What parent lets a 14-year-old girl go to a Rave and stay out all night?
Very sad, but very irresponsible of parents who want to be "cool" with their kids to let them have this kind of freedom.
Youngest Victim In Slayings Was Just 14
March 27, 2006
By KOMO Staff & News Services
SEATTLE - Kyle Moore dropped his 14-year-old daughter off at a Tacoma bowling alley Friday night, knowing she was meeting up with older friends for a ride to a dance party in Seattle, one with a zombie theme.
He didn't kiss her for fear of smearing her black and white makeup - a get-up that would enable her to get into the "Better Off Undead" rave for a discounted price, $15. He didn't hug her for fear of getting the makeup on himself.
But he did tell her he loved her as she left the car, and he's thankful for that. The next morning, Melissa Moore, a ninth-grader at Columbia Junior High in Fife, became the youngest of six people massacred by a gunman who then took his own life.
"She liked the dancing, and she loved to meet people," Kyle Moore said Monday as he stood outside the home where she died. He was wearing one of her T-shirts; it still smelled like her, he said.
He described her as outgoing and friendly, intelligent but - like himself - a bad student who had a hard time with the structure of the classroom. He knew her older friends, who ranged in age from 16 to 21, and he trusted them.
She had recently been out all night for a St. Patrick's Day rave. She always called, and she always came home when she said she would. Kyle said he tried to be a cool dad, so that Melissa and her 16-year-old brother, Cameron, would be open with him.
Sometimes, it worked: She admitted she smoked pot on occasion, but promised him she didn't drink or do the harder drugs available in the rave scene.
But she did hide some things. After she got into the car with her friends on Friday, she changed into an outfit she thought her parents would have disapproved of. It involved a bra made of candy, said one friend who was there, a mohawked 16-year-old who goes only by Otterpop.
"I told her it's not an atmosphere for young children," said Otterpop, dressed in black with beaded bracelets covering his wrists. "She assured me she didn't do drugs, and I had never seen her doing any. I figured everything was OK. She was just really happy to be going."
Once they arrived at the "Better Off Undead" rave, Melissa did her own thing. When the event ended, the friends her parents trusted couldn't find her. They went home, and she went to an after-party at a blue, two-story home on Capitol Hill.
Morning found her sitting on the porch with two young girls she had just met. One was cold, and Melissa offered her coat. The girl took it. In it were Melissa's camera and cell phone.
Moments later, just after 7 a.m., the hulking gunman arrived. Six-foot-5 and 280 pounds, Aaron Kyle Huff had been at the party that morning. He briefly left and returned carrying bandoliers of ammunition, a pistol-grip shotgun and a handgun, police said. He blasted Melissa and one of her new friends, 15-year-old Suzanne Thorne, in the head, police said. The other girl - the one wearing Melissa's coat - escaped, along with more than two dozen others.
Meanwhile, Moore had become worried. It was Saturday morning and he hadn't heard from his daughter. He tried calling repeatedly, but her voice mail always picked up on the first ring. He began driving frantically around her familiar haunts. He drove to her friends' homes, hoping for news. He had learned of the shooting, and he had a bad feeling.
Finally, with the help of detectives, the girl with Melissa's coat was able to charge the cell phone and extract Moore's number. The girl told Moore what happened.
Moore smiled sadly on Monday as he thought of one of his daughter's last acts: giving her coat to someone she barely knew. It was just like her, he said.
"If she had her last dollar she'd give it to you," he said. "As long as you treated her right, you had a friend for life." |
