by James Halpin
“We’re going with it, but we don’t want to overstate the case,” Richardson said. “We feel that the information is out there already, so people will probably start making the connection on their own. And parents need to know that there’s a possibility someone could be out there encouraging kids to commit suicide. That information could save someone’s life. It would be irresponsible not to print it. But we also don’t want to start a panic. Let’s do a straight news lead about the jumper and get into the possibility of a connection further down. Make sure you’re careful not to suggest there’s a definite connection.”
“What about the investigation?” Daly asked, seeking an official response to the obvious question Wojcik would ask.
“We don’t want to make a suspect go underground, but we think the risk to public safety outweighs that possibility. Besides, if someone is responsible for this, he’s probably already hiding. That’s why the police are trained to track down the bad guys.”
Daly put in a call to Wojcik to deliver the decision, a professional courtesy that would hopefully soften the blow. Wojcik wasn’t happy about it, but he thanked Daly for letting him know. He agreed to answer a few questions on the record for the story before Daly ended the call. Then Daly got to work, typing intently on the keyboard as he cranked out copy for the next day’s edition.
WILKES-BARRE – A teenage girl jumped from the Market Street Bridge into the cold waters of the Susquehanna River on Thursday morning and is presumed dead, according to police.
The girl, identified by the Luzerne County Coroner’s Office as 16-year-old Emma Nguyen, was reported to have jumped from the bridge shortly after 9 a.m., after passers-by had seen her loitering in the area, said Capt. John Miller, of the Wilkes-Barre Fire Department.
Firefighters rushed boats to the river downstream at the Black Diamond Bridge and searched for several hours, but were unable to locate the girl, he said.
“Crews conducted an extensive search of the river, but were hampered by snow melt,” Miller said at the scene. “The river is muddier and moving faster
than normal.”
Nguyen was a junior at Coughlin High School who made the honor roll last semester and who was active in the student council. Prior to jumping into the river Thursday morning, she left a post on her Facebook page apologizing and saying her plans to go to college and medical school had been ruined because she was pregnant.
The note ended with a strange phrase – a phrase police say they have heard before.
“They’re watching me always. Nothing can make it stop,” Nguyen wrote.
The words are identical to the last words spoken by 15-year-old Hanover Area High School student Kimberly Foster, who fatally shot herself last week in a Facebook Live video that went viral.
The Wilkes-Barre Observer has also learned a similar phrase was used by Justin Gonzalez, a 16-year-old Wyoming Valley West Senior High School student who police say hanged himself in his family’s garage in Kingston on Feb. 10.
Gonzalez’s mother, Celeste Gonzalez, says she doesn’t believe her son, a devout Christian, would have committed suicide.
“My Justin was a loving, caring boy who would never want to hurt those he loved,” Celeste Gonzalez said in a recent interview. “He was making plans to go back to summer camp at the end of the school year. Why would he do that if he was going to end it all?”
Celeste Gonzalez also noted that Justin’s hands were handcuffed behind his back. She maintains that is proof he didn’t kill himself.
But Luzerne County Detective Phil Wojcik said the only prints on the handcuffs belonged to Justin, and that there was no evidence that anyone else was present when he died. Victims will sometimes restrain themselves to prevent them from turning back, he said.
However, Wojcik said detectives were looking into the similarities in the final words of the three teenage victims. While there is no indication anyone else was involved, police are trying to understand where the phrase came from, he said.
“It is a strange coincidence for three people who died relatively close together to use the same phrase,” Wojcik said. “We’re just doing our due diligence.”
CHAPTER 9
Thursday, March 29, 2018
5:40 p.m.
Sitting across from Lauren at Leopold’s Pizzeria, Daly was struck by how close she was to becoming an independent woman. He was rightly worried about losing her. So far she’d been occupied with the high school marching band and her friends, and hadn’t had any serious boyfriends. There had been some flirtations, of course, and a boy or two had come by the house over the years to do homework, but Lauren never seemed to keep the same one around long. Daly knew that one day – probably sooner than later – she would meet someone, or leave for Stanford, or just move to her own place across the Valley. His little girl would be gone.
