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48 Hours [Music] presents imagine being 9 years old and learning that someone wanted to
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kill you your dad your brothers and your mom that's what I found out when I was 9 years
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old it All Began on a perfect summer day it was the end of summer August it was hot sunny not a cloud in the sky and we
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spent all day at the beach and everything was ideal until that night when everything
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Chang changed my uncle was a police officer and he worked the midnight shift my dad left for work just like
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normal he hadn't gone probably half a mile from our house when a car pulled up behind him pulled out alongside him and
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he was shot through the driver side window of his car with a shotgun the shakun blast tore through his face
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and ripped off his lower jaw before he lost Consciousness he wrote not an accident he realized that
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they were trying to kill him and he feared for his family's life on that summer night my childhood
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ended I was never alone again we were guarded 24 hours a day everybody had a gun we were fenced in we
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had an attack dog we had a sniper on the roof with a longrange rifle you couldn't
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go out I had hidden a steak knife under my mattress and I would just lay there and
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listen I just knew that the people who shot my father were not going to stop until we were all dead
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[Music] next door to our house there was an old old graveyard it sounds morbid but it was
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actually this beautiful place to go and play there were these old trees that you
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were perfect for climbing and grassy lawn to play tag and hide and seek and we spent a lot of time over
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there family with Massachusetts was the ideal place to grow up every summer day we would get up in
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the morning my mom would pack a lunch and we would head out to Old Silver Beach by the end of the summer we'd all
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be brown as berries and just relaxed and [Music] happy that summer it was me my two older
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brothers Eric and Shawn my dad my mom my mom was studying to be a nurse and then my cousin Kelly who was
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helping out my parents take care of us kids she was there to have fun but she was babysitting was how she earned her
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rent my father was a police officer dad's first day in uniform in his uniform my dad looked
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incredibly handsome I thought he looked like a movie star to me he seemed Invincible my uncle John was a guy that
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you didn't mess with he took his job and his position very seriously the John buby I fell in love with
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was an athlete he was handsome he was very self-confident he was one of the nicest
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fathers he was a wrestler on the ground kind dad and I hold my little girl close kind
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of dad John always gave us the sense of safety and that nothing would happen to us as as long as he was
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around August 31st 1979 was what changed our lives forever nothing was ever the [Music]
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same August 31st 1979 this was the Friday the start of Labor Day weekend we were out in the
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driveway painting my dad's car this was my mom's way of getting us out of the house that night so that my dad could
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sleep because he worked the midnight shaft and this is a photo that my mom took of me that night when I was growing
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up it was really hard for me to look at because I would look at this girl and I would study her face and I would think
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what is that girl thinking about like what is her life like because it felt like after that night
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that childhood ended so that night my dad got up to get ready for work my brothers and I would have been
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in bed when I heard the knock on the door I was watching Benny Hill and in fact I was laughing I can
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remember I heard someone screaming or crying [Music] and um at first I thought it was the
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TV and um I woke up and I came out of my room and I saw my Dad's friend Rick Smith was
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there and he was in uniform and he was talking to my mom and she was crying and screaming and she kept saying no no no
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no and she kept trying to push him away from her I said Paulie there's there's been
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an incident involving John and she goes what happened what happened and I said he'd been
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shot I made a noise I remember making a noise and falling back against the wall and sinking down I was saying what
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what's wrong what's going on and she didn't even acknowledge that I had come out of my room there was a a great deal
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of confusion um we knew something bad had happened to him and I told Kelly I'll call you as soon as I know what's
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happening and the next thing I knew I was in the cruiser I could see lights lights
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everywhere and I could see John's Volkswagen riddled with holes and I thought to myself this is
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bad this is really bad by the time we got to the hospital there was a doctor and the nurses and he was he was in a
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triage unit the doctors were all over him and he kept beckoning that he wanted to write wanted to
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write my dad managed to write a note he said paully and the kids not safe when he wrote that note I knew there was one
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person in town that was capable of trying to kill John and that person was capable of killing his whole
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family it felt like I was in a storm and I didn't know how bad that storm was going to
