by Mark Tabb
The banner at the bottom of the screen read, “Coach Ed Thomas Shot.” Jon Thompson was live, speaking at a press conference about what had happened.
“What? I mean, how did this happen?” Todd said.
“Apparently someone came into the weight room this morning and shot him.”
Todd stepped back. His knees gave way, and he dropped to the bed. “Do they know who did it?” Tears filled his eyes. “I think they have someone in custody.”
Todd rubbed his head and tried to force his mind to process what he had just been told. “Where is Dad now? Which hospital did they take him to?”
“Covenant. I’m going to head over there as soon as I can get someone to watch the boys.”
“But he’s going to be all right, right?”
Ellie did not answer. After a long pause, her voice cracked, and she said, “You need to come home as fast as you can.”
Tears flowed down Todd’s face. “All right.” His heart raced. The room seemed to spin. On the television in front of him, CNN’s coverage of the Parkersburg press conference continued. Candice lay on the bed, clutching a pillow to her chest, sobbing. “I don’t know how quickly we can get a flight out of here,” Todd told Ellie. “Let me check on it. As soon as you know something more, let us know.” “I will.”
Todd hung up the phone and stared at the scene in his hometown on the TV screen. A feeling of helplessness swept over him —helplessness and fear. Candice came over and wrapped her arms around him. The two sobbed and prayed. Local time was just after 9:00 a.m. Over an hour had gone by since the shooting.
“This way, Mrs. Thomas,” the hospital official said to Jan as she came into the emergency room area of Covenant Medical Center. “We have a room set aside for you right over here. Reporters and camera crews have already started pouring in, but we’re keeping them in another part of the hospital. Just let me know if you need anything.”
“Thank you,” Jan said. She walked into the waiting room. The new associate pastor from her church, Phillip Jensen, was already there. He had been on the job for less than two weeks, and this was his first staff position. The senior pastor was on vacation, which left Pastor Phil to fill the role of chief comforter. His eyes were red from crying when he looked up at Jan.
When Jan walked in, Pastor Phil got up and hugged her. “Everything is going to be all right,” he whispered to her.
Jan knew better. She closed her eyes, and the image of Ed lying on the floor of the weight room flashed through her mind. She opened her eyes quickly. How can this be happening? The pastor opened his mouth as if he was about to ask a question, but he stopped himself. Instead, he patted her on the back and began to weep. Jan could not cry. The tears would not come, but they would soon.
Chris waited outside with a hospital paramedic near the helicopter landing pad. Overhead came the sound of the chopper getting close. “What the heck is that guy doing?” the paramedic said as he pointed toward a reporter on the other side of the road. The newsman held a camera with a telescopic lens. Clearly, he thought he had himself in the perfect position to capture images of Ed Thomas coming off the helicopter.
Chris took off across the street, furious. He jumped over a fence and planted himself right in front of the reporter. “What are you doing?” he yelled. The rage that had built up from the moment he walked into the weight room and saw his best friend lying on the floor in a pool of blood now came roaring to the surface. The reporter mumbled something about snapping shots of the air ambulance, as if his photos had nothing to do with the passenger aboard this particular helicopter. Chris wouldn’t hear of it. “If you snap even one picture, I will see that you live to regret it!” Chris warned. The newsman backed away but did not leave.
Chris turned to see the helicopter touching down. Jeff Jacobson, the Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) special agent in charge of the case, had notified Chris to stay with Ed at all times. Because this was a criminal investigation, anything removed from Ed had to be collected as possible evidence, even down to something as insignificant as his watch. Chris dashed back across the street as an EMT placed Ed’s stretcher onto a gurney. One of the nurses climbed up onto the gurney and started chest compressions. Chris assumed they had been performing CPR in the helicopter since the moment they picked Ed up out on Highway 20.
The emergency room supervisor found Jan in the waiting room as the helicopter landed. Jan’s face was in her hands. Oh, God, I don’t know how to pray. I want you to save my husband, but I can’t be selfish. Please don’t keep him alive just for me, not if that means he will never get out of a hospital bed again and never be himself. He would never want that.
