I interviewed numerous individuals with firsthand knowledge of the event. The majority were high schoolers in 2003. When applicable, their grade at the time of the incident is given.
October 2003
“Got a case of the doldrums? Have some time to kill and need to get out of the city? Why not take a day trip to Somerset? Fair warning, though. You may need more than a full day to see all Somerset truly has to offer! So why not make it a full weekend and stay at one of the fabulous hotels located conveniently next to the interstate or one of our very own bed and breakfasts? From parks and a city lake, to a museum devoted entirely to G.I. Joes, we have something for everyone!
Visit our beautiful and historical downtown area, shop for antiques, and get a bite to eat at one of the many diners and cafes. Take note of the beautiful trees as well. We’ve been designated Tree City USA by The Arbor Day Foundation. The foliage is a must-see during autumn. So come visit Somerset! Small town charm, big time heart. -Town of Somerset Tourism Brochure, Somerset Chamber of Commerce 2002.
STEPHEN PARKER, SOMERSET HIGH, JUNIOR: Somerset was kind of a shithole. I definitely thought so at the time. Looking back though and becoming more familiar with some of the other towns in the area, by comparison it was actually a pretty nice little town. Charming and homey, I guess. They have this quaint downtown area with these brick streets and old buildings. These old trees line the main street corridor. A real Norman Rockwell vibe in the fall.
RONALD TARVER, SOMERSET CITY MANAGER: We cut the majority of the Main Street trees down in 2011 actually. There was an issue with excessive bird droppings. It got to be a real nuisance. People were angry, but they had to go.
STEPHEN PARKER, SOMERSET HIGH, JUNIOR: Hmm. I didn’t notice the trees were gone the last time I was there. I guess my mind was . . . elsewhere. I was passing through and wanted to take a trip down memory lane. I drove downtown, to the Sonic, the theater, and the depot. Down to the park. All those old haunts. Basically, where everything started. I wanted to see if it triggered anything in me and it did. Man, it really did.
SKYE HERRERA, SOMERSET HIGH, JUNIOR: It was my junior year at Somerset, and I was just not having it anymore, the whole high school experience. I didn’t really feel like I fit in with any particular group, I didn’t have a boyfriend and I spent a lot of time feeling lonely. Teen angst stuff. If I could jump ahead to my senior year and graduate early, then I’d definitely do that. I was ready to get out of Somerset and the small-town life. I hated the cliques and popularity, how everybody knew everybody and liked to gossip, how there wasn’t anything fun to do.
The kids would get creative when it came to entertainment. There’s stuff we did that people had never heard of when I went to college back east. One thing that a lot of people did back then was “cruise town.”
BOB SCHROEDER, LOCAL HISTORIAN: “Dragging main” or “cruising town” was a social activity that came to prominence in the area in the halcyon days of the late 1950s. It was depicted in the classic movie, American Graffiti. Practiced primarily amongst teenagers, cruising consisted largely of the kids driving their vehicles slowly in a predetermined route that had long been established by the kids from the previous generation. At various points along the route kids would stop and park their vehicles and then get out and socialize. Cruising would occur primarily on Friday or Saturday nights.
STEPHEN PARKER: You would drive around until you saw someone you knew. Sometimes it would be like a bunch of your friends hanging out in a specific area, sitting on the back of tailgates, standing around, talking and stuff. You never knew who would be around at any given time, you would just kind of show up and see who was there. It was basically like a chat room occurring in real life. Except with more fossil fuels, I guess.
DYLAN BAKER, SOMERSET HIGH, JUNIOR; QUOTE FROM THE SOMERSET SABRETOOTH WEEKLY SCHOOL NEWSPAPER, 4/11/2003: You never know what’s going to happen when you cruise town. You might run into some buddies who know about a kegger that’s going on and you pile into their car and go there. A root beer kegger that is. You might see a fight break out. You might find some girls that want to ride around with you and maybe fool around a little. You might get bombarded by water balloons launched from a whole block away by a slingshot. A kid could piss himself on camera in front of everyone for five bucks. Sometimes nothing happens at all, but you don’t want to miss out on the craziness, the opportunities. That’s why I love to cruise town.
EUGENE DAVIS, FLORIST, OWNER OF BULBS & BLOOMS: Cruising town was always a menace. Bunch of teenagers getting together, there’s bound to be some type of trouble. They’re loud. They vandalize. Get in fights. Drink and smoke reefer. Or they all get together and run off to the country and partake in some sort of . . . ritual. And we all know how that turned out.
VERA MILLER, RITZ THEATER CO-OWNER: First off, it wasn’t a ritual that caused the night in question. Second off, who pissed in Mr. Davis’s azaleas? I don’t understand the vitriol. The vast majority of the kids were just out to have a good time. Young people are the lifeblood of any community. Is it their fault that the town failed them in offering entertainment options? The bowling alley had been closed for a decade at that point.
