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The red light on the answering machine flashed in the dark.
Urgent messages awaited Yong Jones and her husband.
Bangor police had begun calling just after 4 a.m. But no one
had picked up the phone in the dark, empty house.
A photograph of Larry Jones Jr. accepting his high school diploma
hung on the wall abovethe ringing phone. The Joneses' 24-year-old
son was the reason police continued to call.
At dawn on Nov. 20, 1993, Yong Jones returned from her shift
at the James River paper mill. She walked into the kitchen to
check on a 25-pound turkey cooking in the oven. She planned
to bring the turkey to a Korean religious celebration later
in the day.
On her way through the dining room, the blinking light on the
answering machine caught her eye. She pressed the play button.
''This is the Bangor Police Department. Would someone please
call us?''
Yong called the police, wondering why they'd phone her at such
an odd hour. The officer who took her call asked her: ''Do you
have a son?''
''Yes,'' she said, suddenly cold with fear.
The officer explained that her son had been in an accident.
He gave Yong the phone number of a Baltimore hospital and asked
her to call it right away.
Yong dialed the number, her hands shaking. A nurse at the hospital
told her: ''Your son's been hurt.''
''Can he talk?'' Yong asked.
''No,'' the nurse said gently. ''Is it possible for you and
your husband to come down here?''
Yong called her husband at Eastern Fine Paper, a mill in Brewer
where he worked as a security guard.
''Honey, I think Junior had a motorcycle accident,'' she said.
''Do you remember if he took his helmet with him?''
''I think he did,'' he said. Then he started asking her questions
she could not answer. ''Don't worry. Junior will be all right.
I'll come home right away.'' Above: This photograph of Larry
Jones Jr., showing him as he received his high school diploma,
stood near the telephone and answering machine in Yong and Larry
Jones Sr.'s empty house on the morning of Nov. 20, 1993. For
hours, Bangor police had been trying to contact the Joneses;
their son had just been shot on a Baltimore street.
Yong collapsed into a kitchen chair and cried out to her son
in a hospital bed 600 miles away. ''Junior. Please be OK. Momma's
coming.''
Her husband hugged her when he returned home. Then he called
the hospital, wanting to know more about his son's accident.
Yong watched her husband's eyes darken as the voice on the other
end of the line told him: ''Somebody shot your son in a robbery.
You need to come here right away. He's not doing well. He's
on life-support machines.''
Larry hung up the phone slowly.
''We need to get a flight out to Baltimore right away,'' he
said.
Unable to get a commercial flight from Bangor to Baltimore,
Larry hired a private plane.
''Who did this to Junior?'' Yong sobbed, doubled over in her
seat as the small craft flew south along the coast. ''Junior.
My baby. How can this be happening to him?''
Her husband sat beside her, his lips pressed tightly together.
He said little, knowing there wasn't much he could do.
Just after 3 p.m., they arrived at the University of Maryland
Shock Trauma Center.
A nurse led them to their son. Junior lay on the hospital bed.
Gauze bandages covered his left eye and half of his face. There
were tubes in his nose to breathe for him. Tubes in his chest
and arms to pump blood and fluids into his listless body.
Gunpowder dotted his cheeks and forehead like tiny freckles.
Whoever shot him had pulled the trigger close to his face.
His knees, left thigh, right leg, fingers and forearms were
scratched and bruised. The Korean gold ring that he had treasured
was gone. His left hand was cut where he had worn the ring.
There was little doubt he had struggled before he was shot.
Yong gasped when she saw her child. She picked up her son's
limp hand. Sobbing, she whispered to him: ''Mommy's here.''
Doctors explained to Laurence Jones that his son had been shot
in the left eye. The bullet tore through his eyelid and into
his skull, driving shattered bone into his brain. The slug also
bore through Junior's throat, slicing his left jugular vein.
He was found lying on his back, unconscious and bleeding heavily,
just a few doors from his southeast Baltimore apartment. The
shooting happened shortly before 3 a.m. So far, police had no
witnesses and no suspects.
Though rescue workers were able to keep him breathing and his
heart pumping, Junior had never regained consciousness. It was
unlikely he ever would.
''He's brain dead,'' the doctor said. He explained to Laurence
Jones Sr. that he and Yong had to decide whether to take their
son off life support. The chance of recovery was bleak, the
doctor explained.
Yong begged the doctor: ''I need to talk to my son.''
''He's already dead,'' the doctor told her.
Yong stood by her son's bed. She refused to accept that her
only child was gone. She held his hand. ''Junior, I'm here.
Mommy's with you now.''
Her husband held her, his own voice wavering as he told her,
''We have to let go.''
''But he just squeezed my hand,'' Yong pleaded.
The doctor shook his head. ''I'm sorry. He couldn't have.''
For the next few hours, Yong clung to her son's side, massaging
his hand, caressing his cheeks.
''Please wake up, Junior. Please wake up for Momma.''
As the hours passed, Yong's pleas went unanswered.
By 9 p.m., Yong and her husband agreed there was nothing left
for them to do but say goodbye to their son. They stood by his
bedside, gripped by a cold and stinging grief that would never
fully leave them.
The doctor flipped a couple of switches and the beeping, hissing
machines fell silent. Yong crumpled to the floor as her son
slipped away.
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