This is an old case. A solved case, technically. But, not for me.
Like many others, I never forgot my first boyfriend.
I was a troubled teenager, and was sent to attend a special class in eighth grade for severely behaviorly handicapped children. It was 1986-87. I lived in Dublin, a suburb of Columbus, OH...but apparently the only school with that program was in Upper Arlington, so I was bussed, alone there to be the only girl in a classroom for troubled kids in the public middle school. There were six boys there from other suburbs around Columbus.
This is where I met him.
He was in seventh grade, I was in eighth, but he was far more mature then the rest of us. He had grown up fast, a child of a single mother in a not so great area of town. He had a terrible temper that flared, I remember him getting so upset one day he tore apart the classroom, but it was never directed at anyone, it was just seething fury right below the surface.
I loved him.
There was no romance that year, obviously, other then my schoolgirl crush.
But the next year, after I was intergrated back into public school, we kept in touch..and yes, there was a romance then. Something happened though, and he got in big trouble and sent to a boys home. My mother was going to take me to visit him, but he ran away. The police actually called our house looking for him. And then he called to assure me he was alright. My mother was traumatized by the whole experience. they did catch him, and i never saw or heard from again. We moved shortly afterwards, and this was way before the internet or texting. So that was that.
every few years I would google him, expecting him to one day pop up in facebook or something, and maybe be able to talk to him, laugh about old times.
Today, on ancestory.com (my school has access) I discovered he was dead, at 20. I tried to understand the short entry. In the hospital? 20? How? Cancer?
Then I looked deeper and found a headline (no access to an article) stating that he had shot a 15 year old girl in the head and shot himself.
Now, I'm stunned. How? Why? What? I knew him. He was a gentle boy, with so much anger due to circumstances beyond his control. He had been in my house. I had kissed him. I have thought about him for 25 years, and he was a monster? I have been tracking criminal cases for years, but it has never touched me before, and now i'm left wanting to know so much more.
I can't even access the obit, or the original articles, and no clue how. It happened right before Halloween in 1994. His name was Heath A Kelso. The crime occurred in Columbus, Ohio. I don't know if he shot himself, or the cops did? I just want to know what happened. I am thinking abotu writing about it.
Can any of you far more experienced sleuths give a fellow crime buff a hand here with this so personal story.
