“This is the only time that a news camera will be allowed to photograph the interior of the Leonard house. You’re about to see the kitchen where Miriam Leonard and her two daughters, Jessica Hamilton and Elizabeth Shannon, spent the last few seconds of their lives, and where seven-year-old Randy Hamilton, with two bullets in his small body, fought to save the life of his infant brother, Joseph.
“The janitors have not been in here yet, so you will be seeing the kitchen just as it was when investigators finished with it.”
For a moment, it looks as if she might say something else, then she lowers her gaze and steps to the left as the camera moves slightly to the right and the kitchen is revealed.
The sight is numbing.
The kitchen is a slaughterhouse. The contrast between the blood and the off-white walls lunges out at the viewer like a snarling beast escaping from its cage.
The camera pans down to the floor and follows a single splash pattern that quickly grows denser and wider. Smeary heel- and footprints can be seen. The camera moves upward: part of a handprint in the center of a lower counter door. The camera moves farther up: the mark of four bloody fingers on the edge of the sink. The camera moves over the top of the sink in a smooth, sweeping motion and stares at a thick, crusty black whirlpool twisting down into the garbage disposal drain.
The camera suddenly jerks up and whips around, blurring everything for a moment, a dizzying effect, then comes to an abrupt halt. Tanya is standing in the doorway of the kitchen with her right arm thrust forward. In her hand is a plastic pistol.
“This is a rough approximation of the last thing Elizabeth Shannon saw before her youngest brother shot her to death.”
She remains still for a moment. Viewers cannot help but put themselves in Elizabeth’s place.
Tanya slowly lowers the pistol and says, “The question for which there seems to be no answer, is, naturally, ‘Why did he do it?’ ”
“We put that question to several of the Leonards’ neighbors this evening. Here’s what some of them had to say about seventeen-year-old Andy, a young man who now holds the hideous distinction of having murdered more people in a single sweep than any killer in this nation’s history.”
Jump-cut to a quick, complicated series of shots.
Shot 1: An overweight man with obviously dyed hair saying, “I hear they found a tumor in his brain.”
Insert shot: Merchant Street as it looked right after the shootings, clogged with police cruisers and ambulances and barricades to keep the growing crowd at bay.
Shot 2: A middle-aged woman with curlers in her hair saying, “I’ll bet you anything it was his father’s fault, him bein’ a gun lover and all. I heard he beat on Andy a lot.”
Insert shot: Lights from a police car rhythmically moving over a sheet-covered body on the front lawn.
Shot 3: An elderly gentleman in a worn and faded smoking jacket saying, “I read there were all these filthy porno magazines and videotapes stashed under his mattress, movies of women having relations with animals and pictures of babies in these leather sex getups...”
Insert shot: Two emergency medical technicians carrying a small black body bag down the front porch steps.
Shot 4: A thirtyish woman in an aerobics leotard saying, “I felt that he was always a little too nice, you know? He never got... angry about anything.”
Insert shot: A black-and-white photograph of Andy taken from a high school yearbook. He’s smiling, and his hair is neatly combed. He’s wearing a tie. The voice of the woman in shot 4 can still be heard over this photo, saying, “He was always so calm. He never laughed much, but there was this... smile on his face all the time...”
Shot 5: A little girl of six, most of her hidden behind a parent’s leg, saying, “I heard the house was haunted and that ghosts told him to do it...”
Insert shot: A recent color photograph of Andy and Russell Brennert at a Halloween party, both of them in costume. Russell is Frankenstein’s monster, and Andy, his face painted to resemble a smiling skeleton, wears the black hooded cloak of the Grim Reaper. He’s holding a plastic scythe whose tip is resting on top of Russell’s head. The camera moves in on Russell’s face until it fills the screen, then abruptly cuts to a shot of Russell in the foyer of the Leonard house. He’s on his knees in front of the massive bloodstain on the wall. He’s wearing rubber gloves and is pulling a large sponge from a bucket of soapy water. A caption at the bottom of the screen reads: “Russell Brennert, friend of the Leonard family.”
He squeezes the excess water from the sponge and lifts it toward the stain, then freezes just before the sponge touches the wall.
He is trembling but trying very hard not to.
Tanya’s shadow can be seen in the lower right-hand corner of the frame. She asks, “How do you feel right now?”
Russell doesn’t answer her, only continues to stare at the stain.
Tanya says, “Russell?”
He blinks, shudders slightly, then turns his head and says, “Wh-what? I’m sorry.”
“What were you thinking just then?”
He stares in her direction, then gives a quick glance to the camera. “Does he have to point that damn thing at me like that?”
“You have to talk to a reporter eventually. You might as well do it now.”
He bites his lower lip for a second, then exhales and looks back at the stain.
“What’re you thinking about, Russell?”
“I remember when Jessie first brought Theresa home from the hospital. Everyone came over here to see the new baby. You should’ve seen Andy’s face.”
Brennert’s voice begins to quaver. The camera slowly moves in closer to his face. He is oblivious to it.
“He was so... proud of her. You’d have thought she was his daughter.”
He reaches out with the hand not holding the sponge and presses it against the stain. “She was so tiny. But she couldn’t stop giggling. I remember that she grabbed one of my fingers and started... chewing on it, you know, like babies will do? And Andy and I looked at each other and smiled and yelled, ‘Uncle attack!’ and he s-started... he started kissing her chubby little face, and I bent down and put my mouth against her tummy and started blowing real hard, you know, making belly-farts, and it tickled her so much because she started giggling and laughing and squealing and k-kicking her legs...”
The cords in his neck are straining. Tears well in his eyes, and he grits his teeth in an effort to hold them back.
“The rest of the family was enjoying the hell out of it, and Theresa kept squealing.. that delicate little-baby laugh. Jesus Christ.. he loved her. He loved her so much, and I thought she was the most precious thing... she always called me ‘Uncleruss’ — like it was all one word.”
The tears are streaming down his cheeks now, but he doesn’t seem aware of it.
“I held her against my chest. I helped give her baths in the sink. I changed her diapers — and I was a helluva lot better at it than Andy ever was... and now I gotta... I gotta scrub this off the wall.”
He pulls back his hand, then touches the stain with only his index finger, tracing indiscernible patterns in the dried blood.
“This was her. This is all that’s... that’s left of the little girl she was, the baby she was... the woman she might have grown up to be. He loved her.” His voice cracks, and he begins sobbing. “He loved all of them. And he never said anything to me. I didn’t know, I swear to Christ I didn’t know. This was her. I — oh, goddammit!”