Post by Moderator on Feb 8, 2007 8:10:21 GMT -5
Holding Tight to Life In the Shadow of Death
A Murder-Suicide Took Betty Appiah's Parents, but Not Her Hope
By Preston Williams
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 8, 2007; Page E01
Tonight at Hayfield Secondary School, the girls' basketball team's three seniors will be honored before their final home game. Two will stroll onto the court with their parents, clutching bouquets as the crowd gives them a warm ovation.
The third senior, Betty Appiah, will take those same steps, accompanied by an aunt and uncle and younger sisters Renee and Jessica. She will carry flowers, but also a grievous burden.
"I know [my parents are] there with me, watching and just being happy for me. Even though I can't see them, I can feel their presence. I know they'll be proud that they've really helped me grow up and be somebody," said Hayfield senior Betty Appiah. (Marvin Joseph - The Post)
On the afternoon of Nov. 13, the first day of basketball tryouts, Appiah returned home from school to find her mother dead on her parents' bedroom floor at the family's townhouse on Sky Blue Court in the Kingstowne section of Fairfax County.
Before the shattered glass, dried blood and limp body could fully register, Appiah thought the bullets on the floor were jewelry. Her father's taxi was parked outside and his keys were in the house, but he was nowhere to be found. Frantic calls to his cellphone went straight to voicemail.
"Where could this man have gone?" Appiah recalled asking herself.
Investigators later that day discovered her father in a bathroom off that same bedroom, also dead of a gunshot wound.
Authorities determined that Samuel Appiah-Kusi, 54, had murdered his wife, Monica O. Telfer, 44, and then killed himself. The homicide-suicide shocked the Hayfield girls' basketball team and forced Betty Appiah, then 17, to help guide her sisters through the deaths of their parents.
"We show up on November 13 for basketball tryouts thinking about wins and losses," Hayfield assistant coach Frank Walsh said, "and then very quickly it becomes about life and loss."
Tenth-grader Renee, who played junior varsity basketball at Hayfield, and sixth-grader Jessica have since moved in with an aunt and uncle in the District; Betty has split time with those relatives and friends of the family who live near Hayfield, where she will finish high school.
It is where tonight, she, like the other two Hayfield seniors, will reflect on her career on Senior Night in a testimonial, sure to touch on her parents' deaths, that will be read by the public address announcer.
"I would always ask, 'Why, why, why?' But there's no point in time where I ever held a grudge between both parents," said Betty, who speaks in an easy, musical cadence that offers a hint of her parents' native Ghana. She still often refers to her "Mommy" and "Daddy" in present tense.
"It's supposed to be a sad moment, but for me, I'm not really sad because they were two good people," she said. "They helped us to grow up to be how we are and set a good example for us to go pick up the pieces. . . . This has not brought me down or anything. This has really helped me to see how life is out there."
The Hayfield community and area businesses have rallied around the sisters, not only with moral support but with a donation table at home games run by team volunteer Arlene Yates, the mother of junior player Heather Thornton. At Christmas, the girls' basketball team surprised the Appiahs with three tables stacked with gifts, each sister's presents wrapped with donated paper, boxes and tape. Betty's gifts were in gold paper, Renee's in red and Jessica's a design pattern. Others have given the girls computers and clothing.
"We all realized that we have to be there for her and just make sure we're her outlet and she can come to us anytime when she's feeling down," said Karimah Janneh, one of the other seniors on the team. "She could cry with us. She could depend on us. We wanted to make her feel comfortable. We didn't force her to talk about anything. If she wanted to talk, then we would be there to listen to her."
Appiah's handling of the tragedy has been troubling at times to her coaches, who speak of her with puzzled admiration.
Coach Richard Carlock and Walsh, one of his assistants, each spent more than 20 years in the military and have seen young servicemen handle family deaths in a variety of ways, none with the relative calm that Appiah has shown.
"I don't keep it inside, either," Appiah said, anticipating a question. "I'm always happy."