As they shared the house specialty – a Stromboli stuffed with meat, cheese and peppers – Daly told Lauren about his day and the story. He skipped over the threatening letter he’d received that morning. Getting hate mail went with the job, and he didn’t want Lauren to worry unnecessarily.
“What if the guy gets away with it because of your story?” she asked.
“We don’t even know if there is a guy,” Daly said. “Besides, don’t the parents have a right to know if someone is out there trying to kill their kids?”
“I guess so. But it seems kind of wrong to print the story if the police think it could help a bad guy,” she said.
“Well, we don’t work for the police. We work for the readers — the public. Sometimes we have to do things the police don’t like or agree with, but I think we both usually have people’s best interests in mind.”
Daly decided to change gears, so he asked Lauren about her day. It seemed Lauren was being unusually coy. When she said everything had been fine, Daly pressed for more details and learned her friend Mackenzie was also thinking about going away to college.
As Daly nodded and raised a bottle of Yuengling to his lips, Lauren went on to reveal that someone had asked her to the senior prom.
Talk about burying the lede, Daly thought.
“Who is he?” he asked.
“Kevin Fitzgerald,” Lauren said, suddenly keenly interested in her plate.
“Fitzgerald,” Daly said, mulling the name. “The same Kevin Fitzgerald whose father is now in prison?”
“Come on dad, he’s a nice guy,” Lauren said. “Kevin is, anyway.”
A few years back, Daly had covered the story. The Fitzgerald family lived in an exclusive section of Dallas Township, one of the most expensive areas around. Bob Fitzgerald owned a heating and plumbing business and had done quite well for himself. Low-budget ads that ran between the local news broadcasts told viewers to “call Bob for the job” when their furnace quit. Over the years the business had amassed a small fleet of trucks and technicians to serve the region.
The empire came crashing down on New Year’s Day in 2014. Bob had spent the day drinking, so by the time he began arguing with his wife Leslie that evening, his slurred words were belched out in a haze of foul-smelling gin. Bob accused Leslie of cheating on him, which to Daly’s understanding was probably true. Leslie told Bob she couldn’t take his drinking and his mood swings anymore. She demanded a divorce, so Bob ended the relationship on the spot with a shot from a forty-five-caliber Glock. Little Kevin Fitzgerald, then only twelve, came to the door of his parents’ bedroom just in time to see the blood spatter exploding onto the wall from the second shot, which his father sent through his own head.
But as Daly had seen before, oftentimes that second shot is the harder one to make. Maybe the killer is shaking with rage or fear, or maybe he simply lacks the commitment to do the job right. Whatever the reason, over the years Daly often had to qualify that the murder-suicides he covered had been, in fact, attempted. But the attempt was always on that second shot.
<
br /> Bob Fitzgerald went down, but he wasn’t out. After a few months in the hospital, the doctors had fixed him well enough to stand trial for murder. Now, he would almost certainly never again see the outside of a prison.
The little boy who witnessed that atrocity — the child who ran into the room screaming as the blood from his parents soaked through his white tee-shirt — was now about to take Daly’s daughter to the formal dance of the season for the seniors of Dallas High School.
“I’m not sure how I feel about that,” Daly said.
“You should feel happy for me,” Lauren replied.
“I know. I’m happy someone asked you to the prom,” he said. “I just don’t know how I like it being Kevin Fitzgerald.”
“You can’t blame him for what his father did. He’s a really good guy. I think you’ll like him.”
“All right. Why don’t you bring him by the house sometime so I can meet him?”
Aside from his concern about a murderer’s son taking his daughter out, Daly was also worried about how that meeting would go over. He had covered the murder, after all, and had aired Kevin’s parents’ dirty laundry out for the world to see. Some people understand a reporter is just doing his job. Others take it personally.
