Here are some excerpts from today’s Oregonian regarding the Bryant family tragedy.
“On the night of his 17th wedding anniversary, Robert Bryant pulled a $100 bill from his wallet and bought a box of 12-gauge turkey shot, officials said Monday.”
“Sometime that Feb 23rd evening, the Bryant family went to bed. Later, Robert Bryant got up, loaded two shotguns and shot each of his four children at close range. Next he shot his wife, Janet, who had stepped away from her bed, then he knelt in the living room and took his own life, a Yamhill County district attorney said.”
“The family moved to Oregon in June from Northern California, relatives and friends say, to get away from a painful break from the Jehovah’s Witness faith. Robert Bryant had gone through a church expulsion that also led to the couple being shunned by other church members and caused the financial collapse of his landscaping business.”
The article mentioned that the house was locked from inside with a deadbolt and that investigators think Bryant had planned to kill his wife and children for a least a day or two.
Janet Bryant’s sister Sharon Roe (who had quit the JWs) said, “I thought Robert was joking when he said he was going to have a nervous breakdown. Robert was just that way, he’d say something very doom and gloom one minute and then the net thing he’d be really happy.” She also said her sister was always a rock, and “She was so strong, and she was the best mother you’d ever see.”
The article continues:
“Still, Roe is haunted by the last phone calls with her sister, in which Janet seemed “more stressed” than normal. Roe knew that the shunning weight heavily on her sister.”
Since she learned about the deaths, she hasn’t wavered from her opinion that Robert Bryant was a kind man who loved his family. Somehow, she said, he must have thought it would be irresponsible to leave a family behind.
Bryant had made friends with his chiropractor who said Bryant “was a good man, a good father. A man of resolve, character, determination. I don’t latch on to people, but this guy really got my attention…There was a depth to him that I really resonated with. I thin, psychologically and physically, he felt cornered. Everything just got too big. And the only way out was, I’ve got to take everybody with me.”
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Who, in their right mind would ever want to stay in this horrible, horrible hateful religion, I ask?
This was the lead letter from the Oregonian’s editorial section. Keep in mind that the couple who penned this letter are to be brutally slaughtered by the Watchtower God™. Also keep in mind that Robert Bryant’s only sin under Watchtower Law™ was that he pointed out the hypocrisy he saw around him in his religion. Six people are tragically dead because, it appears to me, his religion cared more about hiding it’s own hypocrisy than dealing with it.
Kind Hearts and Beautiful Smiles
We are deeply saddened by the news of the Bryant family tragedy. You would have to have known this family to fully understand how tragic this story really it.
We feel fortunate to have spent last summer living in the same RV park as the Bryants while they were preparing their new home site. Our daughters played with the Bryant girls, who were very happy and fun-loving. We will always remember them for their kind hearts and beautiful, bright smiles.
We saw the kindness and love that all of the Bryant children had in them, the respect for others, and the joy they shared as a family. They were all four model children, who given the chance, could have contributed to our society in a very positive way.
We struggle now to understand how the members of a church could turn their backs on a family like this. The God we believe in is a God of love and forgiveness, not one of self-righteous hypocrisy. Being excommunicated from the church (a Jehovah’s Witness congregation) had a huge impact on this family and is a practice that should be exchanged for one of love and understanding.
This family, especially Ashley and Alissa, will never be forgotten.
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Farkel