Strange Love

"Are you the father?" He inquires with solemn curiosity.  "The father?" I raise my eyebrows, caught off guard by the question  "Aw" I deduce.  For some reason he thinks I'm Robbie Parker, the father of Emilie, the 6 year old Ogden product who was killed by a gunman inside Sandy Hook Elementary last Friday.  "No," I respond simply.  "Oh, I saw you talking to a lot of people," the odd man with the blond ponytail says disappointed. "I just wanted to tell him I'm sorry."  The glass in his frames are thick, so thick that they distort his eyes making him appear cross eyed.  He turns quickly and scoots back among the empty chairs, and mingling strangers to search out "The father."

Robbie Parker at public memorial for his daughter

It is 6 PM, and the atrium at Ben Lomond High School is slowly bulging with humanity.  This is where the public memorial for Emilie Parker will be held.  On a squat stage, a Christmas tree glowing with a pink hue, Emilie's favorite color is being decorated with ornaments made by residents of Sandy Hook, Connecticut.

Principal Ben Smith is directing matronly women with their arms overflowing with boxes and ribbons in different directions.  The school cafeteria is just 2 hundred feet from the tree.  I can imagine teenage boys, in skater sneakers, and hoodies, flinging bits of Wonder Bread at one-another, while girls shriek and whisper, with their fingers darting across the glass of their smart phones, sending off messages into the air.  Tonight the chaotic echos of teens on reprieve, is replaced with hushed tones, and gentle sentences like "It's so terrible," and "how can this happen?"

Emilie Parker

As one of Emilie's cousins downloads a highly produced video montage of pictures of the darling little girl onto a laptop, a curious woman perches herself just off my left shoulder.  I can't see her, but I can certainly feel her.  "Your Channel 2?" she chirps nervously, and she shuffles 4 envelopes in her hands, "I, I, I, I like you," she blurts, diverting her gaze to the cards she holds tightly in her palms, "but, but, but, I like Christina better, better." She is referring to Christina Flores a fellow reporter and anchor at 2 News, "I like her better too," I joke, as she simply stares at me, "do you know the family?" I try to break her gaze, "No, No, No, I, I," she pauses, "I just think, um, its bad," her words gently taper off, "That man!" she returns forcefully, "That man should go to jail!"  I assume she is talking about the named Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza, who police say took his own life after the rampage.  I simply add: "yes he should."

For 10 awkward seconds we stand, then she thrust the cards towards me, "this one is for Christina, this one is for Heidi Hatch, and this one is for Jill," she says with a child-like grin stretching across her face.

Remembering Emilie

The cards are for our news team who anchors the 4 o'clock program.  The postage is tattered, worn, the corner frayed and it looks as if they have been carried from place to place for weeks.  "Oh," I say, "that's very kind," Certain I will lose them, I inform the woman, "Christina will be her tonight, would you like to give them to her yourself?"  The news that her favorite will be in the same room causes her to breath heavy, "she'll be here?" she beams as she points to the floor, "Oh, oh, oh!" she hops gently onto her toes with each proclamation, "OK!" and she shuffles quickly away, searching for Christina.

As the school begins to swell, the lights click on and off.  First on the left side of the room then the right, as an unseen tech somewhere test them.  I watch a man dart through the crowd,  likely searching for family members of Emilie.  I've seen him before.  In fact I've seen him many times, at court hearings for high profile criminals, memorial services for fallen solders and candlelight vigils for wounded children.

As Emilie's family begins to assemble inside the school, they hug, and cry, and laugh, first friends approach, Brady Cottle, Emilie's uncle grabs the hand of the mammoth principal, and pulls him in for a comfortable bear hug, then acquaintances meekly approach.  Then strangers.  I watch the faces of the family as these strangers extend their prayers.  I also watch as the Parker's adjust uncomfortably as people they've never met likely makes odd request or peculiar comment.  I see an uncle smile awkwardly, as his eyes dart to another relative, as he tries to pull himself away from peculiar conversation.

As the memorial breaks up and family and strangers make their way to the football field to release 26 lanterns in honor of the fallen victims, I see the man with the blond pony tail and Coke bottle glasses, press his way through the bulging crowd towards Robbie Parker, his lips move as he practices his greeting, "are you the father?" I imagine he will say as he thrust his fingers into the grieving father's palm.

