Pure Murder

by Corey Mitchell

  Ella Freeman eventually moved in with Harold Jones into a tiny, wooden home.

  On June 23, 1976, Ella had her son’s name officially changed to Derrick Sean O’Brien. There was no reason given for the new name other than she did not want to be reminded of Eddie Sr. She decided to call him Sean.

  Sean O’Brien’s childhood was remarkable only in its simplicity. He easily hit all of the benchmarks for infants and toddlers. He was even potty-trained by the time he was one-and-a-half years old. He never seemed to get into too much trouble and appeared to be a well-adjusted kid.

  Donna, Sean’s grandmother, kept a very laissez-faire attitude toward raising the boy. She did not believe in discipline or punishment. She also did not believe in giving little Sean any household chores. He also got away with a lot around the house, as Donna thought he was the most adorable thing she had ever laid eyes on.

  Ella basically stayed away from her son and had no input on how he was raised during those all-important early years. Anytime Ella would question Donna about her parenting methods, she was rebuffed, or it escalated into an argument. Ella eventually gave up and let her momma call the shots in regard to Sean.

  No one noticed any issues with Sean until he was around four years old. He began to act out against his grandmother, because she constantly let him walk all over her. He would talk back to her or act smart whenever he had the opportunity. Donna just let it happen and Sean’s behavior went unchecked.

  When Sean turned five, it became apparent he was having difficulty learning—this development just so happened to coincide with his mother’s impending nuptials with Harold Jones. The couple eventually tied the knot the following year, and the effect it had on Sean was obvious. He began acting moody, sullen, and withdrawn. He would become angry for no apparent reason. Sean later claimed he began to drink alcohol when he was five years old. How he obtained it, though, has never been ascertained, nor how he was able to hide it from his grandmother.

  By the time Sean attended elementary school, he was already heading down a difficult path. He was diagnosed with a learning disability and placed in the special-ed department for children with learning deficiencies or difficulties. Unfortunately, the extra attention afforded him did not pay off, as Sean was retained for first grade after he failed too many courses.

  It was the beginning of the long slide downward for Sean O’Brien.

  Sean’s misspent youth was filled with drama and there were signs something was not quite right with the boy.

  According to the Houston Independent School District (HISD) psychological evaluation, Sean began to torture various animals. He allegedly suffocated one with a pillowcase cover. He also poked at different animals with a knife.

  Until 1983, Sean’s physical health had never been an issue; then the eight-year-old boy came down with a serious bout of pneumonia and missed an entire week of school. Needless to say, the absence did not help with his schooling in any way.

  The following year, the biggest turning point in Sean’s life took place. One day, he was playing in one of the drawers of a teakwood dresser, which belonged to his grandmother. Sean was playing too rough and broke the bottom of one of the drawers. Instead of scolding him and making him repair it, Donna fixed it herself. The older woman, however, was not quite adept on her feet and accidentally fell into the dresser and plummeted to the floor. She screamed in horror as she saw the massive teakwood dresser tilt to one side and slam down on her head. She was knocked out cold and rivulets of blood dripped from her face to the worn carpet. Sean rushed in to find his grandmother unconscious and in need of serious medical attention.

  The accident was even worse than anyone could have imagined. The collision caused Sean’s grandmother to suffer a traumatic brain injury. As a result, the doctors informed Sean and his mother they would have to perform an emergency craniotomy to relieve the pressure on her brain.

  While Sean’s grandmother came out of the operation in decent shape, the impact on her brain was substantial. She was no longer able to completely function at a high cognitive level—at least not high enough to raise a young boy. As a result, Sean was forced to move back in with his mother, with whom he had not lived for seven years, and his stepfather and their one-and-a-half-year-old daughter.

  Sean was used to getting what he wanted, when he wanted it, from his grandmother. He knew he could walk all over her if need be. That would not work with his mother. She was much stricter than his grandmother; however, she was no stricter than the majority of normal, decent parents. One other issue cropped up—Sean now also had to answer to his stepfather, Harold Jones. He was in for a true culture shock.

