Shown prominently is Renee Marie Morrison. A close-up portrait of her as a toddler. A young girl posing with her big sister, Rhonda. There's a shot of her proudly wearing a high school drill team uniform, another of the attractive teen-ager with her little niece.
On Saturday morning, Richard Morrison sat on a couch amid the photos and talked about the tragic unraveling of his family: The death of his wife, Linda, and the person accused of killing her - their 16-year-old daughter, Renee.
"I know my daughter," Mr. Morrison said. "In my heart, I know it wasn't intentional. I know it was an accident. She wouldn't shoot her mom."
Prosecutors say the shooting was not an accident. They insist the Madison High School honor student and captain of her school's drill team intentionally fired a bullet from a .22-caliber handgun into her mother's forehead on May 31.
Paramedics found the 49-year-old Mrs. Morrison dead in the second-floor hallway of the family's home about three miles north of Middletown.
The teen-ager was indicted Friday on a murder charge by a Butler County grand jury. She will be tried as an adult and, if convicted, could spend the rest of her life in prison. She is being held at the Montgomery County Jail in Dayton and will be arraigned next week. Meeting with reporters for the first time since the shooting, Mr. Morrison's eyes teared up as he talked about Renee.
"I'm shocked by the indictment," Mr. Morrison said. "With Renee's history of problems, I wasn't expecting it at all."
Began with phone call
For weeks, Renee's grief-stricken father and other family members have searched for the truth about what happened May 31. The nightmare began with a telephone call.
At 3:30 p.m. that Saturday, Mr. Morrison returned home from work at AK Steel, where he cleans coal. The telephone was ringing as he walked in.
On the other end, authorities say, was Renee's boyfriend, Chris Hinkle. He told Mr. Morrison Renee had shot her mother.
Mr. Morrison raced upstairs and found his wife with a bullet wound to the head. He frantically called 911, but his wife of 31 years had already died.
Hours later, police arrested Renee in an apartment complex parking lot in Middletown.
Police say Renee took the gun from her parents' bedroom into her bedroom that day because she planned to commit suicide. She accidentally fired a shot into the floor.
Mrs. Morrison, authorities say, ran upstairs and told Renee to put the gun down. Renee shot her mother when she refused to let her leave the house, police say.
Since the shooting, Mr. Morrison and his family have struggled to cope with the twin tragedy - the death of Mrs. Morrison and a possible conviction and life sentence for Renee.
"I've turned to God since this happened," Mr. Morrison said.
Severe depression
Renee was like lots of kids as a youngster, Mr. Morrison said. She was happy and energetic. She loved swimming in the family's in-ground pool, riding horses and fishing for bass and blue gill in neighbor John and Joni Regensburg's small pond.
But when she entered adolescence, serious problems emerged, Mr. Morrison said. She had extreme mood swings and periods of depression. Soon, Renee began running away from home, cutting her arms and legs and threatening suicide.
When her alarmed parents asked why, Renee offered the same response: "I don't know."
They took Renee to hospitals, psychiatrists and clinics, seeking help for their daughter and reasons for her erratic behavior.
But the help and the answers didn't come soon enough. As her parents watched with an increasing sense of helplessness and desperation, Renee's mental condition continued to deteriorate.
Mr. Morrison said he and his wife tried several times this year to have Renee admitted to a hospital, but his insurance company wouldn't allow it. Renee told her parents she needed help.
"We tried to get my baby help, but we couldn't," Mr. Morrison said, wiping tears from his eyes.
"One minute, she'd be hugging us and telling us she loved us," Mr. Morrison said. "Then she'd go upstairs, and . . . when she'd come back down, she'd be depressed and didn't want to talk."
Counseling helped for a while, but in fall 1996, she began regressing, he said.