The Sound of Silence

As Photographer Dan Dixon adjusts the light stand, the room is warm and silent.  Randy Parker stares wistfully into his living room as his father and brother study the ceiling, and breath heavy.  "Almost ready," Dan says nervously, concerned that his attempt to capture Randy in the right light is weighing on his patience.  The long, quiet pause is likely the least of Randy's concerns.

The Parkers, Emily far right

Parkers granddaughter Emily was shot and killed by Adam Lanza yesterday in Newtown, Connecticut, and he has graciously agreed to be interviewed by me.

His son Robbie grew up in Ogden, attended Ben Lomand High School where he met his sweetheart Alissa.  They married, had three darling little girls, and moved to Danbury in June of this year.  Randy says the young couple loved the place, they'd recently purchased a charming home along a river bank, and Emily was still chatting about the fun  she had at the Christmas pageant the night before a gunman opened the door of her classroom.

Robbie and Alissa Parker

Randy seems relieved to sit, and say nothing, to hear nothing, to think about nothing.  As he presses his thumbs into his weary, watery, crimson eyes, I imagine him standing in front of his television, hand over mouth, searching for signs that Emily is still alive.  Perhaps a video clip of her hugging her mother, or sitting with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders being tended to by a fire fighter, but the clip never rolls.  Instead he sees pictures like the one to the left of his son and daughter-in-law inconsolable, confused and destroyed. I can imagine the volume of the television, the uneasy hum of reporters on the scene, describing the anguish, the anchors on set in New York, Atlanta and LA, ticking off the death toll, and the commentators, demanding more gun control, or lamenting the lack of God in schools.

While Dan fumbles with his earpiece, Randy seems to be breathing in the silence.  I decide I won't make small talk or offer more condolences, rather I'll give him some peace, let the stillness of the moment act as some sort of respite, to ponder nothing, or everything, without the blaring hate, opinion, and advice spewing from television, Twitter and Facebook.  Eventually I will start asking questions about his chatty, inquisitive, beaming little girl he has just lost, but for now.  Silence.

Heart of Darkness

Curtis Allgier always has something to say, even when it's not his turn to talk.  As a lawyer with the Salt Lake District attorney's office argues some arcane rule of law in front of Judge Paul Maughan,  Allgier shows his disgust, leans in heavy to his own attorney, and frantically and angrily grumbles his disapproval.  Allgier seems to be at odds with even the most mundane details that leaves the judges mouth, or formulates in the mind of the District Attorney.

Curtis Allgier

As I sit in court I can tell Allgier's attorney is exasperated, every couple of minutes, the tattooed white supremacist  is peppering his left ear with angry, yet muffled proclamations.  The attorney seldom acknowledged his agitating client, as he tries to listens intently to the words of the judge.

Allgier murdered Utah State Corrections officer Stephen Anderson, when the prisoner was being escorted from his cell to the University of Utah Medical Center for an MRI in 2007.  Anderson, who had a reputation as a compassionate guard, who showed kindness to even the most despicable of criminals, was shot twice by Allgier after a brief struggle between the two.

You have likely seen Allgier on television.  His face is littered with prison tattoos, crude graffiti  carved into his skin proclaiming his admiration for Hitler, Nazi's and skin heads.  Every inch of his face is covered with grey ink, likely pumped into his face by himself or an equally "tatted" fellow prisoner.  As I look at him spewing silently into his lawyers brain, it's difficult to even recognize a human underneath  the angry scrawling  the boorish scratches, and vulgar proclamations.

I try to imagine Allgier as a little, toe-headed boy, skipping rocks across a pond, giggling in the school yard with he fellow kindergartners  or snuggling under his mother's arm after a scary nightmare, but I just can't conjure the idea.  To me, Allgier seems as if he just manifested on earth, as a hulking ball of rage, born in orange prison jump suit, and talking, always talking.

Stephen Anderson

He has been talking for the five and a half years since he killed Anderson.  Phoning reporters to do interviews, blurting out invectives to the judge in court, and finally, on the day of his sentencing, he has his grand stage, something he has been seeking since he was jailed after pulling the trigger and killing the father of five.

