Woman struggles to cope after son’s slaying, grandson’s suicide
After Teresa Drum shot her husband in the head in February 2017, their 17-yearold son saw Dennis Drum Sr.’s body in the family’s Frazer home.
For the next 15 months, as his mother’s homicide case made its way through the court system, that gruesome image haunted Dennis Drum Jr. until, on Father’s Day last year, he killed himself at his grandmother’s house.
And his grandmother, Esther Drum — Dennis Sr.’s mother — must live with that same horror. She found her grandson’s body.
“If I allow myself to see these images, I fall apart and cannot function,” Esther Drum told Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Jill E. Rangos Wednesday during her daughter-in-law’s sentencing for voluntary manslaughter. Judge Rangos found her guilty in March. “I can’t think about those two nights, and so I can’t think about my boys.”
After listening to that victim-impact statement, Judge Rangos sentenced Teresa Drum, 40, to 70 to 180 months in state prison.
But there will be no formal sentence for Teresa Drum for her son’s death, her defense attorney Lisa Middleman said, only the guilt over it that she has to carry.
“I can’t imagine a worse punishment. She has a life sentence. She knows that it’s her fault,” Ms. Middleman told the judge. “So for the rest of her life, however long that will be, she will have to live with that every single day.”
About 10:30 p.m. Feb. 28, 2017, Teresa Drum called 911 and reported that her husband had shot himself. When officers arrived, a criminal complaint said, they found Mr. Drum, 42, lying curled up on the floor with a gun in his right hand. He’d been shot in the head.
Terersa Drum told investigators several different stories, police said, including that she and her husband argued that night. She claimed Dennis Drum Sr. took a gun from a holster and pointed it
at her, but when she tried to push it away, it went off. Later, she told police the couple fought over a burned casserole.
After the sentencing Wednesday, Esther Drum said her grandson, who was home at the time of the shooting, had told her that his father had been in bed asleep when Teresa Drum went into the bedroom that night, woke him and they began to argue.
“They played it up like they were fighting over this gun or she shot him in the heat of the moment,” Esther Drum said. “I think the judge got the verdict wrong.”
The prosecution sought a conviction for third-degree murder at the time of trial.
However, Ms. Middleman noted that Mr. Drum’s blood alcohol content that night was 0.20, and that testimony showed that Dennis Drum Sr. got the gun out that night.
“Let’s not forget what the facts of the case were,” she said.
Lauren Stoner, a social worker called to testify Wednesday by Ms. Middleman, explained that Teresa Drum has been diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder, major depressive disorder and substance abuse disorder.
She was abused by her father throughout childhood and began drinking alcohol by age 12, Ms. Middleman said.
“Teresa Drum’s life was informed and influenced by trauma,” Ms. Middleman said. “I don’t think she ever understood why she felt the way she did, why she continued to make the life choices she did.”
The defense attorney also told the court that “this incident is not one where either party was 100% innocent.”
Teresa Drum told Judge Rangos she has to get by one day at a time.
“If I could take back what happened, I would. But I can’t,” she said. “I have to live with this for the rest of my life.”
Esther Drum told the judge that her son served six years in the Marine Corps and later became an airline mechanic for US Airways. He worked for the company in Philadelphia for eight years and would return to Pittsburgh on his off days.
He enjoyed hunting and hosting family gatherings at his home. He loved taking his kids for rides in his truck while listening to music.
On the Sunday before Dennis Sr. died, he took his son to Lowe’s to buy tools and then they drove around.
“He told me his dad was becoming his best friend, and he hated that he lost that when his father died,” Esther Drum said of her grandson.
Dennis Drum Jr. was a senior at Deer Lakes High School and on the football team. His grandmother said the community showed overwhelming support not only after her son died, but after her grandson died, too.
Teresa and Dennis Drum Sr. also have a daughter, Shannon, who is 8 years old and is being raised by Esther Drum and her husband. She is fearful, her grandmother said, and because of that, can’t be left alone. Sometimes, Shannon copes by pretending that her brother went to another country to visit her father, her grandmother continued.
“My heart is broken at the loss of my grandson and the fears of my granddaughter,” Esther Drum said. “Shannon’s grief and pain are as great to me as my brokenness and grief over the loss of my son.”