The situation became dire last December, when Renee became pregnant. Her parents wanted her to have an abortion, saying she wasn't emotionally prepared to become a mother. But Renee resisted. "It was a hard decision," Mr. Morrison said. "But we felt that under the circumstances, it would be better for everybody." The conflict over the planned abortion culminated Jan. 31, according to police reports and Mrs. Regensburg.
Renee ran away after school that day, only to be found and returned home by Trenton police. But in the middle of the night, she jumped 6 feet from her second-floor bedroom window to the ground and ran to the Regensburgs' house.
There, Renee spoke disparagingly of her parents. She was bitter they had demanded she abort her pregnancy, Mrs. Regensburg said. "She was totally cold about her parents and her sister," she said. "It really shocked me. She had detached herself so much from her family."
Within days, Renee suffered a miscarriage, possibly from the jump from her window.
Two weeks before the shooting, police say, Renee threatened to shoot herself and her mother. Mrs. Morrison found her husband's loaded handgun inside Renee's handbag in the barn.
Butler County sheriff's deputies tried to place Renee in the county juvenile detention center after that, but there was no room. "It seemed like we were hitting our heads against the wall," said Mr. Morrison, sitting next to his other daughter, 30-year-old Rhonda King. "What else could I have done? - that's what I ask myself. I don't know."
Doting parents
People who know the Morrisons say love and loyalty are hallmarks of the family.
For instance, because of the shooting, Mrs. King and her husband, Stephen, left their Tennessee home near Chattanooga, where they had lived for six years, and moved into Mr. Morrison's house.
The Kings have a 3-year-old daughter, Randi.
"We left our old lives behind to be here with my family, where we belong," Mrs. King said.
Mr. and Mrs. Morrison often held hands as they walked down the long gravel lane that leads from their house to Browns Run Road. "You don't see a lot of couples who have been married a long time doing that," said neighbor Joni Regensburg. "They were so cute together."
The Morrisons had moved from their native Middletown to the rural 12-acre tract in 1976.
When Renee was a child, the Morrisons put their house up for sale because they thought Renee might be happier in a neighborhood rather than an isolated location, Mr. Morrison said. They eventually took their house off the market and bought Renee a horse.
With a smile, Mr. Morrison, 54, admitted Saturday he and his wife doted on Renee.
One or both parents almost always attended Renee's performances at horse shows and 4-H shows. Mrs. Morrison even helped make uniforms for Renee's high school drill team.
"She was a good mother, and she babied that girl to death," said Mrs. Morrison's father, Manford Riley of Dayton, Ohio.
Not giving up
A week before the shooting, Mrs. Morrison and Renee stood side by side fishing at the Regensburgs' pond.
Renee was looking forward to leaving June 1 with her drill team for a two-day trip to Sea World near Cleveland. When she returned, the family was to leave for Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon.
"We thought maybe in two weeks' time we could get Renee to unwind and to talk to us about her problems," Mr. Morrison said.
That never happened.
Despite his wife's death, Mr. Morrison refuses to dwell on the pain. He also said he will not abandon his daughter.
"Giving up on Renee is the last thing on my mind," Mr. Morrison said. "She's a very lovable girl who has problems. My goal is to try to get her life on track."
Mr. Morrison and Mrs. King said they are not bothered about living in the house where Mrs. Morrison was killed.
"The love and good times we've had in this place far outweigh that tragic event," Mrs. King said. "This is home."
Mr. Morrison looked over at her and smiled.
"You said that well."
Previous stories
GIRL CHARGED WITH MURDER OF MOTHER July 19, 1997
KILLING PARENT ULTIMATE TABOO June 9, 1997
MORRISON TO BE TRIED AS ADULT June 5, 1997
FAMILY'S HISTORY OF PAIN UNFOLDS June 4, 1997
ABORTION ARGUMENT PRECEDED KILLING, BOYFRIEND SAYS June 3, 1997
KILLING NUMBS A TOWN June 2, 1997
BUTLER CO. TEEN HELD AFTER MOTHER SHOT DEAD June 1, 1997
