Staying with the story
The Springfield News-Sun has followed developments and the locatl connections in the Colorado theater shooting since it first happened in 2012.
Family members of Springfield native Matt McQuinn, killed in the 2012 Colorado movie theater shooting, said Monday the accused gunman’s trial will help with their grieving process.
Still, nearly three years after the shootings, they are not sure they will ever get over the brutal murder.
“There are times I can’t go out in public. I can’t be in a large crowd. I have to sit where I can see the door. And all of those are things I could do before this,” McQuinn’s mother, Jerri Jackson, said.
James Holmes pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to 166 charges stemming from the 2012 mass shooting, including first degree murder. Lawyers on both sides gave opening arguments in the case Monday.
“He wasn’t insane,” Jackson said. “He spent too much time planning it out.”
Jackson said she had worked since she was 16 years old, but had to quit her job after the mass shooting because she would break down and cry at work. She added the event has also impacted relationships in her life, because some people disagree with how she is handling the situation.
“A lot of people say the first year is the worst. Well it’s not the case, because every year is tough,” Jackson said.
McQuinn was watching “The Dark Knight Rises” with his girlfriend, Samantha Yowler, and her brother, Nick, when police said Holmes came into the theater and opened fire.
Jackson said the couple was sitting in the first row of the second section in the theater, because they liked plopping their feet on the railing during shows.
Yowler told Jackson that the two first thought it was a prank, when a person rolled a gas canister into the theater and was wearing a mask similar to the one the character the Joker was wearing in the film.
McQuinn was shot shortly afterward. Jackson said she was told he then shielded Yowler, a St. Paris native, from gunfire. She was hit once in the leg and McQuinn was shot nine times, according to police.
“We do view him as a hero,” Jackson said.
Yowler survived the attack and will testify against Holmes this summer. Jackson plans to give a statement on how the death of her son has impacted her life at Holmes’ sentencing if he is convicted.
Jackson said she hopes Holmes will never be a free man again.
“Whether it is life in prison without parole or whether it is the death penalty, as long as he can’t hurt anybody else, I’m good with that,” she said. “I just hope there are not appeals, after appeals, after appeals.”
In what has already been a lengthy judicial process, Holmes’ trial is expected to last months, with the sentencing possibly this fall.
“It will be a long time getting over, even after the trial, but I don’t think there will be a sense of closure until the one who did this finally gets what he deserved,” David Jackson, McQuinn’s stepfather, said.
David Jackson said McQuinn’s death has impacted the entire family and still is part of their lives.
“The whole family just feels emptiness,” David Jackson said. “It’s like that in a family when somebody, who’s such a lively personality, is taken. It’s a hard void to fill.”
McQuinn’s stepbrother, Chris Jackson, and his wife were representing the family at opening arguments Monday.
David Jackson remembers Chris Jackson and McQuinn getting along like brothers and called McQuinn the “jokester” of the family.
“You just miss the light that he brought into the room,” David Jackson said. “He always had something funny to say.”
For now, Jerri and David Jackson are just doing what they can to remember and honor their son.
“I would love to have him back. I’d do anything to do that, but I know I can’t and so all I can do is remember him,” Jerri Jackson said.
The Jacksons started the Matt McQuinn Foundation after his death.
The foundation has already started to spread random acts of kindness in the community, Jerri Jackson said. This year the foundation donated money to the Clark-Shawnee High School bowling team for a bowling ball because one student could not afford one. It is also holding a 5K event this Saturday at Vandalia-Butler High School.
“Those are the kind of things we are looking to do,” she said. “As we hear of things that are needed, we will definitely step up to the plate.”
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