“I’ll try to be good,” Daly added.
“Thank you. Just give him a chance,” Lauren said. “Aren’t you always the one telling me not to judge people based on appearances?”
“You’re right. And I will,” Daly said, wiping his mouth and dropping the napkin on his plate. “You about done? I want to get going. Penn State is playing Utah tonight in the NIT.”
“Ugh … I hate basketball,” Lauren grumbled.
“But you love me,” Daly said with a smile.
* * *
The sound of shattering glass tore Daly from his sleep. He looked to his nightstand. Three empty beer bottles sat next to a clock that showed it was just after 1:30 a.m. The Nittany Lions had won the championship and Daly had celebrated accordingly. He had only the vaguest recollection of bringing a few beers to his bedroom for a nightcap. There was no recollection of how or when he went to sleep.
Disoriented and startled, Daly looked around his bedroom, wondering what he had just heard. Everything seemed to be in place. In the corner, the fan continued its monotonous whirring. The unused sheets on the other side of the bed were still cool to the touch. Daly began wondering if the sound had been a dream. Not the recurring nightmare, but some perhaps some other dream that had startled him out of sleep.
He was abruptly jarred from his thoughts by the high-pitched shrieking of a smoke detector in the hallway, its blaring alarm cutting through the nighttime silence like a razor. Daly jumped out of bed and opened his door to find a wall of black smoke that rushed at him, obscuring everything but the faint orange glow of fiery death downstairs in the living room. Immediately, Daly’s mind went to Lauren, who had been sleeping in her room down the black hallway. He had to get her out.
“Lauren!” he screamed.
Daly began feeling his way down the corridor, his eyes stinging and his lungs burning from the billowing smoke that had invaded the home. He screamed for his daughter once more and tried holding his breath as he made his way to her room. His lungs, full of smoke and poison, raged in his chest and his mind began feel woozy and lightheaded as he reached Lauren’s door. He crouched low to the floor as he turned the knob and pushed his way in, quickly slamming the door behind him. Gasping for fresh air, Daly wiped at his tear-soaked eyes and tried scanning the room.
“Lauren!” he yelled as he ran to her bedside. “Get up!”
He put his hand on the blanket to shake her. Lauren wasn’t there.
In a panic, Daly ran to the closet in hopes Lauren had taken shelter there. It too was empty. His daughter was missing and thick black clouds of smoke and red-orange tendrils of flame were quickly overrunning the house. Daly didn’t know what to do.
Desperate to find his baby, Daly ran back to the bedroom door, opening it to find the wall of black smoke had extended from floor to ceiling and grown so thick he could no longer see the glow of the flames downstairs. Determined not to leave Lauren to a terrible death, Daly screamed and began feeling his way back through the hallway.
The smoke seared his eyes like hot coals, producing a torrent of tears that left him blind. Blistering heat from a blaze he could not see raged against his skin, scalding his bare feet on the hardwood floor and his hands each time Daly groped the walls to get his bearings. The lungful of air he gulped in Lauren’s room had lost its usefulness. Daly knew he needed to breathe again if he were going to continue searching the house. But taking a breath of the scorching black poison that filled the hallway would undoubtedly destroy his lungs and lead to a fit of coughing. As Daly gasped for air, he would suck in more and more of the noxious fumes. Then he would lose consciousness where he stood, falling in a pile to the hard floor to wait for the racing fire to claim his life.
He couldn’t think it. He didn’t want to think it. Standing in the hallway, Daly began to fill with impotent rage at the realization.
He could not save her.
As he turned back to Lauren’s room, the tears streaming down his cheeks were no longer the result of the smoke alone.