Ron Williams, who organizes team activities and whose daughter, Chantell, is a sophomore with the Hawks, has drawn from Appiah's strength; his 75-year-old father died in late November.
"She had two die and I had just one, and I'm still crying every now and then, and I'm 51 years old," Williams said. "Just being around her, her attitude and personality have rubbed off on all of us. That makes me feel like I can do most anything, just watching her."
The day after the shootings, Appiah and her sisters stopped by Hayfield basketball practice. Less than three weeks later, after missing most of the preseason, the 6-foot-3 Appiah scored 19 points in the team's season opener, and she has scored in double figures in 18 of 20 games headed into the regular season finale tonight against Lee.
Appiah, who turned 18 on Jan. 27, said her parents used to encourage her to play basketball whenever she needed to clear her head, and that advice has helped her deal with their deaths. "Basketball is like another way for me to calm down, get my mind off of things," she said. She receives counseling in school, and with her sisters at an outside facility. She also goes to services at the churches her parents attended, Word of Life in Springfield and World Gospel Church in Alexandria.
"Sometimes I'm a little more concerned about her than I am about even the youngest [sister] because sometimes when you despair . . . you get to the point where one day everything just falls on you and you break down," said the Appiahs' uncle and guardian, Robert Ansah, a pastor at United Christian Church in Montgomery County. "Basketball is good and has given her an outlet and all, but you have to try to deal with the reality of it because if you don't, she can just break down one day when basketball is through."
Walsh, whose daughter, Bailey, also is a senior on the team, has been wary of that possible breakdown during the Hawks' 5-15 season, particularly when Appiah would grow frustrated with opponents banging on her underneath the basket.
"There's always a part of me in every game that's kind of on the edge of my seat thinking, 'Is something going to happen that's going to make it all come out?' " Walsh said.
In the past three months, the Appiah sisters have attended separate funerals for their parents and spent Thanksgiving and Christmas with area relatives. "Thanksgiving was really hard because we kept asking ourselves, 'What are we giving thanks for?' " Appiah said. The girls quietly observed their late mother's birthday Nov. 26 with a long prayer.
They have cleaned out the family's townhouse, sorting through their mother's clothes and kitchen utensils while wondering aloud if they will be able to cook as well as their mom, a part-time caterer who also worked as a nurse and housekeeper. They miss such family activities as going out for Chinese food or staying in and watching African movies.
Samuel Appiah-Kusi, described by his eldest daughter as "calm" and "patient," taught Betty to drive in his cab. If she asked for spending money, sometimes he would say he had none to spare, only to leave cash in her room before heading out at 4 a.m. for his shift. "I don't think he really likes saying 'no' to us," Appiah said.
The girls were touched when they cleaned out their father's wallet and found three separate pictures of themselves from when they were younger.
Appiah, who attended Stuart her first two years of high school, has no answer for what happened -- in fact, everyone seems bewildered -- but she attributes the shootings at least in part to financial stress.
"If you knew my dad, you would know he would do no such thing like this," Appiah said. "It was some work of the devil, some evil thing that came over him, for him to do this. My dad would do no such thing. It's not his fault. We've forgiven him. He really lived a good life and we're so proud of him.
"Every time we think about it, it's, 'Is there something we could have done for this not to happen?' Then, 'Man, I wish we had never gone to school and that this had never ever happened.' When we say that, some people say it's good that we probably weren't home because who knows, we would have gotten killed, too."
Appiah is leaning toward playing basketball next season at Virginia State University in Petersburg, where she can remain within a couple of hours of her sisters. She wants to be a preschool teacher.
Carlock, who a week before the shootings had had a pleasant conversation in the school parking lot with Appiah's mother about Betty's college prospects, has plans to bring her in to talk to his future teams about how to deal with adversity.
"I always tell my sisters and everyone else: It's not the way people die, it's what life they lived," Appiah said. "That really motivates me every time. I have to just live life how it is. I can't let this whole thing hold me back.
"I know [my parents are] there with me, watching and just being happy for me. Even though I can't see them, I can feel their presence. I know they'll be proud that they've really helped me grow up and be somebody."
