The Shot That Saved Lives

The secret things belong unto the Lord our God. Dec. 27, 1994. A young man kicks in the door of an apartment. He has four-inch fingernails and an IQ of 72. He is the product of a one-night stand. He has come from a house full of mice and cockroaches, where his mother uses belts and extension cords in her ongoing attempt to beat the devil out of him. His name is Roderick Leshun Rankin, and he is 19 years old. He carries a Hi-Point 9-mm pistol.

He is here for his ex-girlfriend, Sonyae Reynolds. He has said he would kill her whole family if she left him.

He can't find Sonyae because she is hiding in a closet. But he finds her sister, Zena Reynolds, mother of two toddlers, and shoots her in the head. He finds her mother, Ernestine Halford, and shoots her in the head. He finds her stepfather, Nathanial Halford, and shoots him in the head. Ernestine Halford was once lead vocalist for the Beard Family Singers. She was Betty's older sister.

Fourteen years later Mykal Riley is playing professional basketball for Aget Imola in Italy. He doesn't sing much, except with his iPod, but he still takes every jumper in the name of Jesus, and he prays for a shot at the NBA. He says the shot he made against Mississippi State drew him closer to God. He had a chance to tie that game with a layup with one second left in overtime, but it rattled out. That was his last shot for the Crimson Tide.

"I don't question God's decisions," he says when asked about his Aunt Ernestine.

His grandmother Dottie didn't have much money. In fact, she filed for bankruptcy the year before she died, in 1999, of congestive heart failure. But she kept life-insurance policies on all her children, including Ernestine, and Betty says that check helped pay for the basketball court in their mother's backyard.