Delivered from Evil: True Stories of Ordinary People Who Faced Monstrous Mass Killers and Survived by Ron Franscell Page A
Authors: Ron Franscell
Tags: True Crime
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wonder what kind of God would take the good one and leave â¦him? In those first days, he began to think he should have died instead of Matao.
Keith spent a week recovering from his wounds. When he could sleep at all, he heard the sound of gunfire in his vivid nightmares.
After he was released, his mother took him to Matao and Blytheâs funeral. It was an open-casket affair; Mataoâs sweet little face looked swollen, which bothered Keith, but none of his wounds showed. Keith cried, but he was in a stupor through most of the service and barely spoke. Afterward, some reporters came up to him and asked to see his wounds, and he obliged them by removing his sling and exposing his healing holes.
Soon after the funeral, Keith visited Ron Herrera in the hospital, where he was still recovering. He took off Mataoâs bracelet and gave it to Ron, and they both cried.
Despite the incredible horror heâd endured, the worst was yet to come.
And there was a good chance he wouldnât survive his survival.
THE COMING HOLOCAUST
In the days after the massacre, the portrait of James Oliver Huberty developed slowly, like some sinister Polaroid in all the violent colors of grief.
He was born on October 11, 1942, in Canton, Ohio. His father, Earl V. Huberty, worked in a steel mill in nearby Massillon, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) west of Canton, and was well liked by his neighbors in the rural farming community where he and his wife raised their kids in a devoutly Methodist home. After he was hurt on the job, Earl retired to his family farm, which he sold off over the years, piece by piece, to keep the family afloat.
At age three, James contracted polio and wore braces on his crippled legs for several painful years while children teased him about his awkward gait and crooked knees.
When he was seven, his mother abandoned the family to become a Pentecostal missionary to an Indian reservation. James was crushed.
Although he was a good student, James was distant and quiet growing up. Before he became the most prolific mass shooter in American history, most of his public school classmates would have barely remembered him, even though his graduating class of 1960 in Waynedale, Ohio, had only seventy-four students.
His family was so fervently religious that some believed James would go into the seminary. But while many of his classmates dreamed of being doctors or lawyers or taking over the family farm, James dreamed of being an embalmer. He took funeral-science classes at Malone College in Canton, and then his father sent him to the Pittsburgh Institute of Mortuary Science in Pennsylvania. He came home to Canton for his final internship at a local funeral parlor, where he quickly proved to be far better with the dead than the living. He enjoyed embalming and the other morbid but solitary pursuits of a morticianâs back rooms, but he was clumsy and abrasive with customers.
âHe was intelligent, but he just couldnât relate to others,â Canton funeral director Don Williams, Hubertyâs mentor, said shortly after the shooting. âHe simply wasnât cut out for this profession. He acted like he just wanted to be left alone.â Despite the bumps, Huberty finished his internship, and the Ohio embalming board licensed him in 1966.
During that time, James met Etna Markland, a California girl who was a substitute teacher at a local grade school. They married in a private religious ceremony, moved into a small, tidy house in Massillon, Ohio, and started a family. They eventually had two daughters: Zelia in 1973 and Cassandra in 1977.
But even then, James didnât seem right. Coworkers, neighbors, and even the pastor who married James and Etna saw a man shadowed by inner demons that were clawing at his guts. Even in calm moments, he seemed barely able to control his anger at the world.
He kept snarling German shepherd guard dogs and hoarded food in his basement in fear of a coming holocaust. He
Keith spent a week recovering from his wounds. When he could sleep at all, he heard the sound of gunfire in his vivid nightmares.
After he was released, his mother took him to Matao and Blytheâs funeral. It was an open-casket affair; Mataoâs sweet little face looked swollen, which bothered Keith, but none of his wounds showed. Keith cried, but he was in a stupor through most of the service and barely spoke. Afterward, some reporters came up to him and asked to see his wounds, and he obliged them by removing his sling and exposing his healing holes.
Soon after the funeral, Keith visited Ron Herrera in the hospital, where he was still recovering. He took off Mataoâs bracelet and gave it to Ron, and they both cried.
Despite the incredible horror heâd endured, the worst was yet to come.
And there was a good chance he wouldnât survive his survival.
THE COMING HOLOCAUST
In the days after the massacre, the portrait of James Oliver Huberty developed slowly, like some sinister Polaroid in all the violent colors of grief.
He was born on October 11, 1942, in Canton, Ohio. His father, Earl V. Huberty, worked in a steel mill in nearby Massillon, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) west of Canton, and was well liked by his neighbors in the rural farming community where he and his wife raised their kids in a devoutly Methodist home. After he was hurt on the job, Earl retired to his family farm, which he sold off over the years, piece by piece, to keep the family afloat.
At age three, James contracted polio and wore braces on his crippled legs for several painful years while children teased him about his awkward gait and crooked knees.
When he was seven, his mother abandoned the family to become a Pentecostal missionary to an Indian reservation. James was crushed.
Although he was a good student, James was distant and quiet growing up. Before he became the most prolific mass shooter in American history, most of his public school classmates would have barely remembered him, even though his graduating class of 1960 in Waynedale, Ohio, had only seventy-four students.
His family was so fervently religious that some believed James would go into the seminary. But while many of his classmates dreamed of being doctors or lawyers or taking over the family farm, James dreamed of being an embalmer. He took funeral-science classes at Malone College in Canton, and then his father sent him to the Pittsburgh Institute of Mortuary Science in Pennsylvania. He came home to Canton for his final internship at a local funeral parlor, where he quickly proved to be far better with the dead than the living. He enjoyed embalming and the other morbid but solitary pursuits of a morticianâs back rooms, but he was clumsy and abrasive with customers.
âHe was intelligent, but he just couldnât relate to others,â Canton funeral director Don Williams, Hubertyâs mentor, said shortly after the shooting. âHe simply wasnât cut out for this profession. He acted like he just wanted to be left alone.â Despite the bumps, Huberty finished his internship, and the Ohio embalming board licensed him in 1966.
During that time, James met Etna Markland, a California girl who was a substitute teacher at a local grade school. They married in a private religious ceremony, moved into a small, tidy house in Massillon, Ohio, and started a family. They eventually had two daughters: Zelia in 1973 and Cassandra in 1977.
But even then, James didnât seem right. Coworkers, neighbors, and even the pastor who married James and Etna saw a man shadowed by inner demons that were clawing at his guts. Even in calm moments, he seemed barely able to control his anger at the world.
He kept snarling German shepherd guard dogs and hoarded food in his basement in fear of a coming holocaust. He
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