“Excuse me, Mrs. Thomas,” the ER supervisor interrupted Jan and said, “We just brought your husband in. They’ve started CPR and are working on him right now. I’ll have one of the doctors come in to talk to you as soon as they can.”
“All right,” Jan said. “Thank you.” Now she understood why she and Chris beat the helicopter to the hospital. She knew from her EMT training that the helicopter could not take off until Ed was stabilized. Jan thought he must have crashed right after the helicopter doors closed. They must have started CPR right after she last spoke to Ed.
Jan sat still for just a moment and then stood up. “You know what?” she said, “I need to go back there and talk to the doctors now.”
“Excuse me?” the ER supervisor said.
“I need to talk to the doctors so they can be clear on what my husband wants.”
“All right, Mrs. Thomas. Follow me.”
The ER supervisor stepped inside the curtain where a team of doctors and nurses was working on Ed. A moment later, Jan stepped inside the curtain as well. Ed lay on the table, tubes and wires running off in every direction. One of the attending physicians continued doing CPR compressions on him. Chris stood off to one side, keeping a close eye on everything but making sure to stay out of the medical team’s way. The primary physician looked up at Jan.
“I appreciate everything you’re doing to save my husband’s life, but please don’t continue if he has no hope of a viable recovery,” Jan said. “Over the years, Ed made it clear that he did not want to be placed on life support and kept in a vegetative state.”
“We won’t, Mrs. Thomas. We won’t. We still have a couple of things to check. Then I’ll come out and give you an update on his condition.”
“Thank you, doctor.” Jan stepped outside the curtain and paused for just a moment. Father …, she prayed.
Jan went back into the waiting room. More friends and family had arrived during the short time she was talking to the doctor. All wept openly. Several came over to Jan, hugged her, and said the kinds of things people say in hospital waiting rooms. The words and the faces all ran together for Jan.
A few minutes later, the doctor walked into the waiting room. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Thomas,” he said, “we did all that we could. I am afraid your husband has passed.” The grief that had been building in the room as everyone waited for the inevitable came pouring out.
Jan took a deep breath. “Thank you, doctor, for all you did for my husband.”
“I’m very sorry for your loss,” the doctor said. “In just a few minutes, you’ll be able to come back to see him.”
“Thank you,” she said in a voice just louder than a whisper. She fell back into her chair, more numb from shock than anything else. The pastor came over and prayed with her. Friends sat next to her and put their arms around her. Most were crying too hard to speak. Jan’s mind could not wrap itself around the fact that this was really happening. “Excuse me,” she said to those gathered around her. “I need to call Aaron.”
Jan stepped out of the room and dialed her son’s number.
“Hi, Mom,” Aaron said with a very cautious tone. He was afraid to hear what was coming next.
“Aaron …” She paused, trying to gather the will to force the words out. “Your father didn’t make it.”
“Are you OK, Mom?” he as
ked.
“Yeah, I’m doing OK.”
“Ellie should be there soon.”
“Good … good.”
“I’ll call her and tell her. I’ll have her call Todd.” “Thank you, Aaron.” Jan knew that emotionally she couldn’t make any more calls. “Would you call your Uncle Greg too?” “Sure, Mom, whatever you need.” “Be careful driving over here.” “I will, Mom. And, Mom …”
“Yes.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too, Aaron.”
Jan had just hung up the phone with Aaron when a nurse stepped around the corner and said, “You can come back now, Mrs. Thomas.”
“OK.” Jan followed the nurse into the trauma room where just a few minutes earlier doctors fought to save Ed’s life. She took a deep breath and then stepped inside.
“Should we go ahead and try to book a flight home, or wait until we hear something?” Todd asked Candice. Getting a flight out of Jamaica at the last minute was easier said than done. “I wonder if we can even get a flight out today?” He paused and tried to gather himself. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t believe this is happening.”
“I can’t either.” By this point, Candice had already started throwing things in their suitcases. “We should probably go ahead and see if we can get out of here today. You know we’ll go nuts if we don’t.”
