Woman pained by memories of slaying son

Keith Paul

Wednesday, July 17, 2002 | 11:12 a.m.

Mary Lou Gordon will not face any criminal charges for shooting her 39-year-old son to death last month, but the 71-year-old woman cannot escape constant reminders -- or pangs of guilt and remorse.

"It's in my mind all the time. I still cry every day," Gordon said Monday. "I still can't believe what happened. I mean I can't stand to even step on an industrious ant."

On June 1 in her home on Las Lomas Avenue, near Oakey Boulevard and Arville Street, Gordon said she ran from her son, Keith Fletchall. She said her son was wielding a baseball bat screaming obscenities at her, demanding money and threatening to kill her.

Gordon got to her .25-caliber Beretta pistol and fired two shots. One hit Fletchall in the shoulder and the other struck him in the head.

Gordon recalled how her son battled drug addiction for years and said she suffered abuse from him in the past few years when she wouldn't give him money. But Gordon can quickly pull out yellowing grade school pictures of her son and even his high school prom pictures.

"I always spoiled him," she said. "I tried to do the best I could."

Victims of abuse often battle for years or even forever with feelings of remorse after killing an abuser, said Kathleen Brooks, associated director of Safe Nest and a licensed marriage and family therapist.

The pain can be magnified when a parent kills a child in self-defense from abuse.

"You replay the scenario in your mind so many times," Brooks said. "You have all the memories of raising your child. Just everything can be a trigger for the memories. It's exhausting."

Metro Police detectives investigating the homicide said Fletchall's slaying is a clear case of self-defense. Prosecutors agreed and sent a letter to police late last month saying that no charges would be brought against Gordon.

"The evidence with the baseball bat being located in her room, and it looked like he used the bat to destroy things in the home was consistent with the story he had come into the room as she was seeking safety and she shot him," said Sgt. Rocky Alby of Metro's homicide unit. "There was no reason not to believe her."

While the case ended at that determination for detectives and prosecutors, Gordon said she continues to struggle every day with the shooting.

Gordon could barely say her son's first name Monday without starting to tear up. She does not face charges, but she said the guilt she deals with every day feels like a jail cell.

"I feel so terrible," she said. "People have sent me cards and letters saying it wasn't my fault, but I feel so bad all the time. I feel so exhausted all the time."

Gordon has been fixing up her home. There were holes punched into the wall that she patched up. She has been trying to fix up her back yard. She has been doing anything to occupy her time, but the thoughts of shooting continue to invade her mind.

The only time she doesn't see what happened is the few hours each night she is able to sleep.

She tries to remember the happy boy in the old pictures.

But Gordon said drugs took her happy son long ago. She hid the abuse she said came at the hands of her son as he continued to search for money to feed his drug addiction.

Gordon said she spent her life -- and all of her money -- trying to purge her son of the drugs. But when he wanted more money on June 1, the money was gone.

All the money she had -- from a pension and retirement -- had been long ago spent on lawyers keeping Fletchall out of jail after numerous arrests. All of her credit cards had been run up to the limit. She even took out a second mortgage on the home she bought in 1960 when she moved to Las Vegas.

"This is just like a nightmare," she said. "I don't have that many years left and I all I do is think about Keith. I tried to help him. I tried so many times."