I didn’t know it at the time, but something happened between Marylin and me that morning of our first interview back in 2010. I know that I came away from the interview inspired, fascinated, wanting to know more, to hear and learn more, which had not necessarily been my intention going in. For her part, she did not easily trust representatives of the print and TV media and how we covered violence and the city, though she knew how to use the media, and media in the general sense of the word. Famously, she had devised a dynamic method to overcome what had been scant coverage of her 18-year-old son’s death and a distracted investigation by the police: billboards. I remembered them immediately when she mentioned them in our first conversation. One in particular had hovered over West Oakland for months and I would drive by regularly and marvel at it. On it was her son’s graduation picture, I remember it in hues of blue and gray, a very stern-faced and serious Khadafy, his bold, confrontational eyes staring into the eyes of a city that wanted to look away, with the question blaring, in capital letters: “Do You Know Who Killed Me?” I remembered thinking that surely the billboards would confront the killer on a daily basis and wear him down somehow. This was back when I was sure that all killers had a way into them, before I learned about trophies, before I began hearing older guys from the streets of Oakland, some of whom I would eventually become friends and co-workers with, talking about how young the killers have become, how lacking they are in thought, in planning, in discretion, in empathy, before I understood anything about brain development and the damage lifelong trauma does to the brain, or the soul. I felt sure the billboards would lead to an arrest, though they never did. As the investigator on the case would tell me years later, “This was one of the quietest cases I ever worked.” While rumors of Khadafy's murder spread through the streets on the morning after it happened, word of who did it remained mute for decades and to this day is full of ambiguity. But in the face of Marilyn's reticence with the media, something I had done or said -- or not done or not said -- had seemed to reassure her that I could be trusted. Today, as I write this book, I want it to stare into the eyes of the city.
Comments