My Uncle

He was murdered when I was six.

I remember the news coverage. I was sitting on my Grandma and Grandpa's shaggy living room carpet. The TV screen showed the gurney with my uncle's body being brought down the steps of the duplex.

The family rumor was that his wife was cheating on him. When he returned home one day, he caught her in bed with another man. My uncle threatened her lover with a knife. Her lover pulled out a gun and shot him.

That's about all I ever knew of the story until last year. On a whim, I happened to ask the Homicide Commander if I could see the file, since it's a closed case and public record. See, it happened in the Big City, the city I work for.

He said sure, he would let Sgt. Davis, the cold case investigator, know since she's the one with access to all the archives. Sgt. Davis, or Liz, also happens to be my friend. She had no idea I had an uncle murdered in the city. No one on the department did. It's not something I really like to advertise.

I asked Liz to remove the crime scene photos, I just didn't need to see that. I sat down in one of the interrogation rooms with the overstuffed, disintegrating file folder. As I dug through the mounds of sketches, handwritten incident reports, and property sheets, I was able to piece together what really happened that night.

Contrary to my family's version of the story, my uncle actually went over to the lover's house. They apparently were friends. They had a few beers. Then, my uncle confronted the lover about the affair. There was a scuffle. The neighbor said he heard my uncle pleading, "Don't shoot me, don't shoot me", then shots rang out. By the time the police arrived, my uncle was dead.

The lover claimed, when interviewed, my uncle came at him with a knife, so he shot him in self defense. The jury didn't buy it. The lover went to prison, guilty of manslaughter.

And it turns out, my aunt was never even there.

Author's Note: This is a true story, only the names have been changed. My uncle was my mom's brother and his wife eventually distanced herself from the family, taking their two children with her.

Link up at "Family Fridays" over at The Peterson Family or Keeping Up With the Schultz Family.