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get or if any of us were going to be safe again [Music] ever my art Polly had just left with the
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police officer instructions were to stay away from the windows and keep the house unlit and
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keep the door locked I closed all the shutters and locked all the doors and turned out the
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lights I don't know how much time had passed but I saw the lights of a car pull into the driveway I was expecting a
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police crew Cruiser to pull into the yard and it was [Music] not there was a guy in a red car and he
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had a rifle I didn't recognize him I can remember that the children at least Sean
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was very panicked saying who's that guy he's got a he's got a gun is he coming to kill
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us I was scared I was in great fear that that individ ual was going to come in and kill whoever was in the
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house get in the back of the house get in the back of the house there was a lot of things going
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through my mind to flee was not an option there was no way out all I could think of is we need to
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hide and make it look like there's nobody still at the house everything everything was Whispers
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I said we need to be quiet until they go away then we heard someone knock at the
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door knocking Lou or knock knock knock Kelly just said stay quiet stay quiet and I'm just talking to myself
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saying he's going to go away it's going to be okay we're going to be okay please
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stop knocking at the door please go away [Music] and then it stopped I took a deep breath thinking
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thank God it's over he's going away and suddenly I heard knocks at the back door it was then that I realized they
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weren't going away that's when Kelly said this is the plan I want you guys to go into the
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attic and hide in there do not come out of the attic until I come and get you or until your mom
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comes home don't come out for anybody else all I could think was we're going to go up in the attic and this guy's
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going to come looking for us and we have to be so quiet and not move it was hard to balance on the
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Rafters and I was in a night gown and I didn't want to fall into the insulation which was very prickly so I was just
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trying to stay still really hard and not move or make a sound and we just waited for whoever was going to whoever
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was going to come up [Music] there the kids are in the Attic guy still knocking at the back
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door not going away and I remember thinking what am I going to do the first thing I had to do is protect those
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children and make it look as though they weren't home and if there was entry into
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the house that I was the only one in the [Music] residence I walked over to the window
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which is right beside the door and at that moment the guy pulled out a police badge he said he was a fouth police
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officer and that he was here to watch over John Busby's family we heard Kelly say he's a cop it's okay
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you can come down and then once we heard that we were like okay it's safe throughout the evening more police
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officers showed up to watch the home and at that point I realized that it just wasn't going to be okay the next day
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[Applause] they were trying to get an airway down they couldn't get it down so they
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started giving him morphine and I heard somebody say he won't go down we we can't get him to
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relax and get the airway in one of the officers behind me and I think it was Rick Smith he said we have
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somebody at the house with the kids we've got somebody there and others on in route and it was like you could see
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John just relax he relaxed he laid back and they slipped an airway in I really believe that John
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overwhelmed the doctors at the the felic hospital they'd never seen anything like
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that they didn't know quite what to do John looked like a monster his beautiful handsome face went
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right to hear normal and then it was like T tissue had stretched and stretched and stretched and right about
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here on his chest was his chin there was no jaw I wondered how how are we going to
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repair this how are we going to put this back together from the Falmouth Hospital they
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took him by ambulance to Mass General Hospital they reassured me that they'd got in him
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there in enough time to keep him from bleeding out but it would depend on how strong he was to come through the
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[Music] surgery police in Falmouth today are looking for suspects who fired into the
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face of an officer there 36-year-old John Busby was driving to the morning after the shooting we left to go stay
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with my uncle near the hospital where my dad was staying in Boston no one was told where we were
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going and when we got there we were told not to tell anyone where we were staying
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or who we were staying with this was the beginning of the year that we [Music] disappeared what do you think of the
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police response chat now on Facebook and Twitter [Laughter] [Music] [Music] when John became uh aware in the
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recovery room his eyes fluttered some and then he started going from tube to tube and then he realized he couldn't
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talk and I I saw a look in his eyes almost of you know I I can't talk and then he saw me sitting