  Anytime Sean would do something wrong, his mom and stepfather were on him to stop it. They did not let much, if anything, slide. Sean would respond by clamming up and retreating or by talking back. Neither reaction was appreciated in the Jones household.

  Sean felt like a fourth wheel in his new home. He always believed his mother abandoned him and wondered why she never gave him a reason for her disappearance.

  Ella Jones’s physical presence actually made Sean physically ill at times. He was not thrilled to have to take orders from someone he considered a deadbeat. His belief was Why should I have to take discipline from you when you didn’t even want me?

  Sean also had competition in the Jones household. His half sister, the offspring of both Ella and Harold Jones, was drenched in adoration from her parents. Sean was resentful as he watched his mother dote on the baby. It was an affection he was never privy to from his own mother. He also believed his stepfather devoted all of his attention to his daughter. Even though Harold was not his biological father, Sean wished he could have received some fatherly attention from him. Living without a father figure for the first seven years of his life led Sean to believe he was missing out on what it meant to be an honorable man. Harold Jones was not going to be that father figure for him.

  Sean O’Brien was resentful of his mother, his step-father, and his half sister. It was not going to be an easy time.

  Sean knew of two ways to respond to the treatment he allegedly received at home. The first reaction was to lash out. He began to get into fights in school. In fifth grade, he fought another boy and fractured two of his fingers in the process.

  The second reaction was even more harmful. Again, in fifth grade, Sean tried to commit suicide by swallowing a bottle of Tylenol. He attempted it in front of his grandmother, who had stopped by to visit. Sean had gotten in trouble at home and decided to take out his anger by threatening to kill himself and then nearly going through with it.

  This would be the first of several suicide attempts by Sean O’Brien.

  While many psychologists consider suicide attempts to be cries for help, Sean’s seemed to be legitimate attempts at killing himself.

  The seemingly unpleasant environment at home and Sean’s reactions to it affected every aspect of his life. The biggest hit was with his schoolwork. Sean failed fifth grade and was retained for the next school year. He had already failed first grade and now had a new albatross to wear.

  The cycle of self-doubt increased.

  Sean tried suicide a second time. Once again, he got into trouble at home and was disciplined by his stepfather. He lashed out this time by trying to hang himself with his own belt. As he did the first time, he waited until his grandmother came over before the attempt. His cries to her went unheeded as she was still incapable of taking care of him.

  Finally, in 1985, when Sean was ten years old, Ella Jones realized her son needed serious help. She took him to the Houston Child Guidance Center to seek out psychological counseling to find out what was wrong. It did not help.

  By October 1985, Ella Jones decided to take off from work as a receptionist while she was pregnant. Harold and Ella agreed they could make it work with his salary and her Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) benefits. AFDC was introduced under the Social Security Act of 1935 by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, providing mot
hers with financial assistance for their needy dependent children.

  The Joneses also planned to subsist off the Social Security benefits from Ella’s father and her mother, who received a portion due to disabilities suffered as a result of the injuries to her head.

  The following month, on November 4, 1985, Ella Jones gave birth to Torri Yvonne Jones.

  Over a period of time, the tension between Sean and Harold was too much for Ella to bear. The couple argued constantly about the way he treated her son. Ella could not take it any longer and informed her husband she wanted a separation because he did not show the same affection for Sean that he showed toward Torri, and it was destroying the fabric of the household. In October 1986, Ella took both Sean and Torri and moved out of the family’s apartment on Mangum and back into the house with her mother and father.

  Sean O’Brien was finally one happy little boy. Not only did he get his way, he got rid of his stepfather and he got to move back in with his grandmother, who constantly spoiled him.

  He could not have been happier.

  By January 1987, Ella Jones filed for divorce from Harold Jones. Unfortunately, getting rid of her husband was not enough to curtail Sean’s bad behavior.

