After all that searching, after all that hope, we finally found my best friend, lying on the ground in front of me. Dead.
My name is Billy Lowe. I am a 13 year old boy who is obsessed with sports--- especially basketball. Our team finished with a 29-1 record this year, losing only in the State Championship to the undefeated North Central team. The Championship was all just a blur to me due that the fact our star player, Jimmy Craig, wasn’t able to play or even attend the game.
My relationship with Jimmy was one that couldn’t be described in one or two words. He was my best friend. Plain and simple. Now, I’m not saying he was my only friend, but he was definitely my best friend. We were inseparable. Whenever you saw me, you saw Jimmy. We kind of looked alike, so people just assumed we were twins. And let me tell you, our relationship on the court was even better than it was off the court. I knew where he was going even before he knew where he was going. We were impossible to guard. Every basketball player in the county, and maybe even the state knew who we were. All of us knew that in our senior year of high school, we were bound to be State Champs, but nobody could’ve guessed that we wouldn’t be playing alongside each other.
It was just a typical Friday night before our basketball tournament the next day. The five starters and the sixth man, which included Jimmy, Johnny, Tommy, Miguel, Jorge, and I, were all spending the night at Johnny’s. Johnny’s parents are rich, I mean like movie star rich. His parents won the lottery when he was ten, and they’ve been millionaires ever since. We were all just hanging out, talking, and playing video games like normal. We all knew we had a legit chance to win the State Championship tomorrow, but none of us could have anticipated that we would be without one of our stars. The night proceeded on like normal, with us fallin’ asleep at about midnight.
The next morning we woke up, energized as could be. We were pumped. For good luck before every game, I sleep in my uniform, so I was all ready to go as soon as we woke up. The other guys went and got changed into their uniforms so we would be ready to leave by ten o’clock. When everybody was gathered in the kitchen, ready to eat breakfast, we all noticed that Jimmy was gone. We called out his name, but after no reply for about a minute, we began searching around the house. After 15 minutes of searching, and no luck, I decided to try and give him a call. When I got to my phone, I saw I had a new message from Jimmy saying that his mother came and picked him up and that he would ride up with her. This seemed very suspicious to me considering the fact that Jimmy’s mother was supposed to check in to our hotel and then meet us at the game. But, at that point in time, I couldn’t think of a reason why he would lie to me, so I just told the others that Jimmy got picked up.
Johnny’s dad is a freak about being timely and organized, so we left at exactly ten a.m. Not a second sooner, not a second later. Ten a.m. I was about an hour drive to Bright Hour Stadium, and the game was supposed to start at noon. Johnny’s dad wanted to give us plenty of time to stretch and get used to the floor before warmups begin at exactly 11:37, giving us three minutes for the National Anthem. When we finally arrived at the arena, I caught a glimpse of Mrs. Craig, and I knew something was up. I ran over and asked, “Where’s Jimmy at?”
She replied with a sarcastic, “Don’t be silly, he came with you guys.” At this point I became unbelievably worried. My heart was racing so fast as I struggled to pull my phone out of my pocket. When I finally managed to calm down a little, I showed her the text that Jimmy sent me. Blood flushed through her face as she ran out of the building and to her car.
Before the game, everyone just kept asking, “Where’s Jimmy? Where’s Jimmy?” Nobody knew. The game was played as scheduled, but it didn’t even feel like we were there. We were in some far off universe looking for Jimmy. We ended up getting beat 45-40. We were all heartbroken, but we knew we couldn’t mourn for too long, because we received word that Jimmy had not yet been found and that our whole team was to go home and look for Jimmy. This was by far the most awkward car ride I had ever been in. There was no communication whatsoever, because nobody knew what to say, because truly, there was nothing to say about this. We were all scared out of minds that one our best friends was missing, and the thought that brewed in our minds was, “Is Jimmy dead?”
When we got back home, after what seemed like ages, the police asked us all a few simple questions like, “When was the last time you saw Jimmy, and what was he acting like this morning?” He was acting completely fine when we woke up. The last question they asked me was, “Do you know of any places where he could possibly be hiding out?” The instant he said that I knew exactly where Jimmy was.