A Murder-Suicide Took Betty Appiah's Parents, but Not Her Hope
By Preston Williams
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 8, 2007; Page E01
Tonight at Hayfield Secondary School, the girls' basketball team's three seniors will be honored before their final home game. Two will stroll onto the court with their parents, clutching bouquets as the crowd gives them a warm ovation.
The third senior, Betty Appiah, will take those same steps, accompanied by an aunt and uncle and younger sisters Renee and Jessica. She will carry flowers, but also a grievous burden.
"I know [my parents are] there with me, watching and just being happy for me. Even though I can't see them, I can feel their presence. I know they'll be proud that they've really helped me grow up and be somebody," said Hayfield senior Betty Appiah. (Marvin Joseph - The Post)
On the afternoon of Nov. 13, the first day of basketball tryouts, Appiah returned home from school to find her mother dead on her parents' bedroom floor at the family's townhouse on Sky Blue Court in the Kingstowne section of Fairfax County.
Before the shattered glass, dried blood and limp body could fully register, Appiah thought the bullets on the floor were jewelry. Her father's taxi was parked outside and his keys were in the house, but he was nowhere to be found. Frantic calls to his cellphone went straight to voicemail.
"Where could this man have gone?" Appiah recalled asking herself.
Investigators later that day discovered her father in a bathroom off that same bedroom, also dead of a gunshot wound.
Authorities determined that Samuel Appiah-Kusi, 54, had murdered his wife, Monica O. Telfer, 44, and then killed himself. The homicide-suicide shocked the Hayfield girls' basketball team and forced Betty Appiah, then 17, to help guide her sisters through the deaths of their parents.
"We show up on November 13 for basketball tryouts thinking about wins and losses," Hayfield assistant coach Frank Walsh said, "and then very quickly it becomes about life and loss."
Tenth-grader Renee, who played junior varsity basketball at Hayfield, and sixth-grader Jessica have since moved in with an aunt and uncle in the District; Betty has split time with those relatives and friends of the family who live near Hayfield, where she will finish high school.
It is where tonight, she, like the other two Hayfield seniors, will reflect on her career on Senior Night in a testimonial, sure to touch on her parents' deaths, that will be read by the public address announcer.
"I would always ask, 'Why, why, why?' But there's no point in time where I ever held a grudge between both parents," said Betty, who speaks in an easy, musical cadence that offers a hint of her parents' native Ghana. She still often refers to her "Mommy" and "Daddy" in present tense.
"It's supposed to be a sad moment, but for me, I'm not really sad because they were two good people," she said. "They helped us to grow up to be how we are and set a good example for us to go pick up the pieces. . . . This has not brought me down or anything. This has really helped me to see how life is out there."
The Hayfield community and area businesses have rallied around the sisters, not only with moral support but with a donation table at home games run by team volunteer Arlene Yates, the mother of junior player Heather Thornton. At Christmas, the girls' basketball team surprised the Appiahs with three tables stacked with gifts, each sister's presents wrapped with donated paper, boxes and tape. Betty's gifts were in gold paper, Renee's in red and Jessica's a design pattern. Others have given the girls computers and clothing.
"We all realized that we have to be there for her and just make sure we're her outlet and she can come to us anytime when she's feeling down," said Karimah Janneh, one of the other seniors on the team. "She could cry with us. She could depend on us. We wanted to make her feel comfortable. We didn't force her to talk about anything. If she wanted to talk, then we would be there to listen to her."
Appiah's handling of the tragedy has been troubling at times to her coaches, who speak of her with puzzled admiration.
Coach Richard Carlock and Walsh, one of his assistants, each spent more than 20 years in the military and have seen young servicemen handle family deaths in a variety of ways, none with the relative calm that Appiah has shown.
"I don't keep it inside, either," Appiah said, anticipating a question. "I'm always happy."
Ron Williams, who organizes team activities and whose daughter, Chantell, is a sophomore with the Hawks, has drawn from Appiah's strength; his 75-year-old father died in late November.
