Imprisoned by Fear. Kathy Lange
him. He thought to himself, This is going to be bad. His cell phone was out of minutes and had been for a month. He had been too afraid to drive to St. Cloud to buy minutes for it. He then heard footsteps that started down the stairs toward him. They hadn’t stopped in any of the rooms upstairs. The footsteps did not pause and were coming directly down to him. As he sat frozen, he reached for his replacement rifle. As the figure further descended the stairs, he shot. Afraid they had his own guns, he took a shot in the hip of this person coming to him. A young male dropped and fell to the bottom of the stairs. He could now see his face and didn’t recognize him, but thought he looked about twenty-six years old. What he did recognize were the shoes that had fallen off when he fell. They looked like the same footprint as the door from the break-in in October. They were a skateboard-style shoe, and Byron was familiar with them as he wore this style while hiking. Nick Brady started getting up after the first shot and coming toward Byron. He shot again, this time at his chest, but it didn’t seem to affect him as he still came toward Byron with a mad, mean look on his face, and then he held up both hands at Byron with both middle fingers pointing straight up at him! The threat continued. Byron shot at his hands and head, and it was over. Nick Brady was no longer a threat. He sat down to catch his breath. He was frozen, and blood was pumping rapidly and heavily into his ears. The adrenalin was out of control. Blood was starting to flow on the carpet, so he got a tarp from his shop area that he used for logs for his wood burner and placed the body on the tarp. He sat back down to catch his breath for several minutes. When almost ready to call for assistance, the sound of more footsteps was heard above him. Was another intruder entering his home? The window was already broken. They could crawl in without making a sound. With the sound of gunshots still ringing in his ears, he saw another figure descending down the stairs. Byron took another shot at a black-hooded figure coming downstairs. He shot in the head so there would be little chance of another physical encounter. This time a second figure dropped to the foot of the stairs. This person looked thin, dressed in black pants and a black hoodie with the drawstring tied so tight around the face that only the eyes and nose were showing. The black sweatshirt had a Hard Candy logo in pink letters. He noticed black leather gloves. She had obviously put some thought into her day’s activities with her large pink tote bag, yet empty, except for her glass pipe. (Byron did not look in the bag. This pipe was noted in law enforcement reports.) She was gasping, “Oh my god, oh my god.” He placed the gun to her head, and it seemed to him that she laughed because at that moment, the gun jammed. The only other weapon that remained close to him was a small .22 rifle, so he shot her again in the head, and she was still gasping. His thoughts turned to more people coming down the stairs. He moved her body next to the other. He didn’t want to look at these intruders, but as he moved the girl’s body, he noticed she was still gasping. Because he didn’t want her to suffer, he shot her again. His thoughts now were that more intruders must be coming. He thought the girl was a neighbor that he had suspected of stealing from him previously over the years. But now Byron started to wonder if there were additional burglars. He thought maybe the girl’s dad would be coming after her or maybe he was in on all the burglaries that had been happening this summer. He was frozen and wondering who was coming next. He felt abandoned by law enforcement because they had done little to no follow-up on these attacks on this home. The one follow-up visit that was done was a short conversation with Deputy Luberts, who fiddled with this radio after a few minutes, said he had to leave, got in his car, turned on the lights, and left in a sudden hurry. Byron noticed that by the time he went passed onto Highway 10 alongside his house, the lights on his car had already been turned off. Byron had suggested to Luberts that there might be some drug traffic on his street, which was when the deputy suddenly had to leave. He had shown Luberts the installed cameras on his property because there was “nothing else they could do.” Now he had shot two people who entered his home to steal once again and was now wondering what window had been broken. Who else was coming through the broken window? Was there anyone else coming in the house? His thoughts were now that there might be more coming. He sat there in the corner of another room in his basement waiting in fear, doing nothing, but waiting for more to come. He stayed hidden for the next twenty-four hours when he finally felt safe enough to go upstairs. His cell phone had no minutes due to his reluctance to leave his home for fear of another break-in. His landline phone was in the kitchen upstairs, so he crouched to the kitchen counter in case anyone was watching yet and reached for the phone. He called his neighbor, Bill, and asked him to contact a lawyer and asked if he wanted to come over. He told him that the burglaries were finally solved. Byron wasn’t sure at this time if other intruders were still on his property, so he didn’t want to alert other burglars to law enforcement, so he asked for no sirens. Law enforcement arrived about an hour after the call was made to the sheriff’s office. Byron came out with his hands up to show he had no weapon and invited them into his home. After showing the two deputies the bodies, Byron was placed in a sheriff’s car within sixteen minutes.
