Unbrotherly Love (Rated G-graphic!)

This certainly is not Philadelphia, the city of Brotherly Love. Enid is small town city in northwest Oklahoma with big city crime at times. But all towns have that. No one and I do mean NO ONE is exempt from crime in their town or life for that matter. I have learned never say oh he could never have done that. Oh yes he can or could. As it was on this date late one night I was on patrol when I received a call that a man had just been shot. The dispatchers still had the subject on the phone and advised me that the suspect had left the scene. It was dark, I do not remember what time of year it was, but I do remember it was dark. I was working the "mid-watch" shift (6p-2a) and I am thinking it was in the winter months. I am also thinking it was about 8:00 p.m. We were told the victim had been shot in the chest with a shotgun. Now this is kind of sick but I was thinking wow, this is going to be a gut slinger. A man shot in the chest with a shotgun. As a police officer we do kind of live for sick calls. Man I am flying to the call when my sergeant pulls up right behind me. We both park in the street and run up to the house. The front door is locked and the next thing I know sarge is kicking in the door. I am thinking (very fast) man this poor guy has just been shot and now someone is kicking in his front door. If the shot didn't kill him the heart attack of us kicking in his door might. I really thought that. I thought this is going to be bad, it is going to be bloody, I was ready for it. I was ready to work a really bad call. I was psyched up and ready to go. As we make entry into the house the victim is standing there in the living room on the phone to headquarters. And the big burly man, a big barrel chested man was just standing there on the phone with no shirt on and all that was going on was a few drips of blood coming down his chest. Drip, drip drip. That's it. Where was my gut slinging shot in the chest call? Where is my adrenalin rush, gun toting, bad guy chasing call? This is it???? drip drip drip???? Sarge yells at me to lay the man down on the floor. He tells me to work this as a homicide. I thought, this poor guy is hearing all of this, I am still waiting for the heart attack to take over. The victim tells me his brother had shot him. He tells me the story of how it all came about. The victim was at his house watching TV. He hears a knock on his door so he answers it. It is his brother and he is yelling at him about him cheating with his girlfriend. The brother tries to tell him he is not cheating with his brothers girl friend. But he would not hear of it. He points the shot gun at him about the time the victim pulls the storm door shut and boom. The suspect brother shoots his victim brother right in the chest. The ambulance shows up and takes him to the hospital. I am told he has about 8 or 9 pellets in his heart. They are going to transfer him to OKC but it is foggy out so he will have to be driven the 90 miles rather than med-a-flighted. Sarge comes to me and says, I bet we will work a suicide before the night is over. You see, the brother is mentally unstable and he has not been taking his medicine. The victim just could not reason with his brother. The last he was seen he was driving away to the north in a black pickup from the crime scene. No one had any idea where he was or where he might be going.

Nothing more happened the rest of the night and I was getting ready to get off from work. I got a call to go to the hospital for they were bringing in an assault victim from a small town south of Enid. They asked I check it out and see where the crime occurred so they could determine who would be working it. Who had jurisdiction over this crime. Everyone else was busy and they asked that I stop by and check things out. No problem, the hospital is right by the police department so it was right on my way. I went into the emergency room and was sent to the big room right of the nurses desk. So I walked back there and on the gurney was a guy bleeding profusely from the face. In fact it was really gross. He just laid there making cooing sounds. Sounded like a dove, weird. The ambulance guy tells me that he picked the victim up from the bar where some patrons had heard a horn honking and they went outside to see why the horn would not stop. When they got out to the vehicle they saw a man leaning over on the horn. He had been beaten up severely so 911 was called. No one saw what happened and they did not know him. So we had a mystery on our hands.

I go back to the victim to see if he can tell me what happened. Well I go in and I take a good look at him and decide he won't be telling me anything. No he isn't dead, he has no mouth. We start figuring out this is my victims brother from the earlier call. He was not beaten up, he tried to kill himself...and failed. So after leaving Enid from shooting his brother, this guy now drives to the area south of town. He went to an oil lease road and tried to shoot himself. As he put the shotgun under his chin he reached to pull the trigger but could not quite reach it. As he reached for the trigger, it caused his head to turn a little to the side and tilt upwards. When the gun went off he shot his chin, mouth, teeth, lips, and nose. They were gone. And I do mean gone. It looked like a big ole package of hamburger meat with a hole punched in the middle. It was just ground meat on his face. After pulling the trigger and not killing himself he gets back into his truck. He drives to town for help and as he pulls up to the bar he collapses and lays over on the horn. The patrons come out and find him thinking he has been beaten up call the ambulance and we are back to the present at the hospital. Well I went to talk to the doctor and we looked at the x-rays. It was interesting to see the buckshot all lodged up in the naval cavity. It was like, blow your nose mister and get the lead out.....oops, you don't have a nose. I have called headquarters and told them what I had. By this time the detectives and bigwigs are showing up. We are all in the exam room when the captain starts to ask questions to the man. But he can not talk. So the captain says, someone give him your pen and some paper to right on, we have to have the answer to some questions. It is decided my pen and steno pad gets to be used by the bloody man. Captain is questioning him pretty hard and asks him where is the gun. The guy says it is out on the oil lease road. Captain needs to know where the gun is more specific. We need to recover the gun for many reasons, evidence, and you don't want someone else to get their hands on a loaded shotgun, especially a kid. So the captain sternly says to him, listen mister, I need to know where you got shot, now you better be thinking about it and tell me. The man takes my notepad and in bold short choppy handwriting writes his answer to the captain and you can see the attitude by his body language. He writes: IN THE FACE!!! Captain looks at him and says, "No sh** Sherlock!" and walks out of the room. I saw many officers turn there backs trying so hard to not laugh out loud at the poor man with no face. I think the detective had already figured that much out!!!!

Follow up to the case: The man was rushed to the hospital in OKC where he was treated successfully. The brother who was shot in the heart was released from the hospital in about three days with no surgery. They left the pellets in his heart saying the surgery was too risky. The victim declined to file charges on his brother saying he was mentally unstable and he just could not send him to prison. He refused to cooperate and the district attorney didn't file the charges. The captain went to OKC to give the man some papers about charges being dismissed. This was a few weeks after the incident and reported back to me that they had done reconstructive surgery on the man and if you did not know what had happened you would never guess the man had shot his face off. I don't think he was ever able to talk for he had no tongue and I do not know what ever happened to the brothers. Never heard from them ever again. I hope life if treating them well.