  Sean was tested in February 1987, as per the norm when transferring into an alternative school. He took an IQ test and scored what would be considered in the normal intelligence range; however, he was pegged for having already failed two grades. As a result, Sean was relegated back to the special education program.

  Sean started off the program in a rather low-key fashion. That is, until he suffered a severe asthma attack in March, on the day he was scheduled to see his psychologist. The attack was bad enough that he missed seven days of school.

  In August, Sean’s grandmother returned to the hospital for the second of three surgeries on her brain. Sean could not help but feel guilty for his grandmother’s condition. He believed it was his fault she had been hurt and, basically, had become disabled. It crushed him to see her after the surgeries.

  On August 16, 1987, Sean snapped. While at home, he locked himself in the bathroom and threatened to commit suicide by slicing open his arms with a razorblade. His mother began to panic. She had no idea what was wrong with her son. She begged him to come out of the bathroom. She would do anything to make sure he did not hurt himself, she assured him. The showdown lasted for several minutes, until his mother finally coaxed him from the bathroom and out of harm’s way. She insisted on taking him to the Hermann Hospital ER, where he checked out fine, as far as any physical injuries were concerned.

  Sean’s mother wanted, however, to make sure there were no mental injuries as well. Three weeks later, on September 8, 1987, she personally escorted her son to visit a psychologist to try and determine what was wrong with him. Sean later admitted to the doctor he faked the suicide attempt to get out of some punishment he was due.

  The ever-downward spiral of Sean O’Brien continued.

  On November 11, 1987, while at Katherine R. Smith Elementary School, Sean got into trouble for calling another young boy a bad name. To compound matters, Sean also threw a stick at the boy and hit him in the eye. Luckily, the boy was not severely injured.

  Things seemed to calm down for Sean at school over the next year. That is, until he discovered his mother was pregnant again, sometime around late February/early March 1988. On November 24, 1988, Ella gave birth to another healthy son, Jonathan Eugene Jones.

  Despite another intrusion into his household, things seemed to be looking up for Sean. At least until the following year, when he found out his grandparents were separating.

  The separation seemed to reignite the bad fuse in Sean. On April 19, 1989, he got into trouble for harassing another student. Earlier in the day, Sean accosted young Tony Cox at school and demanded the smaller boy hand over his brand-new basketball shoes. Tony refused and Sean told him he was “gonna get him on the bus.” Tony was scared to death, so he asked his teacher, Mrs. Johnson, to ride home with him to protect him from Sean and his friend Quinton Bradley.

  When the final school bell rang, Tony began to tremble. He located Mrs. Johnson and together they walked toward the school bus. As they boarded the yellow tin can on wheels, the teacher saw both Sean and Quinton. She gave the young boys a look that implied, Leave this little boy alone. They both snickered as they saw Tony sit down next to his teacher.

  As soon as the school bus pulled away, the mischief began. Sean and Quinton slowly crept forward in the bus seats, closer to Tony. Mrs. Johnson would look up occasionally and see the boys coming closer. She held her ground next to the smaller student. The bus driver hollered at Sean and Quinton to sit down.

  Still, the two boys slithered forward.

  Sean moved up one more seat closer to Tony. Suddenly, from the direction of Quinton, a white tennis shoe went soaring through the air and pelted Tony Cox in the mouth. Both Sean and Quinton calmly stood up as they approached the unfortunate boy.

  “Sit down!” Mrs. Johnson demanded, looking at the two juvenile delinquents.

  Neither boy said a thing. The corners of Sean’s mouth turned slightly upward in a bit of a sheepish grin. Both boys ignored Johnson’s admonition. They continued their advancement.

  Mrs. Johnson leapt to her feet in the middle of the bus aisle between Tony Cox and the two other boys. She was prepared to defend Tony, but, actually, she thought they would back down.

  She thought wrong.