Todd let out a long sigh. “Yeah. I’ll go downstairs and see if the concierge can help. Stay here in case Ellie calls back.”
Downstairs, one of the hotel staff members was able to get through to the travel agent who had booked Todd and Candice’s trip. The agent changed their reservation and was able to get them two seats on the next flight out of Kingston. It also happened to be the last flight out for the day.
Back upstairs, Todd called Ellie on the room phone. “Have you heard any news?” he asked. “How’s Dad?”
Ellie could hardly speak. “I’m sorry, Todd. He didn’t make it.”
Todd broke under the news. Candice held on tightly to him.
“I’m at the hospital now,” Ellie said.
Todd struggled to gain his composure. “Is my mom there close by? Can I speak with her?”
Todd and Jan talked for a few minutes, carrying on a conversation neither of them could believe they had to have. At the end, Todd said, “We’re about to leave for the airport. We’ll be home as quickly as we can, Mom.”
Friends and family began filling the waiting area. The media could not get back to where Jan was, but everyone who came to see her had to go through the gauntlet in the hospital lobby. Ellie was one of the first to arrive. A few minutes later, Al and Deb Kerns came in. Al had coached with Ed since 1978. Through the years, Jan and Deb had become very close friends. In their younger days, they had a reputation for doing some crazy things. Back during the 1980 season, when what was then only Parkersburg High School first played for the state championship, Jan and Deb disguised themselves as superfans, complete with masks, and invaded the football team pep rallies. They appeared out of nowhere, like two phantoms, and proceeded to work the crowd into a frenzy. Then, just as suddenly, they disappeared. Neither Ed nor Al, nor any of the coaches, knew who these phantom crusaders might be. They might never have known if Ed hadn’t stumbled across their costumes while digging around in the attic one evening while Jan and Deb were out bowling.
Jan was sitting with her arm around Ellie when Al and Deb walked in. As soon as Deb saw Jan, she broke down sobbing. Jan walked over, wrapped her arms around her friend, and held her for a very long time. “It’ll be OK,” Jan whispered. “He was hurt so badly that if he had survived he wouldn’t have been Ed.” As Deb struggled to pull herself together, she found it more than a little ironic that she had come here to comfort Jan, but Jan was the one doing the comforting.
Several of Ed’s close friends came into the family waiting room, including the guys Ed met for coffee most mornings. The press clamored for a statement from the family, but Jan didn’t want to say anything until after Aaron arrived. Jan phoned him again. He was supposed to arrive at any time. In the meantime, at least thirty people filled the waiting room. A television was on in one corner. The game show that was on was suddenly preempted by a special report. There on the screen came the words, “COACH ED THOMAS HAS BEEN MURDERED.” The room fell silent. No one felt like talking anymore.
Todd and Candice arrived at the airport with very little time to catch their flight. They grabbed their few bags and checked in as quickly as possible. Normally, before they could board the plane bound for the United States, they would have to go through customs, but neither was taking anything out of the country. Even so, the process took up precious time they did not have. As they walked up to the customs officials, Todd tried to explain their situation. “We don’t have much time. This is an emergency, and we booked these tickets home at the last minute.”
Candice, standing nearby, tears flowing, finally pointed at the television nearby where CNN carried live coverage of the Ed Thomas story. “That’s our father, OK? We have to get back.”
Customs officials dispensed with the usual inspections. Todd signed a waiver, and he and Candice took off toward their gate.
When they touched down in Miami, Todd turned on his cell phone. It lit up with voice mails and text messages, more than he could count. He and Candice were scheduled to fly from Miami to Minneapolis, with a long layover. However, one of the text messages came from Aaron Kampman, telling Todd that he and Candice had tickets on a direct flight to Cedar Rapids that left in just over an hour. Unfortunately, that plane had mechanical issues, and the flight was canceled. Aaron called Todd and told him he had lined up a private jet that could fly down to Miami to pick them up. However, this plan fell apart because of storms rolling through the Midwest. Aaron then arranged for a jet to meet them in Minneapolis, but the same storms ruled that out as well.