Once back inside, Daly slammed the door shut behind him, gasping for breath as he tried to figure out his next move. It was unthinkable to leave his daughter inside a burning building. He would rather die than leave her alone. But he would certainly die if he tried going downstairs. The living room had transformed into a blistering inferno, with raging red flames spreading across the blackening walls like a cancer. Daly realized that even if he made it to the bottom of the stairs, he would be trapped between the searing flames and the deadly smoke.
The only thing he could do was hope Lauren had escaped.
Daly wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and looked across the room, assessing his situation. A gray, fog-like haze was beginning to fill Lauren’s room, and the air was taking on the bitter, charred smell of the fire. But for now, Daly was still able to breathe it. He took another breath and ran over to the window, fumbling with the lock in the dark.
He managed to unlatch the lock and raised the window, but then was unable to find the release to open the storm window behind it. He groped around in the growing haze before finding the tabs at the bottom of the pane. They stuck as he tried to release their grasp on the window frame.
Squeezing his fingertips with all his effort, Daly pulled the left tab free — but the right one would not budge.
A trickle of black smoke that had been wafting underneath the bedroom door had intensified to a torrent, and clouds of smoke had begun spewing through a heating vent as well. As he took a breath and tasted the acrid smoke, Daly began a coughing fit he knew he needed to control. He swallowed hard to stifle the cough and lifted his tee-shirt over his mouth in a futile effort to filter the smoky air.
He had seconds left before the door would collapse under the heat of the fire and the room would became his grave. The time for struggling with the window tabs had passed.
Daly turned from the window, seeking something he could use to break it. He seized the case from Lauren’s clarinet off a nearby chair on which it had been perched. Holding the case by one end, he punched it through the storm window, sending glass shattering down to the ground below like glistening drizzle. He ran the case around the perimeter of the frame, knocking loose the remaining shards of glass, then stuck his head out the window and dipped below the torrent of billowing smoke. After taking a deep breath, he ducked back inside and pulled the chair against the wall. Daly climbed on top of it and put his hands on the window sill so he could stick his legs out and go feet first.
As he lowered his legs out the window, Daly could feel tiny shards of glass slicing deep into his palms and fingers like razor blades. He tried to ignore the pain as he worke
d to lower himself as far down as possible. When his arms were fully extended, Daly looked down, seeing the trash cans on the lawn against the house — directly beneath him.
Daly put his bare toes on the side of the house and tried to push out as he released his grip. His body plummeted to the ground, twisting slightly backward and away from the garbage cans before landing with a dull thud on the hard turf. The impact knocked the breath out of his lungs, leaving him gasping and sucking for air that would not flow. A jolt of pain shot through his right ankle like an arrow, and his right wrist began throbbing. When Daly reached down to feel the damage to his ankle, he realized his palms were wet with oozing red blood.
All of it barely registered in his mind. The only thing that mattered at the moment was his daughter.
“Lauren!” Daly shrieked into the night after his breath finally returned.
The house was quickly becoming engulfed in flames, and menacing dark smoke poured out of the windows as it drifted peacefully upward, melding with the black night sky. Daly pulled himself up and began hobbling around the house, desperately looking for a sign that Lauren had escaped.
“Lauren!” he screamed, his shrill voice echoing through the quiet neighborhood.
As he continued limping around the perimeter, he realized he hadn’t grabbed his cellphone off his nightstand. With no way to call for help, Daly began yelling into the night in hopes a neighbor would hear and make the call.
After his second circuit around the flaming house, Daly collapsed to the ground, defeated. There was no sign of Lauren, and intense flames had burst out every window and were already beginning to claim the roof. If she was inside, she was gone.
Tears streamed down his face as he knelt on the ground, watching his life go up in smoke. After Jessica died, Lauren was all Daly had left. It was Lauren who made him keep going in the aftermath. When Daly began hitting the Scotch every night, it was Lauren who made him realize that he needed to be there for her. It was Lauren who gave Daly the strength to slow the boozing, even if it meant being tormented by the dream. And it was Lauren who gave Daly the strength he needed to get through the trial.