"She had two die and I had just one, and I'm still crying every now and then, and I'm 51 years old," Williams said. "Just being around her, her attitude and personality have rubbed off on all of us. That makes me feel like I can do most anything, just watching her."
The day after the shootings, Appiah and her sisters stopped by Hayfield basketball practice. Less than three weeks later, after missing most of the preseason, the 6-foot-3 Appiah scored 19 points in the team's season opener, and she has scored in double figures in 18 of 20 games headed into the regular season finale tonight against Lee.
Appiah, who turned 18 on Jan. 27, said her parents used to encourage her to play basketball whenever she needed to clear her head, and that advice has helped her deal with their deaths. "Basketball is like another way for me to calm down, get my mind off of things," she said. She receives counseling in school, and with her sisters at an outside facility. She also goes to services at the churches her parents attended, Word of Life in Springfield and World Gospel Church in Alexandria.
"Sometimes I'm a little more concerned about her than I am about even the youngest [sister] because sometimes when you despair . . . you get to the point where one day everything just falls on you and you break down," said the Appiahs' uncle and guardian, Robert Ansah, a pastor at United Christian Church in Montgomery County. "Basketball is good and has given her an outlet and all, but you have to try to deal with the reality of it because if you don't, she can just break down one day when basketball is through."
Walsh, whose daughter, Bailey, also is a senior on the team, has been wary of that possible breakdown during the Hawks' 5-15 season, particularly when Appiah would grow frustrated with opponents banging on her underneath the basket.
"There's always a part of me in every game that's kind of on the edge of my seat thinking, 'Is something going to happen that's going to make it all come out?' " Walsh said.
In the past three months, the Appiah sisters have attended separate funerals for their parents and spent Thanksgiving and Christmas with area relatives. "Thanksgiving was really hard because we kept asking ourselves, 'What are we giving thanks for?' " Appiah said. The girls quietly observed their late mother's birthday Nov. 26 with a long prayer.
They have cleaned out the family's townhouse, sorting through their mother's clothes and kitchen utensils while wondering aloud if they will be able to cook as well as their mom, a part-time caterer who also worked as a nurse and housekeeper. They miss such family activities as going out for Chinese food or staying in and watching African movies.
Samuel Appiah-Kusi, described by his eldest daughter as "calm" and "patient," taught Betty to drive in his cab. If she asked for spending money, sometimes he would say he had none to spare, only to leave cash in her room before heading out at 4 a.m. for his shift. "I don't think he really likes saying 'no' to us," Appiah said.
The girls were touched when they cleaned out their father's wallet and found three separate pictures of themselves from when they were younger.
Appiah, who attended Stuart her first two years of high school, has no answer for what happened -- in fact, everyone seems bewildered -- but she attributes the shootings at least in part to financial stress.
"If you knew my dad, you would know he would do no such thing like this," Appiah said. "It was some work of the devil, some evil thing that came over him, for him to do this. My dad would do no such thing. It's not his fault. We've forgiven him. He really lived a good life and we're so proud of him.
"Every time we think about it, it's, 'Is there something we could have done for this not to happen?' Then, 'Man, I wish we had never gone to school and that this had never ever happened.' When we say that, some people say it's good that we probably weren't home because who knows, we would have gotten killed, too."
Appiah is leaning toward playing basketball next season at Virginia State University in Petersburg, where she can remain within a couple of hours of her sisters. She wants to be a preschool teacher.
Carlock, who a week before the shootings had had a pleasant conversation in the school parking lot with Appiah's mother about Betty's college prospects, has plans to bring her in to talk to his future teams about how to deal with adversity.
"I always tell my sisters and everyone else: It's not the way people die, it's what life they lived," Appiah said. "That really motivates me every time. I have to just live life how it is. I can't let this whole thing hold me back.
"I know [my parents are] there with me, watching and just being happy for me. Even though I can't see them, I can feel their presence. I know they'll be proud that they've really helped me grow up and be somebody."