I understand that I am a mother and that it is natural that I would want someone to blame for this. But I assure you that I had more than one reason to feel there should have been a more thorough investigation.
Though I knew my son and I knew on day one that this was absolutely not possible as the months went by I had more and more reason to question the conclusion of the investigation.
As mentioned before the police entered through the only ground floor window that lead to a finished room in the basement. The window was actually open though it appeared locked. It was just pulled down to appear that it was secured just as someone might do that was exiting the home and wanted everything to appear normal and secured. Both doors securely locked and dead-bolted and yet the one and only ground floor window - virtually open? The window hidden from view behind large shrubbery. That is the same window the police entered the home through and yet the reason they gave us for saying Brian was the shooter? No sign of forced entry...
It took me ten months to get the police report. I was denied access to it on multiple occasions though it is my right by Georgia law. The report however, showed very little. They charged me nine dollars for 30 pages of what appeared to be about five copies of a few identical pages and on each almost all text was redacted - crossed through in bold black marker. August 24, 2014, when the police left the home after their investigation a short list of what was taken from the scene was left on the coffee table in their home. My son in law brought it to me when he retrieved their computers and cell phones from the house. The item on that list that jumped out at me was: two spent shell casings from a 9mm gun. Two. Three people shot but only two shell casings recovered. That is a very loose end.
Days later the house was professionally cleaned by Serve-Pro and everything gone over with a fine toothed comb. No third shell casing was ever found. There was no carpet in the entire house only hard floors so nothing was going to be lost or camouflaged in carpet and still no third spent shell casing was ever found and I know this because I called the supervisor in charge at Serve-Pro and asked.
If no one was alive to leave the house - how did one get missing? I repeatedly asked that question but never received an answer. Ten months after the tragedy that took the lives of my children I was finally able to get a copy of the report. It contained just a tiny bit more information than we already knew but the main piece of information it contained was that the missing shell casing was noted on that report and it was the shell casing to the bullet that killed Brian...
Not quite three months after my children died my 82 year old neighbor also a long time resident of Paulding County had a heart attack in his driveway. As he fell he hit his head against the bumper of his truck and his poor wife found him when she returned from a ministry meeting later that morning. When the police and emergency crew arrived the police on the scene actually asked her if she thought he had any reason to have harmed himself. Suicide? By throwing himself down on the bumper of his truck? His wife was livid.
Four months after my children were killed - in a county that covers 315 square miles and has a population of 142,763 an 18 year old boy was found shot to death in his car one mile from my son's home. A week later a twelve-year veteran of the sheriff's department and veteran of the military was found shot to death also apparently in the middle of the night along with his wife and twelve year old daughter and 21 year old son - also deemed murder/suicide. This happened about eight miles from my son's home. Three different instances of murder less than 10 miles apart, all within a four month period. Just a coincidence or could it be that there is perhaps just a murderer on the loose in that area.
Another common denominator - Young adult males all around the same age, all in the same geographical area, all could have known some of the same people.
About six weeks after the kids died I hear of an incident told to my daughter in law's mother. I knew Kara was the one that insisted on buying a gun for protection but I had never known why. She says she feared for their safety after an acquaintance of Brian's teenage son came to the door demanding that he send his son out. The boy was angry and cussing and threatening the son. She said, Kara was terrified and called the police to come immediately. At that time Brian, 38 years old had never owned or shot a gun in his entire life. He kept only a baseball bat as protection. He grabbed the baseball bat as the boy tried to push his way in the door to come in after Brian's son. He did not use it of course but held it to discourage the boy from coming in. He told the boy that the police were on the way and he had better leave. The boy turned to leave and as he got almost to his car he turned and screamed back at him "This is NOT over! I will come back here and kill you and your whole damned family!"
They went right out and bought two guns and went to the local firing range to learn to shoot them. According to the police Brian sold his the year before. Kara carried hers in her car.
They moved into the new house shortly thereafter and three years later on August 23 in the middle of the night Brian and his whole family are killed...
Two years prior to this Brian's 16-year old daughter ran away from home and was staying at her boyfriend's house. Brian found out where she was and called the police to come and assist in getting his daughter out of the house and home. They did. At that time, the policemen on the scene warned the boy's mother that she was a minor child and she was interfering with custody and could get in serious trouble for allowing her to stay there. They told the mother if it happened again - she could be arrested. Less than a month later it happened again. A second time Brian called for help to get his daughter home safe and a second time Paulding County came to his rescue. He did not press charges, nor did he want the woman locked up but since she had been officially warned previously the police arrested the boy's mother. The boy was furious cussing and screaming threats at Brian "and included his family" that night also. This I did know about. Paulding County would have also known about it.
The same day that they were all found dead - that same boy was arrested for the first time ever. And he has been in and out of jail almost constantly since that day...
This is on record.
Paulding County helped Brian get an emergency custody hearing before a judge when his son was put out of the car and left on the side of a deserted road at 16 by his mother.
At 14 his daughter also chose to come to live with him. Paulding County DFACS came to their home on several occasions to do home welfare visits when he and Kara had called them so that he could get temporary custody in order to be able to enroll her in school.
They noted on the incident report from the day they were found that there had never been a call to that home for any sort of domestic violence and Brian had been a resident of Paulding County since he bought his first home there at 21 years old. The only calls they had ever had were from him concerning the safety and protection of his children.
He had never laid a hand on any woman ever. He could hardly even put his children on restriction. He had never been in any kind of trouble in his life and had nothing more serious than a minor traffic violation in 41 years.
In the officers own words - "The house was immaculate and nothing appeared to be out of place. It looked as if they had all put on pajamas and just gone to bed."
Just saying that there appears to me to be at least cause for reasonable doubt.
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