Cold Blooded December

Cold Blooded December
(The murder of Charlene Nail -
and suicide of The Greeley Gunman)
By: David Tyler Hindman
Copyright 2002

On a cold and gray December Eighth,
in a Colorado City,
came a crime that caused my heart to break,
while others had no pity.
A hearing at the D.O.T.,
awaited on the docket,
and a pressed and angry employee,
put a handgun in his pocket.
One hand he kept inside his coat,
while touching cold, blue steel,
and with four bitter angry words,
its contents he revealed.
And just before the trigger-squeeze,
the words were loud and clear.
He told two bosses on that day,
that it would, "All end here!"
I listened to the news that day,
and inwardly I groaned --
the murderer, who chose to slay,
was someone I had known.
And on the following day's front page,
the photos of who died;
the question of a bitter rage,
the nagging question, "why?"
The papers tried to solve that case,
but it was plain to me,
they ended just a bit off base,
through much simplicity.
They wrote him off a lunatic --
that might be what he was,
yet if they'd do real research,
they might find a deeper cause.
But in an angry act so vile,
can victims bear some blame?
Or the bureaucratic system,
found to share some of the shame?
I've mulled the causes in my head,
at least a thousand times --
important little details,
of which the media seemed blind.
I've had the agony of time,
to see mentally pictured ways,
of what must have happened in that room,
and in preceding days.

Not having any knowledge,
of the murder three days hence,
I thought I'd make a social call,
but was sitting on the fence.
I almost dialed the number,
but postponed for future plans,
for I had no time to talk now,to so talkative a man.
When I heard the news I wondered,
why I hadn't made the call.
If I'd helped him with some problems,
would he have killed at all?
The torture of the "what if" games!
What might I have done or said,
if I'd had a single inkling,
that the week would leave two dead?
And now, more quickly to the point,
with comment on the crime,
I lay before you facts to view,
in journalistic rhyme.

In what became our worst travail,
he dropped his hammer on a Nail,
and as she fell upon the floor,
he turned aside to shoot one more.
This victim charged and, pierced with lead,
she didn't move in playing dead,
and in this brave and clever way,
she's, thankfully, alive today.
An irony that's hard to miss,
of bravery and cowardice,
that an offer worker'd be the kind,
to charge a vet who'd lost his mind.

Years of angry pent up rage.
A government job that seemed a cage.
He had asked for a way out,
through transfers. I have no doubt
it could have hushed the brewing storm.
One signature upon a form.
Instead, they kept closed the door,
to an office prisoner of war.

The bosses bear no real shame,
the killer really owns the blame.
Maybe everyone would live,
had he found within him to forgive.
And how could I ever know the kind,
of thoughts that ran all through her mind?
It's easy to judge what she was able,
not sitting with her at the table.
The thing that I most clearly see,
there was no way they could agree,
and through procedures, this and that,
for all of them were set a trap.
A meeting that was sure to bring,
at least some kind of firing.

The sound of shots began the race,
the scramble for a hiding place.
Adrenaline scorched hearts and lungs.
Vengance' song was being sung --
a dreadful, rhythmic, powdered dirge,
propelling every fleeing urge.
As workers hoped each shot would miss,
their thoughts just may have gone like this:

"What's that noise?
It's a shot.
It can't be.
No, it's not.
Yes it is!
Hide in here!
Don't come out,
Coast not clear,
I can't breathe,
Heart is beating.
Not today!
Life's too fleeting.

Numbing now the feeling, feeling,
fast my heart is beating, beating,
throbs now with the pounding, pounding,
as the shots are sounding, sounding,
As my lungs are burning, burning,
Wheels of terror, turning, turning.
Deep now is my resolution.
Murder is not the solution."

Please remember Mrs. Nail.
She deserves each tear you cry.
She prepared for work that day,
with no idea she'd die.
Remember Mr. Nail too,
pray comfort on his life.
On a gray December Eighth,
my "friend" shot dead his wife.
Despair the bleakened Christmas mourn,
unwrapped with extra care.
The loved one who had bought the gift,
is just no longer there.