REGGIE AUSTIN, SOMERSET HIGH, JUNIOR: Somebody did take a shit in the flowerbed outside Bulbs & Blooms one night. A sort of payback after he called the cops on us for “loitering”.
BOB SCHROEDER, LOCAL HISTORIAN: Featuring the intermarriage between U.S. car culture and the freedom of being a teenager with a driver’s license, cruising was the quintessential American activity, pure small-town Americana. However, like drive-in movie theaters, this vehicular pageantry has all but faded to nothing in the present day.
SKYE HERRERA: I wasn’t the biggest fan of it. I was never one of the cool kids and it wasn’t exactly my scene. The whole thing seemed kind of stupid. It was this whole big ritual, see and be seen, y’know? Who has the coolest car, who has the biggest truck. People being idiots and looking for attention. I was dragged into it by my friends on several occasions though. I mean obviously. I wouldn’t be here talking with you if that wasn’t the case.
The night it happened I was hanging out with Haley. It would’ve been a Saturday because it was fall and Friday nights were reserved for football. Saturdays were all about the town cruise or pasture parties.
HALEY ADAMS, SOMERSET HIGH, JUNIOR: Skye was my best friend since kindergarten. I’m nothing if not loyal and it didn’t matter to me that as we got older we didn’t exactly jibe on a social clique-y level. I mean she was all introverted and shy and not really outgoing. She liked music and art and movies and stuff and staying in on the weekends. I was the opposite, but she was a good listener, I could tell her anything and trust her not to tell. We grew up across the street from each other. I was at her house all the time when things got rocky with my folks. She was like a sister to me. “Shy Skye, My Ride or Die” —that’s what I liked to call her.
SKYE HERRERA: I grew up across the street from her and we were best friends when we were kids. Once we hit high school it was clear that we were on different paths, though. I think we kind of grew apart, but she never acted like she was too good for me. If anything, I kind of blew her off because I didn’t like a lot of the people she was friends with. She was one of the most popular girls in school. Big time cheerleader. Everyone wanted to date her.
BILLY POOLAW, SOMERSET HIGH, SENIOR: Hottest chick at Somerset High? That would have been Haley Adams. Bar none.
STEPHEN PARKER: Haley could’ve been a model. All the light in the room was drawn to her. She also seemed pretty chill. Not stuck up. I was still kind of intimidated by her.
DYLAN BAKER, MSN MESSENGER CHAT TRANSCRIPT TO STEPHEN PARKER, JANUARY 2003: I can’t get Haley off my mind. Since you have fourth hour with her do you think that you could get in good with her and ask her to lunch? She doesn’t have a driver’s license yet and I know she rides with other people. Maybe that’s my shot? If you and some other people were around, I think I could chill out a bit and get the balls to ask her out.
TRAVIS FREEBOLT, SOMERSET HIGH, SOPHOMORE: Oh man. I had so many fantasies about her. She was like something from a magazine. Her body was unreal. I really blame her for my whole cheerleader fetish. I got this costume from Spirit Halloween for my wife. She wears it sometimes, but it’s really not the same. I’m still imagining it’s Haley when we're...y’know. Wait, are you going to quote me on this? Can you take that last part out?
ALLISON FREEBOLT, SOMERSET HIGH, JUNIOR; VOTED FIRST RUNNER UP FOR CLASS OF 2004’s MOST ATTRACTIVE: I mean she wasn’t that pretty.
BRYSON VANDERBILT, SOMERSET HIGH, SENIOR: Haley Adams? Yeah, I guess she was hot. Kind of a bitch, though.
HALEY ADAMS: Bryson said that? Of course he would. I was riding around town with him one day and we parked out by the depot and started making out a little. It didn’t mean anything. I was bored and it was something to do. But then he started trying to undo my bra and I was like “nah, I’m good”. Then he was all like, “how about this then” and whipped his thing out. He looked like he thought I’d be impressed. I was not expecting that, and it looked so little sticking out of the fly of his jeans, like this fleshy baby carrot. I started laughing and couldn’t stop. He yelled at me and told me to get out of his car.
SKYE HERRERA: (laughing) I remember her telling me that. Haley was full of crazy stories.
STEPHEN PARKER: Dylan was always coming up with these schemes to get chicks. He had this whole strategy in place before he would ask them out. He wanted to, like, endear himself to them? I think it was because he was kind of scared. He had it laid out where he wanted to first become a casual acquaintance, then become their friend, and then he would feel comfortable enough to ask them out. If in the meantime they came onto him first, even better. So, this is why he liked to cruise town so much, why he put so much effort into his truck. He hoped he would stumble into these situations where girls would just fall for him. He was clueless. I guess we all were. The thing was, he actually had quite a few girls out there that had crushes on him, but he never followed up on ‘em. He had his sights set on the girls that seemed impossibly unattainable, gals he put on pedestals, your Haley Adamses of the world.