  With no compunction, Sean O’Brien forcefully tackled Mrs. Johnson and knocked her down onto the dirty bus aisle. The teacher, however, was no shrinking violet. She somehow managed to propel Sean off her with her hands. Sean glared down at the teacher and barked, “Get outta my way!” He shoved her as she stood up and she shoved right back. Johnson then attempted to push Sean down into one of the green vinyl bus seats.

  He would have nothing to do with that.

  Sean leg-whipped the teacher, knocked her legs out from under her, and sent her plummeting back down into the dirty bus aisle.

  He was eventually expelled from school for assaulting the teacher.

  Sean O’Brien was also a prolific truant who missed dozens of school days. He was written up numerous times for showing up at school, then getting up on a whim, walking out of a classroom, and heading off campus.

  Sean was a middle-of-the-road student in middle school; he mostly made C’s, with the occasional B slipping in every now and again.

  In October 1989, fourteen-year-old Sean got in trouble off campus. He walked into a Kmart, entered the sports department, grabbed a few items off the shelf, walked into the men’s restroom, stuck the items in his clothes, and attempted to walk out of the store without paying. As soon as Sean O’Brien stepped outside the front doors of the store, he was apprehended by twenty-two-year-old security guard Raymond Earl Ray.

  The security guard retrieved a Crosman pellet gun from inside Sean’s pants. The $39 black pistol with brown grip handles and air cartridge looked like an actual revolver and had been removed from its packaging. Sean informed Ray that he stole the gun because he could not afford it. Ray did not care and called the Houston Police Department.

  Before Ray had taken over the security guard position at Kmart in 1985, the store suffered a high rate of theft from juveniles. Ray was very good at talking to the kids about the errors of their ways and encouraging them to get back on the right track. He attempted to have the same discussion with Sean O’Brien; however, it seemed to fall on deaf ears. Sean did not want to listen and did not care.

  On May 19, 1990, Sean got into a heated disagreement with a security guard named Michael Mays at his new school, Harper Alternative. Once the argument ended, Sean glared at the guard and warned him he would get him.

  The following day, according to another Harper security guard, Earnestine Valle, she spotted Sean in the back of the school. When she approached him, she noticed he was angry.

  “I’m going to get back at Mr. Mays,” Sean barked, standing less than three
feet away, directly in front of Valle. He had one arm dangling by his side, the other draped behind his back. Valle raised her hands up, as if to slow Sean down. The boy’s attention was distracted; however, when he spotted his current nemesis, Michael Mays, Sean calmly lifted his right arm from behind his back and swung it low in front of him.

  That was the first time Valle spotted the gun.

  Since the female security guard stood between Sean O’Brien and Michael Mays, the gun was pointed at her—specifically, her feet.

  “Now, Sean,” she reasoned, once she assessed the situation at hand, “just put the gun down. You don’t want to do anything that will get you in trouble.”

  Sean was furious. He ignored Valle’s requests and was completely focused on his target.

  “Sean, you need to leave this campus right now,” Valle insisted.

  “I need to get that motherf - - - er Mays,” Sean spat out defiantly.

  “Sean, c’mon. You need to put the weapon down and leave the school grounds with me.”

  Sean started bouncing up and down and shaking his head. “No, no, no. I need to kill that motherf - - - er is what I need to do,” he informed her. Sean began to fidget and nervously pace back and forth in front of Valle. Suddenly he stopped, pointed the gun straight up over his head, and fired. He then turned tail and bolted for the nearby railroad tracks.

  Valle engaged her walkie-talkie and warned Mays that Sean O’Brien had a gun, he had just fired it, and he was coming after him.

  Nothing happened to Michael Mays.

  Sean attempted to change his ways once he reached high school. During the fall of 1990, he put in a request to Harper administration to transfer to the Waltrip High School ROTC program. Staffers informed him they would consider it if he behaved himself. Of course, less than two months later, he blew his chance when he left campus again without permission.