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got home right about midnight. My name is Gail O'Neal and Russell Douglas is my son and the first thing I see is my
00:00:08
husband on the phone. I just feel this sense of dread and he was pale and he said, "Russ
00:00:17
is gone." And I said, "Gone." "Gone where?" And he said, "No, Gail, he's gone." I said, "Well, where'd he go?"
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and he said, "Gail, he's gone. He's passed. He's dead." And he said, "I've got to tell you that he was shot. He was
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murdered." And at that point, I couldn't do anything but just kind of sit down. I couldn't do anything
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for minutes, maybe an hour, just kind of sitting there. I couldn't even cry. It was like,
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"What? It can't sink in. And it doesn't feel like, oh, come on. This is bad dream. This is not happening. This isn't
00:01:04
[Music] real. Growing up, he was a a really sweet kid who thought the best of everything and he couldn't wait to help
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people out. He couldn't wait to help set the table. He was the kid who'd go out and pick a wild flower when he was 3,
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four, or 5 years old and come in and say, "Here, mom." And Russell was stubborn and persistent. And one example
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of that is that he was told by his high school counselor he was not college material which really made him mad. So
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he was determined to get into college and so he applied and graduated. So he he was pretty proud of himself just to
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go back and say to the counselor nanner nanner we have 10 acres and about 30 sheep. 30 sheep. You like this life? I
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do love this life. Did Russell like this piece of property to come out here much? Oh, yeah. And uh
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he loved getting out and just relaxing. Hard to believe it's been nine years. Yeah. You know, I mean, my memories
00:02:06
still go back to the day I heard he was killed. And um I think the thing that's hard, and I think it's probably for
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every mom or everybody who's lost a relative that you know you love, is that some of the memories of that person
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start to fade.