SKYE HERRERA: Haley picked me up that evening. She pestered me a bunch abut going oit and I finally caved. I hadn’t really seen her that summer and we rarely crossed paths in school. We’d kept in touch with MSN Messenger and the like, but that was it. I was actually looking forward to hanging out with her. I had been daydreaming about getting a boyfriend of sorts and there was this guy, Stephen Parker, that I had a crush on. We sat next to each other in Computer Science. He didn’t seem to be the cruising town type, but I remember that I felt this sort of anticipation that night before Haley picked me up, that I would see him out there or maybe even someone else and something would happen.
STEPHEN PARKER: Dylan and I were hanging out in the den at my house. We were watching a movie and thinking about smuggling in some beers down to chug and maybe fire up a video game. We had already smoked half a joint out in the alley, but the mood was off, though. It was like this malaise had set over everything. The den felt claustrophobic and the thought of another quiet night down in here with Dylan—staying up late playing video games and watching movies—seemed really depressing. Maybe it was Dylan’s antsy-ness rubbing off on me; he was fidgeting throughout the movie.
“Wanna run to town for a bit?” he asked. “Nick’s gonna be down there. Said there might be a party later.” I shrugged and said, “okay.” It seemed like a good idea at the time.
SKYE HERRERA: I said bye to my parents and got in Haley’s car. They didn’t feel the need to tell me any specific curfew. I think they were just happy I was getting out of the house, that I was dressed up and going somewhere to possibly socialize. For the first time, I was actually excited about going to town. I had butterflies in my stomach and everything. I had this lyric in my head and it was from a Jimmy Eat World song, a lyric about falling in love tonight. I remember playing that song while getting ready and I was thinking about Stephen . . . and, well Stephen’s actually the one that introduced me to the song.
HALEY ADAMS: As far as I know, Skye had never had a serious boyfriend. I think she may have kind of dated some guys in band, made out a little on the bus here and there and stuff, but I think that was it. She was crushing hard on Stephen Parker. Said he had made her a mix CD and everything. I don’t know why he hadn’t asked her out yet or what he was waiting for. He seemed like the shy type. They would’ve been perfect together. If we ran into him that night I had full plans to be Skye’s wingman and get them hooked up.
DYLAN BAKER, MSN MESSENGER CHAT TRANSCRIPT TO STEPHEN PARKER, SEPTEMBER 2003: Interesting that you are sitting next to Skye in Computer Science. Did you know she and Haley are really good friends? I mean they used to be closer back in junior high and Skye is kind of goth or whatever, but I know they still hang out. Maybe if you get in good with her we could all hang out some night? I think she’s pretty cute. What do you think?
SKYE HERRERA: First off, I wasn’t goth, okay? I’m well aware that in a town like Somerset, any girl that didn’t fit the norm of wearing Abercrombie or whatever and liked to wear dark jeans and band t-shirts from time to time and had a little fun with her eyeshadow was going to get some sort of label.
Second, there wasn’t like any sort of goth scene or clique in Somerset, and I don’t think I would’ve been part of it if there was. I didn’t like to draw that much attention to myself. I shopped at Hot Topic every now and then and liked unpopular music. Big deal.
STEPHEN PARKER: We found Nick De Luca down by the depot, sitting on the tailgate of his red Chevy. He was wearing a black Carhartt and white T-shirt. Had a big fat dip in his mouth. He looked like some sort of redneck James Dean. Definitely putting out some cool loner vibes as he messed around with a Zippo lighter, flicking it open on his thigh and lighting it right there, over and over again.
Dylan pulled in next to Nick’s truck and we got out. He asked us where we had been, said there was a party going on out at Buster’s and was thinking about heading out there. He said there were rumors that there would be a keg.
SKYE HERRERA: The cruising path was laid out in a circular route, a couple of overlapping ovals and a few detours that snaked around and avoided areas like the police station. The turnabouts were at the Sonic Drive-In and at the old train depot.
TOWN OF SOMERSET WEBSITE, INFORMATION FOR VISITORS: The depot was built in 1903 and was saved from demolition in the early eighties. The Somerset Historical Society has lovingly restored it to its former glory. When your tires rumble over our brick streets as you make your way to the depot, you might imagine you are in a horse drawn carriage or a Model-T, on your way to the station to ride the train or pick up a passenger!
SKYE HERRERA: We were sipping on Ocean Waters from Sonic, parked in the stall and listening to music. Talking. Chilling. Haley had splashed some rum in our drinks from a pint bottle that her older brother had given her. There were people standing around outside their cars talking and laughing. People from school. People I knew and people I didn’t know. At the moment, Haley didn’t have any interest in getting out and socializing and that was fine with me. Eventually, we pulled out of the stall and made our way through the route towards the depot.