The thieves had broken in through a west bedroom window, which would be undetectable to any neighbor as it faced the Mississippi River. It was Byron’s bedroom window, where he had a huge shelf of record albums, hundreds of them. One of his passions was music, and this was one of his extensive collections. Byron was proud of his well-built family home. Byron was close to older brother, Bruce. Bruce was semiretired now and had once lived on a ChrisCraft boat in a California marina for several years. He now had residence in California, but he also spent much of his time with his daughter in Pennsylvania. Bruce is six feet, four inches, thin, with a very deep voice, a contrast to his soft-spoken, much shorter younger brother. Bruce commanded a presence with not only his height but his graying hair and a gray moustache. He could remind some of the Monopoly man, professional and smart. Bruce had been married but was now divorced and had two children that he raised as a single father. He was a grandfather to four grandchildren. His daughter’s husband had died suddenly at a young age while she was pregnant with their second child. Bruce was a proud grandfather and was enjoying the Thanksgiving holiday with them when Byron called to summon him to Little Falls as something bad had happened and come as quickly as possible. Bruce was on a plane the next day without even knowing that his younger brother had shot two burglars that day in their family home.
After Bruce’s arrival, the Lange home was constantly filled with the drama of the shootings. Byron had been sitting in jail now for two days. They had arrested him because the sheriff thought he had gone “above and beyond defending his home.” The prosecutor’s office referred to the incident as a cold-blooded killing. They had taken him into custody on that Friday afternoon. Bruce was there to help his brother sort out this mess and get him out of jail at some point. For now, he was safer there. The community was stunned. They were upset that these “innocent-looking” kids had been killed. Their angelic-like faces were splashed all over every news media outlet. Even from the Sacramento Daily newspaper to one in the corner of Florida. They were splashed on every TV newscast in the state, plus some nationally as well. Byron’s mug shot was shown alongside, looking, of course, like a space alien, but of course he hadn’t slept for thirty hours. The media was literally camped on our street in front of our house. They were everywhere. Bruce finally put a locked gate at the foot of the driveway so all the lookers would not come directly up to the house. As Bruce took up residence in the family home, John and I walked over to Byron’s house to discuss the events with Bruce and bring him up to date. It felt uncomfortable being in that presence with all the drama that was surrounding the home. We sat in the kitchen. It looked like it always had, everything neat and tidy. As I sat there, I kept thinking that two people had just died here. It seemed eerie to be present there after what had just occurred a few days before. Bruce was amazingly comfortable in his family home. But he said that the incident didn’t happen to him and he didn’t know all the details yet. My cell phone rang while we were talking with Bruce. It was my son, Dilan. “Mom, Channel 5 is here. Can we talk to them?” I told him to wait and I would be right there. I knew five of his good friends were spending time at our house. They were all stunned that this had happened and were trying to figure it all out and talk with one another. Most of his friends knew Byron and understood his fear. They had no time or much compassion for the two who were killed. Dilan’s friends knew them to be the kids that were in trouble in school. The Channel 5 news guy wanted to interview the kids and get their reaction, of course, to this tragic event. As they saw me driving from Byron’s home, they were determined to get pictures of the house where it had happened. The news reporter asked about what had happened and