ROSWELL, Ga. (AP) — A hawk swooped in and landed on a tree, then watched as Michele and Jeremy Davis mourned their murdered son at a vigil outside his high school.
It was one day after their teenager, Carter, was gunned down in a random attack that sent fear through the suburbs north of Atlanta in the summer of 2016.
The hawk stayed as the father spoke. When he finished, it began soaring silently over the crowd, flying just over the heads of Carter’s classmates at the tearful vigil, Michele Davis recalled in an interview this week.
Hawks and butterflies would show up later for the Davis family in surprising and unexpected ways. They’ve been part of a series of events that helped her regain her joy, she said.
Michele Davis is an English teacher at the Lovett School in Atlanta, and one of the latest signs that her son is OK came through a former student, Slater Nalley. He wrote a song about Carter and later made it onto the TV show “American Idol.” Nalley’s performance of “Traces of You” will be aired on the season premiere Sunday night, ABC representatives said.
Searching for signs that Carter is OK
Michele Davis spent one of the last days with her son in her home state of South Dakota, beneath the towering granite peaks in the Black Hills. She and Carter noticed two granite spires touching each other across a ravine, a rock formation known as the Praying Hands.
This undated photo provided by April Oedekoven shows Carter Davis. (April Oedekoven via AP)
Three days later, Carter and his friend Natalie Henderson, both 17, were gunned down. It was the night before he was supposed to start his senior year at River Ridge High School in Woodstock, Georgia.
Hours after the killings, Carter’s parents gathered with their daughter, 8-year-old Greta, to find a path forward. They’d just heard devastating details of the murders from police detectives. When the police left, they went to their porch and decided to look for messages that signaled Carter was OK, Michele Davis said. To help Greta better comprehend the loss of her big brother, Jeremy Davis explained to his daughter that Carter may send messages that he’s fine in unique ways, such as with feathers or dragonflies.
They talked it over a bit before Jeremy Davis told the family: “I see him as a hawk or an eagle, soaring high above.”
The next evening at the vigil, the hawk appeared.
The butterfly visits
As Michele Davis spoke with her parents a couple of days after the killings, a yellow and black butterfly landed near them. It reminded them of Carter’s love for butterflies.
Carter was also passionate about sports, and hoped to play lacrosse in college. Weeks after the killings, friends and family organized a pick-up lacrosse game in Georgia.
Carter’s best friend from South Dakota flew to Atlanta for the game and wore Carter’s helmet and jersey. Midway through, players came to a halt. They began pointing at Carter’s helmet, where a yellow butterfly had landed.
Gunman pleads guilty but mentally ill
Days after the killing, Roswell police arrested Jeffrey Hazelwood on two murder counts. Police said he stalked Carter and Henderson as they spent time in a parked car outside a Publix grocery store.
Hazelwood, who was 20 at the time, had climbed onto the roof of the grocery store during the predawn hours on Aug. 1, 2016, to watch them, prosecutors said. He later confronted the teens in the parking lot, shooting both of them in the head, the medical examiner determined. There was no evidence that he even knew them.
After the killings, Hazelwood wore a “Guy Fawkes” mask — which gained popularity after the 2006 film “V for Vendetta” — as he filled his car with gas at a nearby convenience store, surveillance video shows. There’s no evidence he was wearing the mask during the killings, as there’s no surveillance video that captured the teens being shot, police said. Detectives later found writings by Hazelwood that expressed his desire to become an assassin.
Hazelwood pleaded guilty but mentally ill to two counts of murder, and is serving a life sentence in a Georgia prison, according to the state Department of Corrections. Hazelwood has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, his defense lawyers said in court.
A priest who prayed with her and the Henderson family, and the Roswell police detectives who interviewed Michele and Jeremy Davis also gave them comfort in their darkest days, Michele Davis said.
She’s also grateful that detectives secured a confession from Hazelwood. He shook uncontrollably as he recounted the crime to a detective, as seen in the interrogation video. The police department’s forensic science laboratory now has a plaque on the wall: “In Memory of Natalie Henderson & Carter Davis. When the innocent cannot cry out for justice, it is our duty to do so for them.”
‘The most magical thing’
Last year, Michele Davis shared a poem she had written with Nalley, her former student. Nalley then created a song about Carter and wanted to bring his guitar to school and play it for the class.
“It was the most magical thing I had ever heard,” Michele Davis said. Students in other classrooms heard the music. So “we went on this classroom tour of him singing this song and me sitting there listening to it and crying,” she said.
The song’s opening lyric is “Your laugh was like a river running home.” Later, the song evokes the hawks that bring comfort to her: “Somewhere past the sky I can feel you dancing in the air. Every single time I see a bird fly by, I’m reminded you’re answering my prayers.”
This image released by Disney shows contestant Slater Nalley, left, embracing his English teacher, Mrs. Davis, during auditions for “American Idol.” (Eric McCandless/Disney via AP)
Living in the ‘and’
Through a friend, Michele Davis was able to find a small group of women in the Atlanta area known as the Warrior Moms, all of whom have suffered tremendous loss.
“As Americans we shy away from talking about it,” she said. “It’s just underneath the surface — this sadness — that any one second, I can just sit still long enough and break down crying.”
The Warrior Moms plan to share their experiences in a book, “Grieve Like a Mother, Survive Like a Warrior,” set to be released later this year.
“We wanted to be able to tell our stories that help people find joy again,” Michele Davis said. “It’s very intentional with finding joy.”
Another thing she’s learned is what she calls “living in the ‘and,’” as in “dark and light, sorrow and happiness, grief and joy,” she said.
She also plans to keep looking for those unexpected moments, when the memory of her son comes flooding back.
“You look for the hawks and butterflies,” she said.
