It was another 48 hours before young Johnny Bolan was removed from the hospital's critical list and the grieving soldier could fully piece together the events leading to the tragedy. Johnny's statement to a police stenographer, delivered from a hospital bed, reads as follows:

Pop had been sick and couldn't work for a while. He got behind in some bills and he was worried about some money he borrowed about a year ago. Then he went back to work and he could not do the job he had been doing, because of his heart, and the job they gave him did not pay as much. He was worried about that, because of the bills and being behind, and then these guys were starting to bother him at work. These guys he owed some money to. I heard him tell Mama one night that they were blood-suckers, that they didn't even want to leave him enough every week to take care of his family. He said they could all go to hell. Then one night he came home with his arm pulled out of the socket His shoulder, I mean. These goons had worked him over. Mama got all tore up over that. She was scared he would have another heart attack. She was going to call the cops but Pop wouldn't let her. He said they'd just start taking it out on her and the kids. I heard Mama telling Cindy about it. Then things got okay again, a few weeks ago. Pop couldn't understand, but he was telling Mama these goons had been leaving him alone, and he sure wasn't going to go ask them why. Then the other night something happened. I don't know what I just know Pop started yelling and blowing his stack Mama and Cindy were trying to quiet him down, they were afraid he'd have another attack. Then next thing I knew he had this old gun of his and he was blasting away with it. One of the shots got me. Then Pop went back in his bedroom and I heard one more shot just before I passed out That's all I know.