WE NEED ANSWERS
Three months after their son was shot and killed at a friend’s house, shattered parents Julie and Tim still don’t know exactly what happened that day
IT’S a tragedy that’s torn two families apart. Two schoolfriends are behind a closed bedroom door. A shot rings out and one boy is left lying bloody and lifeless on the floor while the other is too traumatised to speak.
Three months after their son’s death, Tim and Julie Edwards are still grappling to come to terms with what happened on the afternoon of 5 January.
Julie had dropped their son, Joshua (17), at his friend’s house in Centurion that day. Two hours later, she got the news no parent should ever hear. Her child was dead.
Now the family is desperately trying to get answers to their many questions. Why was a loaded shotgun in a boy’s room? Why was it pointed at Josh? Why was the trigger pulled? “We wish we knew,” Tim says. While the police investigation continues, everything points to a tragic accident. Josh was declared dead on the scene. The gun was allegedly owned by his friend’s father.
But what the Edwards couple need for their peace of mind is to find out exactly what happened.
“We can’t even cry in peace for our son,” Julie tells YOU. “We’re not just mourning, we’re furious.”
They’ve been waiting for the final police report on their son’s death but Tim and Julie believe the police are dragging their feet and have hired private forensic investigator Paul O’Sullivan to help them look for answers.
“Josh’s life ended in that house,” Julie says. “How difficult can it be to solve this?”
Josh’s parents want closure so they can mourn their only son. His death has hit his two sisters hard, particularly Josh’s twin, Tim says.
“They did everything together. And they were still supposed to do everything together – matriculate, marry, have children. Now everything is gone. “We’ll be shattered forever.”
THE past three months have taken a toll on the family. Julie’s skin is pallid and there are deep lines around the corners of her mouth. It’s a sharp contrast to the smiling mom in the family photos of the Edwards’ double-storey Centurion home.
“Tim and I have both been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress,” Julie says.
“At first, I could remember almost nothing – not my last words to my child or what I found at the scene.”
The traumatic memories have slowly returned. Julie recalls dropping Josh off at his friend’s home around lunchtime on that fateful day. Though she had chatted to the boy’s mom once or twice in passing about school events, the couple knew little about the 17-year-old, who was in Grade 11 with Josh.
Julie and Josh had arranged that he’d call her when he was ready for her to pick him up so alarm bells went off when she got a call soon af ter returning home.
“It was a WhatsApp call from an unknown number. When I answered there was silence on the other side,” she says.
Her mother’s instinct kicked in and she immediately called Josh’s phone. When a man answered she explained she was Josh’s mom.
Tears st ream down her face before she continues.
“The voice on the other side belonged to the friend’s father and he said, ‘ There’s been a terrible accident.’ I started shouting and asking if my son was okay, but he said he was sorry, my boy was dead.”
Julie rushed to the friend’s home and called her husband on the way.
The couple arrived before emergency services. When Tim got to the house, he immediately started performing CPR on Josh.
“Blood starting pouring out of his ears and I knew he was gone,” he recalls tearfully. “I walked outside, hugged Julie and said, ‘There’s nothing we can do. He’s dead’.”
When the emergency services arrived they confirmed Josh had died.
His parents have since been trying to make sense of it all.
“The whys and wherefores still elude us,” Tim says. “A thousand questions churn over and over in your head.”
TIM and Julie tried to find out what had happened that day but they were met with silence. “The boy’s parents, clearly in shock, didn’t talk to us at all,” Julie says. “The mom was somewhere in the back garden and the dad was sitting on the pavement. Their son was like a corpse. “Nobody could tell us anything.” Josh was the light of their lives and Tim and Julie (both 41) miss him terribly. “Josh was such a wonderful guy,” she says. “Everybody loved him because he had such a warm personality and gentle heart. How can we simply accept that he’s dead?”
The couple describe the day their son died as incomprehensible. “I can’t even recall how we survived that evening. I just remember that Tim and I and the girls all slept in one bed.”
Josh’s friend’s mom has reached out to her. Though their unanswered questions are eating at them, Julie says she hasn’t replied to her messages because of the ongoing police investigation.
The other family involved in the tragedy are having a tough time too. “I know they lost a son, and I can’t imagine anything worse,” the mother of Josh’s friend tells us. “But two families are broken – all because of an accident.”
The boy’s identity is being protected while the investigation is ongoing. His mother tells us her son is a shadow of the kid he once was.
“He’s like a little boy again. That image of his friend’s lifeless body is scorched into his brain. The pain will never go away.”
Yes, Josh’s death may have been at the hands of their son, but it was an accident, she says between sobs. “We suffer every day. Just like the other parents, we’re shattered. I know my son would never do something like this deliberately. He wouldn’t plan this.”
As a mother, she knows how deep the family’s loss is. “My heart breaks,” she says. “We pray for the Edwards family every day. That’s all we can do.
“We beg the Lord for mercy.” S Lumka Mahanjana, regional spokesperson for the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), says they’ve referred the dossier on Josh’s death back to police for further investigation.
“The dossier was studied to determine whether a crime had been committed and, if so, who committed the crime,” he says.
“We are waiting for a new report to decide on prosecution.”
‘I STARTED SHOUTING AND ASKING IF MY SON WAS OKAY, BUT HE SAID HE WAS SORRY, MY BOY WAS DEAD’