Life after a child gets murdered
Posted: Tuesday, May 01, 2007 1:40 PM by Dateline Editor
Filed Under:
Crime
a guest blog entry by Tom Yates, father of Amy Yates
My name is Tom Yates, I am the father of two daughters, Amy and Danielle. On April 26, 2004, Amy was led into the woods of the mobile home park where we lived, by a 16-year-old boy that she knew and considered to be a friend. The boy told her that he wanted her to come listen to the birds with him. After entering the woods and walking far enough so that no one could see what he was going to do, he tried to rape her, and when she screamed for help he strangled her and then dumped her body further in the woods. The events that have unfolded that day seem like they could only happen in a movie, a horror movie for my family. (Tom, pictured with Amy on the right, and Danielle, left)
April 26 was like any other Monday. Sometime around 4:20 p.m. my girls got off the school bus and walked down to the house. Both girls had homework to do but because Amy had been doing so well at school we told her that she could play first and then do her homework later. Amy’s 9th birthday was just nine days away. We had bought her a pack of Hello Kitty invitations to give to her friends. After she had watched a little T.V., she wanted me to help her with the invitations so we worked on them together. She asked me if she could go over to her friend’s house to give an invitation and play. I told her that it was fine but that I was starting on dinner and she had to come home at 7 p.m. I was standing at the front door when Amy got on her bike and rode across the street to her friend’s house. The girl wasn’t allowed to go out and play, so Amy came back home to ask if she could go to another friend who lived just three trailers over from us. Again, I said that was fine and to be home at 7 p.m.
Then I watched as she rode her bike in between two trailers, never imagining that I would never again see my daughter alive.
At 7:05 p.m. Amy had not come home so my wife, Shari, walked over to the Gossett’s trailer to go and get her. When she got there she was told that Amy never showed up. Shari came back to the house and told me that the Gossetts said that Amy wasn’t there. At that point I left the house mad, thinking that Amy had disobeyed us, but as Shari and I were walking back over towards the Gossett’s we noticed Amy’s bike parked on a concrete pad in an empty lot, just two lots to the left of the Gossett’s home, which is about 75 feet away.
At this point we knew that something was wrong. It was now about 7:20 p.m. and no one knew where Amy was so I called 911 and reported her missing. The sheriff’s department issued a statewide amber alert and send out a K-9 unit to help with the search, but the dog couldn’t lock onto her scent. Just after 10 p.m., my family and I were sitting at home waiting for someone to tell us that they had found our daughter when a local news channel came on TV and said, “Amy Yates has been found alive and has been returned home to her family.” But Amy wasn’t with us.
I ran up the street to the command center and asked where Amy was and they said they didn’t know but that there were two officers at my home who needed to talk to me. I ran back home thinking that I must have passed Amy and the officers on the way to the command center, but when I got home, Amy wasn’t with them. I asked the officers where my daughter was and they said that before they would talk to me I first needed to talk to two other officers. At this point, I got very upset with the officers and demanded to know where Amy was. Just then the officers opened my front door and let in two more officers who were wearing little gold crosses on their shoulders and right then I knew… Amy wasn’t coming home.
From that moment, and for a few days after, I don’t remember much. For those who have never lost a child or don’t have children, there is no way you could ever know the pain, loss, hurt and devastation of losing a child. I wish that no one ever has to endure the pain that my family and I have had to go through.
It has now been two years and nine months from the time of my daughter’s death and a lot has happened with the case. For those who haven’t followed the stories or don’t know of my daughter’s case, I will explain:
Just after Amy’s death, the local sheriff’s department charged a 12-year-old boy who lived in the mobile home park with her death. Our sheriff’s department and the D.A.’s office assured us that he was the one who killed Amy. After several court hearings and a year and a half later, the boy took a plea bargain called an Alford Plea, which means, “I feel that you might have evidence that would find me guilty if I were to go before a jury, so instead I will just say I did it and keep my innocence.” He was sentenced to serve two years in a psychiatric hospital.
Just the thought of someone serving two years for murder was mind-boggling. Our state’s juvenile code at the time said that no juvenile under the age of 13 could serve more than two years. That had my family and a lot of other people very upset. We campaigned for a change in the code to allow young offenders who commit violent crimes resulting in severe bodily injury or loss of life to be detained until their 21st birthday. We called the new law Amy’s law, and in July of 2006 it became legislation. But things didn’t end there.
Almost two years after Amy was murdered, a 19-year-old man named Chris Gossett confessed to Amy’s murder. Within a few hours the sheriff’s department sent him home after telling his family that he had nothing to do with Amy’s death. At first we also didn’t believe him but after talking with friends of the Gossett family who were there when Chris confessed, we began to wonder if we had the right person. Two days later I called the Gossett home and spoke with Jean, Chris’s mom. Jean said Chris was sitting across from her on the couch. I said, “Jean, you ask him right now, did he kill my daughter?” Jean then asked, “Chris, Tom wants to know, did you kill Amy?” Chris replied, “I did it Mom, I did it. I keep telling everyone I did it but no one will listen.” I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. I just hung up the phone and began to cry.
For the next few months I worked closely with the attorney of the 12-year-old boy to help get him released. We succeeded but now we had the task of proving that we had enough evidence to indict Chris Gossett. On October 23, 2006, a Grand Jury gathered to hear evidence against Gossett and indicted him on the charge of involuntary manslaughter. This was an injustice. The Grand Jury said that they felt that Chris didn’t mean to kill Amy because of his IQ of 63; when Amy screamed he got scared and in the process of trying to keep her quiet he killed her. But that’s not the case. If they had paid attention to Chris’s first confession video, Chris said that he was taking Amy into the woods to have sex with her. That’s rape! So what Chris did is called Felony Murder.
Because the Grand Jury asked for involuntary manslaughter, if found guilty, Chris Gossett will only serve 2-10 years for the murder of my 8-year-old daughter. The system has once again failed the victim.
For now I wait for the day when this is all over and I can once again try to move forward with my life. As for my family, after Amy’s death, my wife and I tried for two years to make our marriage work for Danielle’s sake, but we were unable to stay together. I have since remarried and Danielle lives with me. My new wife has an 8-year-old daughter so now Danielle has a stepsister. Like all siblings, they fight like cats and dogs, but love each other to death. As for Shari, she has moved and met someone new, and might remarry this spring.
The report, "A Killing in Carrollton," aired Dateline Tuesday, May 1, 8 p.m. Click here for the transcript. Click here for the full crime files.
