Sole Survivor

Good morning, I have a question. Do I really have to talk about what happened this morning again? I've told people, and I've told people, and it just crushes me every time I say it. Okay, so I can't really talk about that again.

911, what is your emergency?

Um, there was a shootout in my house, and I don't know who's dead, and I'm scared to death. I was 10 when all this happened. I was so young and so little.

Is there anybody else in the house with you?

No, I think I'm the only one alive. I don't know, but I'm scared. I want my mom. I lived with my mother, Michelle Conrad. I lived with my stepfather, Brian Conrad, and then my older brother, Zach Don. I had a dog named Molly, and my stepdad, Brian, was a farmer, and then my mom was also 6 months pregnant. I hope my mom's not dead.

That night, I was having a nightmare, and I remember hearing gunshots in my dream. But when I woke up, it didn't end. The gunshots were actually going off in my house. My mother started screaming, screaming, and screaming. I jumped out of my bed and crouched down by my door. That's when I heard footsteps. It was very loud, he was stomping. I just remember popping up as fast as I could and taking two leaps back into my bed and just freezing. He fired two rounds off at me. One of them grazed my left leg and my left arm. He returned to my brother's room, and I just remember gunshots going off and my brother moaning. I played dead for 2 and a half hours. I was just like, I can't just lay here. I need to do something. So, I just proceeded out the door and started dialing 911. Please, can you... Somebody's coming. Somebody's coming. I just couldn't get there fast enough. I'm cold. I'm very cold. I could not get there fast enough. I heard my mom scream. What in the world could have taken place? And why is she the only one on the phone? I want my mom.

My Robin's home in Pampa, Texas is literally in the middle of nowhere. So, you have to wonder why this family, why this farmhouse. Whoever the shooter was, whatever his reason for gunning down an innocent family in cold blood, he probably didn't count on one thing: he left behind a witness.

It's on Highway 70. It's about 13.3 miles out from the Bolan Alley. I have a purple shirt on. I have purple pants on. It felt so long before they got there. Okay, they're coming. They're coming. They're coming. I just kept looking and looking and looking and hoping to see, you know, someone coming to my rescue. All I want right now is my blanket and my pillow.

I'll never forget when I turned down the driveway. Oh, I see him. I see him. This child on a phone about a shooting. She ran straight to me. I hugged her. As distraught as she was, she's very articulate, just telling me in absolute detail what was going on and what she heard. And everything. He told me everything was going to be okay. They were going to figure it out. We're obviously not going in the house with her. I got to secure her somehow out here in the middle of nowhere. So, I put her in my patrol car and locked it. All the cops had their guns drawn, and they were going to clear out the house to make sure no one was in there and to see who was alive and who was not alive. Any crime scene that you go into, you know, it's the ultimate "who done it." One comment we made when we first got there is this is like the all-American family. Everything was in place. The coffee was set to come on the next morning. Mom, Dad, children getting ready for the birth of a child. The east door to the residence had been kicked in, and whoever entered that residence at that time immediately went to shooting. Brian had been shot three times, and Michelle had been shot six times, and the dog had been shot twice. I guess I kept playing games with myself in my head: when is my mom going to walk out of there? When is Brian going to walk out of there? Where's Molly? I wanted all of my family to walk out of there, okay, just like I did. How that bullet missed Robin, I do not know. It struck a little drawer next to her bed. Zach had been shot three times laying in his bed. It appeared Zach never woke up and Zach never knew what hit him. I would never ask the question who's still alive. I wouldn't do it. Like, I just... I just wouldn't do it. Chief Deputy looked at me and we looked at each other, and he said, go be with that little girl. And uh, I just wanted to take care of her best I could. I said, is there anything I can do for you, Robin? And she said, I want to feed my animals. And I said, I've fed animals before. Let's go feed animals. Maybe it's just pure survival, you know, coming from one situation that's just so traumatic to a diversion. I just remember him helping me feed. I laughed at the amount of alfalfa hay he tried to give my goats because he... it was like in a large amount, and I said, no, no. She just blew me away. She completely flipped a switch and was absolutely bragging about her animal got first or second in this, and her brother got first and second with his animal. Once we leave the goats and that moment's over, the switch flipped again, and it was right back to reality. And she's immediately back to crying and cold and she grabbed my forearm. Finally, like, I kind of got the courage to just come right out and say, mom and Brian aren't... aren't going to walk out of there, are they? Broke the law enforcement people's hearts when they had to tell me no that they weren't walking out of there. I was the only one that could walk out of there still alive. Zach never woke up, and he never knew what was going on. So I'm thankful that he didn't have a chance to hurt. I'm really thankful for that.

Right after it all had taken place, I went to my great-grandma's house. It was just family after family, after friends, after people. And everybody was crying, and you know, people were yelling at the top of their lungs, saying, what's going on? What's going on? What's going on? And I couldn't answer questions because I was just scared. I really don't want to go to sleep anymore, okay? It makes me too scared. I really don't want to go to sleep. Okay.

I got put in a room with one of the advocates at the bridge. There was a microphone in the room, and there was a camera in the room. He shot in my room and missed me, okay? And so I had like... I was detained two whole hours. Everything was videotaped to