Crying, A Citizen Describes Horrific Scene

When a Washington County (Minn.) dispatcher answered a 911 call last Tuesday, it was obvious to the dispatcher that something horrible had occurred. A man walking in Humphries Park in the city of Lakeland happened across two bodies on the ground, both obviously dead from gunshot wounds to the head. “They’re both gone,” the man said. “They’re both dead,” he explained to the calltaker. The man was audibly crying, sniffling and sometimes inaudible as he used his cellular phone to make the call. Despite his emotions, the man seemed to realize the seriousness of his call, as he was able to give precise directions to the obscure location, at the top of a hill accessible only by a 100 foot climb up a hill. He described his car at the bottom of the hill, and said that he had checked the victims’ pulse at the carotid artery. “Shotgun to the head?” the dispatcher asked. “Both of them, and their…the tops of their skulls are both gone,” the man replied. After the calltaker assured the man that emergency units were enroute, at one point the calltaker asked the man to walk back down the hill—”You really don’t need to put yourself through this,” the calltaker said. But the caller insisted—perhaps through some emotional connection with the victim—to stay at the scene. “I’m goin’…I’m going to stay here,” he said. Still crying, the man awaited deputies, at one point shining his cell phone screen down the hill to guide them. Read more about the incident here, and download (pdf) the 911 call transcript here.