According to the Houston Chronicle, a teenage girl who narrowly escaped being killed when her uncle went on a rampage, fatally shooting her mother, father, and four of his own children, believes that angels might have been with her to help survive the ordeal.
Cassidy Stay, 15, told a crowd of well-wishers outside a school in Houston, Texas, after she had been released from the hospital that she had escaped with her life because she pretended to be deαd after receiving a fracture to her skull by a bullet. She added that “Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one remembers to turn on the light,” repeating a quote from the Harry Potter books.
According to Assistant Chief Deputy Constable Mark Herman of the Harris County Precinct 4 Constable’s Office, the accused shooter, Ron Lee Haskell, surrendered to the police after a long standoff, but not before he had fatally shot four children and two adults. He added that Haskell was the ex-husband of Stay’s aunt, who was out of town at the time that he allegedly shot the girl’s parents, two boys aged 4 and 14, and two girls aged 7 and 9.
The police had been informed by the brave 15-year-old victim, who managed to sound the alert by calling 911 while playing dead, possibly saving the life of more people, including the grandparents of Stay, where Haskell was planning to go next.
Stay’s grandfather, Roger Lyons, said that without his granddaughter’s courage and quick thinking, there would probably have been a lot more victims, including himself. He added that Stay told him later that she felt like angels were with her protecting her from further harm and he felt that possibly those “angels” could have been her deceased brothers and sisters.
Stay believes that she will see her family again because now, her parents, brothers, Bryan, and Zach, and sisters, Emily and Becca, are resting in a much better place.
Haskell will be charged with multiple counts of capital murder, according to Ron Hickman, Harris County Precinct 4 Constable.