The killer through a window fled,
jumped, and with limping leg,
sought more victims to recruit,
as candidates that he might shoot.
Believing he was in control,
a date with fate -- the State Patrol.

In a stormy leaded blur,
the bullets of the officer,
struck, with one beside the heart.
Justice now had done its part.

As marksman out of Viet Nam,
the killer could have hit the man.
But if he did, he'd miss his stop --
a chance at "suicide by cop."
A violent ending to the story,
the choice to blaze in faded "glory."
But that is where the story started,
of the wailing, weeping, broken-hearted.

Beside the first death died that day,
the killer threw his life away,
and, through his acts, gave up the chance,
to at his daughters' weddings dance,
and hold them close and cheek to cheek,
and hear their youthful voices speak,
"I love you, Dad," look up and smile,
and hold that time a long, long while.
but through his angry actions rash,
threw children's lives into the trash.
And in the kind of death he died,
all his good deeds seemed nullified.
No longer did they seem to matter,
and rang in ears like noise and clatter.

For me, life grew more dark and daunting.
A friendship turned to ghostly haunting,
with thoughts I knew not what to do,
of a man I wished I never knew.
A friend who now just seemed to bring,
solitary suffering.
Everyone can sympathize,
when a friend's a victim who, sadly, dies,
but who relates should it occur,
your "friend" turns out a murderer?
Or father, husband, son or brother?
What can you say if some discover,
that killer -- you knew him rather well?
So, the pain you hardly ever tell.

Increasingly, across this nation --
deaths of silent isolation,
where hearts curl up and slowly die,
with no one having heard the cry
that with the victims' families too,
"we truly, surely, hurt with you."
Our souls' emotions -- beaten, battered,
Paralysis, and glass hearts, shattered.
We weep and tread the broken shards,
distrusting all, put up our guard,
and walk the cemetery stones,
amongst a crowd, yet so alone.

A tingling chill is what I got,
with every single flinching shot,
the line of men, hired to shoot,
all twenty-one of guns salute,
a man with no apparent qualm,
to volunteer for Viet Nam.
His bereaved believed salute deserved,
he died in dishonor, but in honor served.
And of the war, could not have known,
how much of it that he'd bring home.
But, if his name on stone appear,
I wish it on the blackened mirror --
the D.C. Wall, to stand and ponder.
He could have died a man of honor.
He'd thought that he would not come home,
but, since he did, I ache alone:
Betrayal of friendship. Deep regret.
Acts I wish I could forget.

The victims aren't the only ones,
who suffer evil acts with guns.
It isn't just their families,
who suffer anger's foul disease.

The victims' pain is true and sure,
yet this plain fact should not obscure,
the damage to another life:
The pain felt by the shooter's wife.

If it weren't enough he'd hurt her soul,
the same became the town's new goal,
for as she'd shop while dazed and stunned,
she found that she was being shunned.
Desire arose to hide her face,
in richly undeserved disgrace.
The town, knowing her husband dead,
would have to punish her instead.

One boiling grudge -- vengeance desired,
spread -- moments after shots were fired,
and raising up the town's just ire,
injustice spread like wildfire.

From where I stand, it seems insane,
to make the widow bear the blame.
She is a victim! Is she not?
As surely as if she'd been shot.
What risk bore she to remain living,
with one who didn't seem forgiving?
With him whom she would still abide,
she might have been the one who died.
And, in a way -- she really did,
and toils to feed and clothe the kids.
He killed her spirit, joy and peace.
She never seems to find release,
from life's hard knocks, made harder still --
concerns of how to pay the bills.

It is a story of bitter flavor,
yet he might have done us all a favor,
with a lesson so we all may live,
in peace, once knowing to forgive.
But the warning was not enough to scare us --
four months later: Klebold, Harris.
Disasters still we do not stem,
so, pray for the victims --
all of them.