Friday, May 20, 2011
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
A lot of people’s lives changed in a few moments on June 27, 1991.
Roderick Davie entered Veterinary Companies of America on Main Avenue Southwest, the company that had fired him not long before, and took three employees hostage. He ordered them to the floor, then fired a gun at the two men.
John Coleman, a former sheriff’s deputy and military veteran who had replaced Davie after he’d been fired, was dead almost immediately of gunshots to the head.
John Everett was hit by three bullets, but none was fatal — neck, shoulder and arm. He played dead, though, while Davie turned his attention to Tracey Jefferys, 21, who got up and ran.
Davie beat Jefferys with a large coffee pot and a chair for several minutes, fatally inflicting 190 slashes on her body and severe damage to her head.
To Sandra Richmond of Warren, mother of Tracey Jefferys, those moments forever changed her life.
And they prove that a person’s life can change or end without a moment’s notice.
It is perhaps that realization that will take center stage at 9 p.m. Sunday and again at 1 a.m. Monday on the Biography Channel, when the program “I Survived ...” airs an episode featuring the Davie killings.
Everett is featured; he was able to get out of the building. But Davie spotted him, and drove a delivery truck to try and run him down.
Everett escaped by jumping under a bridge, but Davie followed on foot, beating Everett with a stick, trying to gouge his eyes out.
Then Davie fled, having killed Coleman and Jefferys but not Everett.
Everett has told Richmond he regrets not getting up from that floor and trying to stop Davie from killing Tracey Jefferys, but Richmond has reassured Everett he did the right thing. Richmond said it’s natural that everyone connected to the tragedy has regrets.
“John feels bad he didn’t get up and save Tracey, but I told him, ‘Thank God you didn’t. He would have killed you, too.’ [John] was the key to unlock the lock, and that’s why justice was served,” Richmond said.
Because John Everett survived the attack, he was able to testify at Davie’s trial, and the state executed Davie last August for the crimes.
“People need to know how lucky they are, how things can change,” Richmond said, explaining the lessons that the “I Survived ...” series teaches.