He talks for 35 excruciating minutes, at times he is tearful and apologetic, at others he is defiant and angry and often punctuates his speech with "s#!+ and "F*(# while the judge patiently allows hims to rant.

I get the sense that he has this grand idea of himself, as if he believes he lives by a special code of honor that the rest of us puny mortals can't even comprehend.  He talks about how he takes care of younger prisoners behind bars, giving advice to the "weak" ones.  He gnaws and snarls about his treatment in jail by guards, then chokes up with tears as he laments over how "great" a man he believes the now deceased Anderson is.

Allgier once wrote me a letter after a story I did about a woman he scammed into putting hundreds of dollars into his prison bank account.  The diatribe was scribbled in black ink on ruled paper, in the hand of a boy.  He punctuated his "S's" with lightening bolts often seen on the collars of officers in  the Nazi Shutzstaffel.  I could see he would go to great lengths to use words that ended in two "S's" for the ultimate affect.

Neo-Nazi Symbol

His long form complaint goes on for pages, and is filled with narcissistic rants about, his "honor," and his "strength."  He even claims his affiliation with the skin heads, isn't about racial hatred but pride in his own heritage, "I have friends of all races," he says.

As he waxes about Anderson, claiming he didn't want "that guy," to die, the judge finally tries to reign in the bluster, and with 10 armed guards surrounding him, the judge in a bureaucratic monotone that is a stark contrast to Allgier's bombast, calmly tells the murderer he will die in jail, Allgier sits, for the first time all afternoon in silence, as the judge has the final word, telling the loud man to be quiet and go to jail forever.

Paradise (Gardens) Lost

"Who designed this mad labyrinth?!" I throw my hands in the air, as photographer Dan Dixon and I continue our exasperating search for apartment 1-114 at a student apartment complex in Provo, Utah.

It's Friday and I've been assigned a wacky story about a college student who rents puppies to other college kids.  It is a far cry from the usual tales of sadness upon which I usually find myself reporting.

Jenna, the puppy whisperer, lives in one of a dozens of colossal student warehouses in this college town that includes three universities.  Branbury Gardens, or  Braebury Terrace, or what ever it's called, has a ridiculous footprint.  The complex is plunked down on hundreds of acres.  You can get an idea of its lunacy from this Google satellite picture.  This is just one of 4 groups of buildings on this property.  The mammoth, coiled snake is splayed out like a giant backward letter "S" There are a dozen different numbers sections inside each section of this serpentine thing,  Jenna is in there somewhere.  Jeennnaaaa!!! Where  are you?!

After 10 minutes of this fruitless searching I call her, "Hey Jenna, we're here at your complex.  Where are you exactly?" After a short pause, she utters, "uh."
That's when I realize even this poor girl, who is forced into this chaos probably cant explain the MC Esher world in which she had been sentenced.

After summoning our inner Magellan, and clicking on our GPS, we stumble upon her little house.

"Man," I say as I shake her hand excitedly as if she holds an antidote to some strange disease I carry, "this place is ridiculous."  As if she's met a kindred spirit, she vigorously agrees, "tell me about, it took me 10 minutes to find my door, when I first moved in here."

M.C Esher sketch, or Branbury Gardens, I'm not sure

Unfortunately our tail chasing won't end.  Jenna and a fellow puppy pusher, must deliver Wesley the Maltese, and pick up Toast, a fluffy brown something, and she will have to do this at two equally as large, equally as insane apartment complexes.

The four of us will drift aimlessly, like a group of Nebraska tourist trying to find a comedy club we read about on TripAdvisor, in New York City. "Well if this is building six, then that must be 7."   We will say to one another, as our lost caravan treks, like Ponce De Leon, searching for the Fountain of Youth.  "Eureka!"  Apartment 145!

Dan shoots a few frames of video, I interview one of the puppy renters, thank them for their time and finally we are free of this absurdity.  We say our farewells, and Dan and I lament about our ridiculous hunt, then as we stand in a gargantuan parking lot, Dan turns to me and asks.  "Where did we park?"