STEPHEN PARKER: “It’s her! It’s her!” I remember Dylan jumping around and saying when he saw Haley’s red Mustang making its way up the main drag towards the depot. Nick just spit his dip out in the street and looked over at him. We had been chilling a bit and seeing who all was in town before we headed out to Buster’s. Dylan looked over at Nick, this like . . . pleading expression on his face. “Can you get her to stop?”
SKYE HERRERA: Haley said, “OMG Skye, look who it is! Don’t you have a crush on that guy? Didn’t he burn you a mix CD? Oh, and there’s Nick and Dylan. Nick’s waving us down. Wanna pull in and say hey?” I was getting nervous and could feel myself blushing. “Uhh, I dunno” was all I managed to say. “C’mon Skye, don’t be a puss. Let’s get out and talk a little. I’ve got your back.” I just sighed and said “fine.”
HALEY ADAMS: That was one of the turning points, us seeing them there and deciding to get out and talk. We could’ve driven on by with a wave. None of this would’ve ever happened. It would’ve been a Saturday night like any other. Gone and forgotten.
SKYE HERRERA: I probably wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you if I had turned Haley down that night. Sometimes—well actually lots of times—I think about how different things would’ve turned out if I had stayed in, made up an excuse to not go out. Or if instead of saying, “fine”, I had said, “nah, keep going. Let’s go rent a movie.” Would the end result be the same? I don’t think it would.
See, I think it’s like a Jenga tower or something that was stacked carefully in such a way to create some sort of monstrosity. All these little events before the massacre were the foundation. You remove one of them and the tower doesn’t get built. It collapses before anything can happen.
STEPHEN PARKER: Would this have still happened if I didn’t go out that night? Like a butterfly effect or something? Shit man, I dunno. Probably. I wish I didn’t go out that night, yeah. But you’re telling me you get a chance to pile into a car with your friends and classmates and your crush and you don’t take it? It seemed like a dream come true. I could see it playing out in my head. Fuck my curfew. Wherever the night took us, that’s where we would be. I could call my parents and tell them I was staying the night at Dylan’s. They could read between the lines. I knew they wouldn’t ask too many questions, they’d just be happy that I was safe.
SKYE HERRERA: There were other moments, too. Moments when we could’ve called it a night and just gone home. I don’t know, how about the chainsaw and the blood and the screaming? The torn jeans soaked in blood and the flayed open leg? That would’ve been a good time to end it.
STEPHEN PARKER: Maybe it still would’ve happened some other night. It’s almost like it was lying out there waiting for us.
BOB SCHROEDER, LOCAL HISTORIAN: What was the night like in which our intrepid youngsters departed? On the surface, it was a Saturday night like any other...except not. There was a palpable energy in the air. I know because I was seeing a movie at The Ritz, Somerset’s two-screen movie theater that sat on the corner and was adjacent to the depot parking lot. I exited the theater and the town was alive. Glass packs and exhaust tips rumbled and filled the air with their obnoxious noises crying, “Look at me! Look at me!” There was the deep thump of bass from stereo systems, Kicker Amps stashed in trunks rattling windows and any sense of decency.
Groups of teenagers congregated on various street corners and wherever convenient while their shouts and laughter echoed through it all. Perhaps our high schoolers were among them. The records show that they would have left at approximately that time period.
I believe the film I saw was Secondhand Lions starring Michael Caine and Robert Duvall and the Sixth Sense kid. Maybe it would’ve been more fitting if I had watched The Texas Chainsaw Massacre which was released a few weeks later. I wouldn’t have had the option, however. Johnny and Vera, the owners of The Ritz, opted not to pick that film up out of courtesy for the deceased.
BECCA BONEY, PECAN VALLEY FUNERAL HOME DIRECTOR: I think they did a good job with retrieving the bodies. Well, let me rephrase that. They did a good job with retrieving the bodies and all their respective parts. You have to understand we were working over a large area and there were coyotes and other critters. Some things were impossible to recover, but I’d say they got the majority.
HALEY ADAMS: It’s the sounds I can’t seem to shake. The images are blurry, and during a rough stretch of my life in college, I’d managed to drink and drug them away into some sort of hazy memory. But the sounds...the sounds are a different story. You don’t know this about me, but I still hear them. And it's not like I'm just replaying them in my head either. I mean I hear them out in the world. In the static of broken up cell phone coverage there will be a mechanical cry for mama, mama, mama. There's the screams I can hear late at night, off in the distance. The goddamn screams. I can hear each and every one of them. Even my own. A scream that came from somewhere deep within me, from a place I didn’t even know existed, a sound I didn’t know I could make.