For five hours, Todd and Candice were stuck in the Miami airport. Everywhere they went, televisions blared, every single one tuned into CNN. People around them went on about their business. Children laughed; couples bickered; a middle-aged guy a few seats down took a nap. Above them all, CNN broadcast hourly reports from Parkersburg with continual updates into the investigation of the shooting of the beloved Coach Ed Thomas. Todd and Candice tried to keep themselves together as best they could. No one had any idea who they were or how much each news report hurt them.
Finally, they boarded a plane to Minneapolis. It was the closest they could get to Parkersburg, due to the odd combination of bad weather and mechanical problems on airplanes. Mike and Nancy Brannon, Candice’s parents, made the two-hundred-mile drive north to meet them and drive them home. Eighteen hours after the shooting, Todd and Candice arrived back in Parkersburg.
While Todd and Candice were at the Jamaica airport, Aaron arrived at Covenant Hospital. Jan had instructed him to come around through the ER entrance to avoid the throngs of reporters and television cameras in the main lobby of the hospital. His principal ran interference for him as they walked through the parking lot and into the hospital. If anyone had had any ideas about running up to Coach Thomas’s son, the principal was there to make sure it did not happen.
Once Aaron finally made it to the family waiting room, Ellie was the first person he saw. She ran over, and the two wept together. “Where’s Mom?” he asked after a few moments.
“Over here,” Ellie said.
Aaron walked into a small room off to the right side of the main room, where a crowd of family and friends had gathered. He wrapped his arms around his mother and held on to her. Neither said a word for a very long time. Finally, Jan asked, “Do you want to see him?”
“Yes,” Aaron said.
Jan led Aaron and Ellie back to the same trauma room where medics had brought Ed when the helicopter transported him to the hospital. Aaron walked in. The breathing tube was still in his father’s mouth, although it was no longer connected to the machinery. He saw the gunshot wounds on his father’s head and the e
vidence in the room of how the doctors had fought to save his dad’s life. At the head of the bed stood Chris Luhring. He didn’t say anything at first. Instead he moved back away from Ed to give the family plenty of room.
Aaron walked over closer. “Why are there bruises on Dad’s chest and head?” No one had an answer.
Ellie stood back to one side as Aaron walked over and said good-bye to his father. Jan took him by the hand. The two stood there silently, weeping, unable to believe this had really happened.
Before Aaron, Ellie, and Jan left the room, Chris spoke up. After telling Aaron how sorry he was and how much Ed meant to him, Chris asked the question he knew he had to ask but did not want to. “Aaron, do you want to know who did this?”
“Yes, of course.”
“It was Mark Becker.”
Aaron did not say a word, but anger flashed in his eyes.
Once the Thomases left the trauma room, Chris called DCI to tell them that Ed’s body could be released to the coroner. After the hospital staff took custody of Ed, Chris excused himself and found an empty room down the hall. There he let loose all the emotions he had held in since he walked into the high school weight room and saw Ed on the ground. It wasn’t just the loss, as great as it was. Chris fought with himself over the fact that Mark Becker was even on the streets. Why didn’t anyone tell us they were releasing him from the hospital? We asked to be notified. Why didn’t anyone call? If someone had called us, if anyone had said they were letting Mark Becker out, he would be in jail right now, and the best man I’ve ever known in my life would be alive!
Chris left the hospital a short time later to go back to Parkersburg and get to work on the worst case of his life.
Later that afternoon, back in Parkersburg, the Thomas family agreed to make a statement to the press. The press conference was to be held in the makeshift DCI headquarters that had been set up in one of the portable buildings at the elementary school. Right outside sat the practice field on which Ed had spent innumerable hours working with young men. Across the street sat the Sacred Acre. And below that was the bus barn he had pushed so hard to build the summer before so that his team would have a locker room for the football season that followed the tornado. Earlier in the day, Jon Thompson had formally announced Ed’s passing to a large group of reporters. A sports anchor from Waterloo who had covered the A-P Falcons throughout his career, broke down weeping, as did several other reporters.