“The Hut,” I replied before bolting my way into the woods in the backyard, with everybody following me as I went. After about a quarter mile I had reached my destination. The Hut was an old fort that Jimmy and I had made out of rocks and branches a few years back at Johnny’s when we were playing hide-and-seek in the woods. As soon as I got within 20 feet of it I knew something was bad, really bad. I stopped and immediately my heart dropped. Everybody else stopped and knew what had happened. I finally mounted up enough courage to go inside The Hut.
After all that searching, after all that hope, we finally found my best friend is lying on the ground in front of me. Dead. A bullet shot squarely through his head. There was NO gun in sight.
The whole town spent a few days of mourning the loss of our fellow citizen, while police from all over came to investigate the death. They soon learned that this was not a suicide. This was definitely a murder.
Everyone in town helped out with the investigation, but nobody could seem to find anything that could lead the police to find who murdered Jimmy Craig. Throughout all this time, Jimmy’s father had been on a business trip. The strangest part of all this, though, is that Jimmy’s dad never missed Jimmy’s games. Not once. Most of the time he even sat on the bench and encouraged us. I knew there was something strange about that, but I didn’t exactly know what it was.
A few more days passed and Jimmy’s dad had still not returned home from his business trip. As I was thinking back to the conversations Jimmy and I had the nights before his death, I remembered him saying that his dad was becoming very nervous about the game, and that he kept becoming harsher and harsher toward Jimmy. I started to get this crazy thought in my head like, ‘What if Jimmy’s dad was the one that killed Jimmy?’ I knew it was crazy, but I had to suggest it to somebody. I took it to Mr. Liradin, our local sheriff, who told me he would let his officers know, and that they would immediately begin investigating it.
Well, they did start investigating it, and about 75 yards away from the spot where Jimmy was lying dead, they found footprints to match Mr. Craig’s unmistakable footprints of his hand made moccasins. The footprints appear as if he were sprinting somewhere, but the tracks began to slowly fade, until finally they disappeared altogether. There was no doubt that Jimmy’s father, Walter Craig had committed a murder.
We were all heartbroken to hear the news. Mr. Craig was actually a really nice guy. But what none of us knew, was that when he wasn’t around friends of his, he got these really bad anger flashes that forced him to harm others, but mainly himself. That is why Jimmy came to school one day with a broken hand. He told all of us that he had slipped on the court because it was wet, but really, his dad got angry and pounded Jimmy’s hand into the wall.
Now that the police knew who committed the murder, they just had to track him down, I thought it seemed easy enough, but boy was I wrong. They had search crews all over the country looking for Walter, but nobody could locate him. This case was getting national news attention. Jimmy’s father must have heard about all the searching going on to try to find him, because the local police department got a call from a restricted number saying, “I killed Little Jimmy.” This was definitely Mr. Craig’s voice. Either he was trying to turn himself in, or he didn’t realize that police could track the phone he was making the call on and send a crew right in to capture him.
After all, it turns out that Jimmy’s dad was trying to turn himself in without directly stating his location. The search crew in that area located Walter in about two hours and immediately flew him back to our town so that our police department could handle him. When asked why he did it, he became very emotional and stated, “There was so much riding on that game, and I just didn’t want Jimmy to be the one to blow it for you guys. I know I made a huge mistake, but I hope that you guys can forgive me and we can go on with our lives.”
After that comment, Mr. Liradin snuck up behind Walter, pulled his hands behind his back, and whispered in his ear loud enough for everybody to hear, “The last thing you should be talking about is living a normal life. You screwed up all these people’s lives, and now you better not be planning on seeing them any time soon, my friend. You’re going to jail with the big, bad criminals who will take the liberty of beating you up for killing your own son, who was just an innocent minor.”
And that is how it ended. Walter Craig was sentenced to 25 to life in jail. Nobody has seen or even spoken to him since the day of the trial. What he did was an unforgivable, cowardly act that will never be forgiven.