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there and he wrote don't leave leave me like [Music] this he didn't want to be on a
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respirator or be an invalet like that and if the choice came I needed to let him go I needed to
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let him die I said you can't leave me here you can't leave me with these three kids I I can't be left alone you have to
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stay you have to come back we'll make it he couldn't speak he couldn't breathe he couldn't eat he couldn't even
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drink water I mean he couldn't do anything because they had wired shut what was left of his
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face once I saw him I thought wow they really meant to kill him and I remember going to bed some nights and I would
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just lay in bed and think my dad everybody likes my dad who could want to kill my
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[Music] dad my father knew the instant that he was shot who was trying to kill him and
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he was able to communicate that to the officers who were there on the scene when I first saw him he was
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shaking shaking like a dog he was holding the towels up to his face and and I I asked him who did this John and
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he got out a pen and a notebook that he always carried with him and he wrote not
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an accident Mel rainy John did not see who shot him but he knew exactly who would want him
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dead Melvin rainy was in the trash hauling business he had contracts all over Cape
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Cod and it was very lucrative he was a convicted asinus he had a reputation of getting
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even with individuals by sneaking in the night and burning properties his favorite saying was I
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smell smoke I smell smoke which meant you know without directly threatening it meant there's going to be a fire in your
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future your house your car whatever I'm going to burn something of yours Melvin rainy was also suspected of
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murder he was suspected of killing three people and in two of those cases the bodies have never been
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recovered melbour Rainey was married to a woman named Wanda mados rainy and um in 1971 she went missing he claims that
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he dropped her off at the bus station and she was never seen again about a year later a teenage boy in
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Falmouth named Jeff Lanigan went missing he was dating a 17-year-old girl who had been babysitting for the Rainy
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family who Melvin was also interested in Jeff Flanigan was found shot to death his body was recovered in a
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cranberry barog directly across the street from Melvin rini's home and then a former employee of
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Melvin rainy a 17-year-old boy named Paul alwart was set to testify against Melvin in a grand jury arson
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investigation the police promised that he would be protected they escorted him to the
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Martha Vineyard fairy where he could go out to where he had some family and stay
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there until the trial he got on the ferry he didn't get off Melvin reeney basically walked free
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on all all of those accounts I think because people were afraid to prosecute him and I'm talking
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about policemen afraid of him because they had families and they go to bed at night and you don't know if he was going
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to burn the house down with your kids in the house I knew that the police chief's
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car had burnt in his yard and everybody assumed that it was you know Melvin but nobody could prove
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it I think Melvin Rainey considered himself Untouchable and that extended to his immediate family so if the police
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tried to give a ticket to anyone in his family he would March into the police station and have the ticket torn up and
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have it erased from the log book well my dad was either brave enough to take on Melvin Rainey or he was fool
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hearty enough to take him on if you broke the law he didn't care who you were who you were connected to you were
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going to get a ticket you were going to go to court so he had run-ins with them my dad was conducting traffic at a
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roadblock at a fatal accident and Melvin rainy's brother John Ry was there in his
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semi and instead of waiting for this scene to be cleared he just decided to drive straight through the accident
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scene and he actually hit my father with his truck he went to his house and arrested
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him and charged him with assault and battery with a deadly weapon and just prior to that court
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hearing John Busby was shot I thought instantly that Melvin Rainey had shot him and now we're going to start after
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Melvin I think there were a lot of cops on the force who wanted to go straight to rainy's house and just drag him out
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but there were a lot of other people people who were positions of power who were really too scared to to do anything
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about it I would challenge anyone to go to any Police Department and ask the question
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if one of their officers was shot in the line of duty what would they do and I can tell you that the response will be
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they're not going to stop investigating that crime until an arrest is made this did not happen in the town of
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fouth when John Busby was shot this is the police log from that night you know the local paper does the log
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of accident fight in progress disorderly group noisy house at the hour of my dad
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shooting there was nothing they didn't put it in they took it out of the police log I mean they've
