LAKEPORT, Calif. – The young woman whose son was shot and killed, and who herself was seriously injured in a June 2011 shooting, said her son received justice thanks to guilty verdicts handed down in the cases of the two men accused of the crime.
Desiree Kirby, 23, was in court Wednesday afternoon to hear the verdicts read for 22-year-old Paul William Braden, who a jury found guilty of 15 felony counts and 55 special allegations for his part in the shooting on the night of June 18, 2011.
That shooting killed Kirby’s 4-year-old son Skyler Rapp, wounded her and her boyfriend, Ross Sparks, as well as his brother, Andrew Sparks, and Ian Griffith and Joseph Armijo.
Last Friday, a separate jury had similarly convicted 24-year-old Orlando Joseph Lopez Jr. Kirby was in court for those verdicts as well.
She said she had been more anxious about the Lopez verdict, but afterward had a good feeling that Braden also would be convicted.
District Attorney Don Anderson said both men are looking at the equivalent of multiple life sentences when they appear for sentencing in August.
After listening to the verdicts, Kirby said she was relieved that Braden and Lopez were going away to prison, and she felt her son had received justice.
The little boy with the shock of bright red hair had been with his family at their Lakeshore Drive home in Clearlake when the shooting started shortly before 11 p.m.
He had been standing in front of his parents’ apartment, roasting marshmallows for s’mores, when he was struck by multiple shotgun pellets and fell almost instantly after the shooting started, according to testimony at trial.
Kirby herself was riddled with shotgun pellets, which left her with permanent damage to her right arm and right leg.
The gunfire peppered the outside of the apartment and was found inside as well, close to the playpen where Ross Sparks’ and Kirby’s baby daughter slept.
Anderson’s case rested, in part, on the theory that a fight at an adult school graduation about a week and a half before the shooting had escalated tensions between Ross Sparks’ family and a faction associated with Braden and Lopez, leading to threatening text messages and cell phone calls from the men to Sparks and another family member the night of the shooting.
Kirby called what happened at her home that night “really random” and “bizarre.”
However, “Everybody played their own little role in it,” she added.
“I just wish I could go back and fix everything and I can’t,” Kirby said.
Amidst all of the statements made in the media and the community about the case, Kirby said she wanted to address accusations by some people that she was not a good mother.
“I wasn’t a bad mom,” she said, explaining how hard she worked to give her children a good life.
She said she had worked two months straight without a day off, and June 18, 2011, was the first day she had off with her children.
“The one day I was home they decided to show up and take him from me,” she said.
Kirby has had numerous surgeries and is looking at more of them. She said she is waiting until after the August sentencings of Braden and Lopez to schedule further surgeries.
She’s planning to return to school at Yuba College and even sees the possibility of advocacy in her future.
Kirby said the case is a wake up call.
“I hope people realize what a couple words can do and escalate to,” she said.
She added, “I hope nobody forgets.”
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