Thursday, Aug. 16, 2007

Loved one lost

I was sitting cross-legged on our wooden floor in front of the TV on April 27, 1982, when I saw the news report.

A local anchor - I remember her short blond hair and dark blazer - said my oldest brother, Herbert "Moochie'' Bailey Jr., was suspected of killing a former Bonneau city councilman and burning his house.

Moochie's picture appeared in the upper right-hand corner of the screen. He sported a small Afro.

He didn't smile.

James Bunch had been stabbed dozens of times in the back and chest. His neck was slashed in two places. He'd staggered to a neighbor's to ask for help, but bled to death before the neighbor could dial 911.

I don't remember feeling anything. What is there to feel when your hero, your protector, is suddenly a murder suspect , accused of committing one of the most heinous crimes in your small town's history?

I didn't know what was OK to feel.

Had he been the one killed, it would have been no easier, maybe harder. A loved one lost to violence can never be hugged again. A loved one taken away because he committed a criminal act still walks the earth.

But it would have been easier to figure out how to react. I could have been angry and everyone would have understood. I could have been bitter or sad or distraught and the community would rightly open its heart.

Even at the age of 9, I knew I wasn't part of that side of crime, where the special attention is obviously warranted.

Instead, I was the younger brother of a man accused of nearly decapitating someone.

I was on the side for which sociologists have done scant research, legislators have little debated, prosecutors don't consider when considering a just punishment and news organizations often overlook: the family who loses a member to prison.

When it is your loved one who has caused others so much grief, nothing you do is right.

If you defend him, you're giving a murderer a pass. If you talk about the good things you've seen him do, you're accused of minimizing the hurt he caused.

If you point out the difficult circumstances in which he grew up, you're making excuses. If you walk away or join those who want to see him put to death, you're turning your back on the person who always protected you.

Moochie was the oldest and the man of the house. My parents divorced after my mother suffered three decades of abuse. Many days Moochie stepped in to stop the beatings.

By 1982, he was 22 and had completed a short military stint. His checks helped pay our bills.

Struck by the news

My mother, Elizabeth McDaniel, was a forklift operator at a Georgia Pacific wood plant in Russellville. She was about to be fired because of migraine headaches and other health problems caused by years of domestic violence.

Sherry, my oldest sister, was 20. Douglas was 12, Willie was 11, Joshua was 7, Joseph was 6, Melody was 4 and Zadoc was 2. James was a 2-month-old fetus in my mother's womb. Jordan hadn't even been conceived.

My mother went to work the day after the murder not knowing her firstborn had been arrested and accused of murder. Shortly after she reported to work, news bulletins had informed everyone else in the town.

Her colleagues gave her strange looks all day. They whispered behind her back for hours until my future stepfather told her that Moochie's face and name were all over the news.

"I know I felt nothing,'' my mother told me just weeks ago.

For almost 25 years, family members didn't openly discuss the murder or how it affected each of us. We've only recently begun that process. I knew during the years immediately after the murder my mother struggled mightily to come to grips with what happened. I've only recently learned that the struggle continues.

Back then, she drove to the scene of the crime. SLED and other officers and a local reporter were still there. They didn't notice the mother of the suspected murderer in their midst. She thought she'd find answers. She didn't.

"I just stood there,'' she said. "It hit me like a ton of rocks. It seemed like everything stopped. If my son killed somebody, then give me a reason.''

She drove home and sat on the couch in our living room. Her world stopped.

For the next two days she didn't move. She didn't speak. She didn't eat. She didn't sleep.

The rest of us were in shock, too. Doug's sixth-grade classmates bombarded him with questions.

"Students kept coming up to me saying my brother was in jail for murder,'' Doug said for the first time last month.

"I kept saying over and over and over again that he was not my brother, but someone else,'' Doug said.

Willie, a fifth-grader, was at our pastor's house when he heard the news. He was a member of the "Angel Singers'' youth choir, which was on its way to an out-of-town church. They were eating snacks when a special news bulletin flooded the TV. The news anchor described the murder and said Moochie was a suspect.

"That was torture,'' Willie said.

The house grew silent. A choir member placed her hand on Willie's shoulder. Then the others followed suit, as did the pastor and the other adults.

"They tried to console me with words, but I couldn't hear anything they were saying because the pounding of my heart rendered me deaf.''

A family destroyed

Josh was 7. The TV told him, too.

"Mama was sitting on the floor cutting collard greens, the TV came on and they had Moochie's [U.S.] Army photo,'' Josh said. "I said, 'Mama, that's Moochie.' She looked up and just lost it.''

My other siblings were too young to remember where they were at the time. But my mother knew her small children "came home from school and seen their brother's picture all over the TV. We were hurting. The family was destroyed and looked like we could never get those pieces back together again.''

Left with questions

After spending two days on the couch unable to communicate her feelings, she got up and decided to attend the funeral.

Sherry wouldn't let her go alone. My mother made sure to shake hands with every member of the Bunch family. She looked them each in the eye, told them how sorry she was for their loss.

I didn't know the Bunch family, but have spent a quarter of a century wondering who they were. Did they have kids my age? Did they hate us? What had they heard about us?

If I ever got to speak with any one of them, would they accept my apology for what my brother had spent the past 25 years in prison convicted of doing - or would they spit in my face?

Would our families join forces, help each other heal, maybe petition the S.C. Probation, Parole and Pardon Services together to free Moochie?

I wondered if they still hurt as much as we do.

I wondered if they had come up with dozens of conspiracy theories about the murder and how it was handled.

I knew we had.

I spent all those years wondering who we were as well. How could I be a blood relative of a murderer? Did the evil that showed itself on April 27, 1982, also reside in me? Where did it come from? How could my oldest brother ever consider taking the life of another man?

In recent months I've found answers to some of those questions, but uncovered others.

One thing I learned disturbed me more than any other: 13 years before the Bunch murder, Moochie, then 9, was prepared to kill someone else.