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got everything else in here dog barking two drunks near Russell and fou Heights um you know every single te anything in
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town is in here and for some reason the police log doesn't state for that night that a police officer was
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shot to my knowledge the Falmouth Police Department never interviewed Melvin reeney regarding the John Busby
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shooting I've often wondered just exactly how this little guy could get away with the stuff
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that he got away with without even being questioned it was clear to a lot of us that there was something behind the
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scenes that was much more powerful than Melvin Rey Melvin Rey had something on someone whether he was paying people in
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envelopes or whether he had pictures from some sort of sexual act he clearly had so much control that the police
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didn't go after him nobody was going to do anything about a crime involving Melvin
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[Music] Rey Michael John did not want to die Michael John wanted to live and live
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to take care of what happened to him their biggest mistake was they didn't kill him that was their biggest
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mistake 48 Hours presents will [Music] continue my name is John BOS they didn't but I
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[Music] did someone's going to do a voice over for me I'm a little hard to understand
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but these are my words and this is my [Music] story I was on my way into work the
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midnight shift a vehicle pulled up behind me pulled out as if to pass it didn't pass
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it matched my [Music] [Applause] speed I got word while I was in the hospital that the investigation had been
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been totally botched I determined there was only one way that Justice was going to be done
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and I was going to have to supply it I was going to have to get healthy get out of the
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hospital and kill this guy [Music] we came back from Boston we drove to our house and when we
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pulled into the driveway there were police cars in the driveway the police made it clear that
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we needed to be protected we had at least two guards our property 24 hours a day and they were
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well [Music] armed everywhere I went there was a cop I had a police officer follow me to
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school wait outside my classroom all day in the lunchroom everywhere I went my first day back to school we went
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down to the lunchroom a boy came over to the table leaned over to me and said you
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know why that cop's here don't you because somebody wanted to kill your dad and somebody's going to come and kill
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you they were thought of as being different at that time and not in a special way but in a way of almost like
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a virus kids had been told don't sit by her they were transferred out of my classroom because what parent wants
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their kid next to you know a ticking Time Bomb basically life was spent speculating who somebody was who was
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traveling Too Close to You didn't matter where you were you thought about who's beside me and what could they do to
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[Music] you we had police protection for the first few months when we were [Music]
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home when it started costing the town so much money that it was busting the bank
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I guess they decided to protect us in a different way an 8 foot fence an alarm system and a guard
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dog his name was Max I did not like max if I was in the yard without my dad that dog had to be chained up if he
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thought somebody was going to hurt my dad even if it was me he would just bite your throat
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out getting him meant that our family dog tiger had to be given away because she was terrified of him
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we had gone from a really regular family where my parents were really loving to things being very serious all the time
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we used to go to the beach do things together as a family and now we just I mean we really just didn't leave our
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house as a group anymore my uncle was very quiet and you could almost see the turmoil in his
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thought process you could see he was thinking thinking all the time there was a simmering anger that was
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building all physicality between us and him ended because he was injured you felt like you couldn't get close to him
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physically or emotionally anymore his personality was just so different he just seemed like he was in a different
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world two or 3 days would go by and I would just stay in my room felt like my head was going to
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explode I started pushing my family away from me pushing my wife the children away from
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me we were living in our own prison and the people who had done that to me were living their normal
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lives the only way out of this mess was leaving town moving my family somewhere safe by then I would be healthy and
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strong and able to arm myself with an untraceable [Music] weapon I was going to cut through the
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woods across from the dump and I was going to wait for Melvin to empty his truck there was no way I could miss him
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he'd be a Sitting Duck and that was my plan put a hole in his head right through the
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windshield and finish him [Music] [Music] off I would come home from school sometimes I would just go into my
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room and sit on my bunk bed and I would just stare out the window window and wait for it to get
