal frame of the massage table. It hit me in the ankle. I didn’t feel it. I was on the phone with the dispatcher. It was 12:04. My phone said so. It seemed shorter and longer. He was yelling. I tried to adjust position. Slipped. Looked down. Saw blood. Told them I’d been shot. I didn’t know how many times, I thought probably only once, but I hadn’t felt that one.
There were two more shots.
There were no more shots. The SWAT team came. They yelled for him through loudspeakers, then broke into the house. I was still on the phone with 911. The dispatcher told me to move away from the door and stand in the middle of the room with my hands on the back of my head and the phone on speaker. I did. The SWAT team broke in. Cuffed me. Frisked me.
They lead me out into the hallway. I was having trouble keeping my footing. My ankle was weird and bleeding a lot. It was slick. The floors were hardwood. It still didn’t hurt. I saw Brittany. She was on her back, still holding the kettle. The tap was still running. Her chin was tilted back, there were medics. She wasn’t moving. All I could see of her head was the underside of her jaw. I have been told that was a good thing. She was wearing purple leopard fuzzy pajama pants, jelly-bean print panties from the Jelly Belly factory down the road, and a grey Henley with no bra. Her toenails were teal. So were mine. We’d gotten silly and painted them the night before. I kept mine until it all chipped off.
They moved me past her quickly. Maybe half a second. A SWAT officer blocked my view on purpose. I saw even less of the other victim. He was dead. I knew that. He had no medics. He had no chest. He was all over the walls and the door.
Jason was lying where you see the 4, sprawled across the top of the stairs. He was still alive. His chest was heaving. He was squirming. He was making noises like a broken whistle in a bag of jelly. He had no face. One of his teeth was sticking in the floor. They asked me to identify the shooter. Clothes. Beard. Gun. I verified them all. I wanted to step on him. On his twitching hurting face hole. But I didn’t want him on me, and they made me step over him.
They said he took twenty minutes to die. They say the others were dead before they hit the floor. I’m glad.
They took me outside. There were police, medics, press. I did what I was told. They checked my hands with some kind of swab and took me out of the cuffs. I couldn’t have my phone back. I was in my pajamas. I was bloody. The medic put a gauze pad on my ankle and taped it. It soaked through. They added another. It soaked through. They didn’t add any more. I went to the hospital, the police station, the hotel. I talked a lot, calmly, to official people, then got my phone back from the police and talked a lot, calmly, to all the people who weren’t next of kin who were in the phone numbers who the police wouldn’t call. Her friends. Her clients. Her godmother.
I can remember just fine.
Her birthday is this week. She would have been 29. She isn’t.