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dark I just wanted the day to be over I just wanted the days to go by I wanted the waiting to end for whatever whatever
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was going to happen the only place we could think of that no one would ever think that we
00:32:44
would live is in the middle of the country and when we put the names of places that had accepted me as a nurse
00:32:51
in a hat and Drew out Tennessee we gave it a go once we knew where we were moving my parents made it
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very clear to us that we couldn't tell anyone anything about where we were being
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relocated Max our killer dog was sold back to the training center and the town of Falmouth was kind enough to let us
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keep the money and we would need every scent of it my compensation for getting shot in
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the line of duty was $200 a week he was shot twice he was shot once physically Al by a shotgun and he was
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shot the second time by the town when they gave him the boot they said it's it's easier for you to just go live
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someplace else than live here and we'll save money and you'll be on your [Music]
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way the town ordered a police escort for us as far as the born Bridge goodbye and
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good riddance we weren't their problem anymore I assumed the so-called investigation
00:34:05
into my shooting would end as soon as we cleared the bridge that morning and I was
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[Music] right as we were driving South it was August when we moved and it just got
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hotter and hotter every day that we were driving it felt like we were driving into hell
00:34:30
and I do remember thinking you know after everything that we've been through and how crappy Our Lives had become and
00:34:36
now this is what we get this is our Escape our new life was to move to this place which was in the middle of
00:34:43
nowhere it just felt like you know adding insult to injury it was like and then after this here's your prize here's
00:34:51
what you get you know [Music] we had to assume disguises almost to fit in and to not stand out and make make
00:35:04
ourselves too obvious I became like the girls at school I pretended I had a Southern
00:35:12
accent I got a perm I started wearing lip gloss and I lied I lied about our past why we had moved there what had
00:35:26
happened to my father what was wrong with his face you know when you tell a lie for
00:35:33
long enough and it sort of becomes your [Music] reality those people that lived in Cape
00:35:41
Cod that little girl and my dad and all of us they really did disappear I mean we relocated to Tennessee but the people
00:35:49
that we were are gone forever the first couple of years that we lived in Tennessee we watched very
00:36:03
carefully we lived in a very isolated area John watched cars that went by the house to see if they slowed down and
00:36:11
that finally wore away it went away he kind of looked like the old John except for the fact that he had this
00:36:20
huge mountain man beard I believe that John needed that type of place for a healing process we
00:36:29
lived on a large farm he did a lot of work on that farm when he was physically able he split wood we would never need
00:36:38
just for the physical smashing of an an axe through a piece of something from time to time I had to
00:36:49
return to Boston for surgery and that meant shaving my beard off and every time I shaved my beard off
00:36:57
I would see what they had done to me and the angle would just come flooding back while I was up in Boston I visited
00:37:08
my uncle he always called me nephew he said nephew come down in the cellar I got something I want to show
00:37:18
you we went down the cellar he opened up a gun case and there was a 22 caliber rifle
00:37:28
it had a scope on it and on the end of it was a silencer it was everything I needed I looked at the gun my uncle had
00:37:42
put together I wrote a few words in my notebook and showed it to [Music] him thank you for all your effort I
00:37:52
won't need it when John returned from that surgery he came through the door and before he said
00:38:03
hello or anything else he looked me straight in the eye and he said I'm done I'm done with surgery I'm done with
00:38:11
going back there I'm really done and I said I'm done too I really felt we had turned a corner
00:38:22
that he was leaving the revenge and his hatred behind and that he was going to to embrace his family and his life we
00:38:30
were heading forward with the person that John grew into to be the Manny is today in 2003 there was actually a break
00:38:43
in my dad's case there was a confession the rainies had started turning on each other fighting over
00:38:51
money and they'd gone into the police and started spilling family secrets 24 years after my dad's shooting
00:38:59
John Rainey finally came clean he placed the entire blame for my dad's shooting on his brother Melvin
00:39:07
rainy Melvin's brother told the whole story of the night of John's shooting Melvin sat in the back seat he
00:39:17
had a ski mask on according to his brother he had a shotgun which he put out the back
00:39:25
window as they slowly passed John's Volkswagen he shot around from the shotgun which went through Jon's
00:39:36
face in a sense it was Vindication John was right all those years he'd been right it was Melvin rainy who wanted him
00:39:46
dead they remain unpunished and they will remain unpunished because the statute of limitations the sad part of
00:39:52
this Vindication was the fact that it came to light after the stat I limitations so no legal process would
00:40:01
happen in some ways Melvin did get punished Melvin is in a state institution he has what is reported to
00:40:10
be pix disease which is a disease that affects the brain I'm told that he's in a state of dementia you know what goes
00:40:19
around comes around he he's getting what's rightly his I guess [Music] this is the only childhood I
00:40:34
had to have lived through it and be here today I just feel like it's made me who
00:40:40
I am it's touched every part of my life I write books for kids I'm a mom and I'm a wife well I can't think of
00:40:51
anything else that I would yeah I have it all quite frequently I compare what has
00:41:04
happened to Melvin and what I'm going through now there's no doubt in my mind that I
00:41:11
won no [Music] question we now live in paradise and we are so content with one another we've
00:41:22
come through a storm and now we're at peace [Music] another Amazing Story of Survival I opened up the door and said
00:41:53
it's the police department Marty are you home something was wrong because she would
00:42:00
not just miss work Marty is a big bunch of dynamite and a little bitty package she might weigh 97 lb soak and wet there
00:42:09
was a person laying on the floor covered head to toe in blood I started crying and saying all I want to do is talk to
00:42:16
my mom who did this who did this to you Marty someone had broken into my grandma's house maybe it was the same
00:42:24
person and maybe someone was after our family whoever did it was still out there 48
00:42:30
Hours presents Live to Tell coming up next