It occurred in suburbia far removed from the city where there is a prevalent sense of safety, security and happiness until this one fateful moonless night.
It had been a common sight to see the rear porch light of Brice and Lillie’s house on all night. There never were any others in the neighborhood that joined in on this nightly ritual. This neighborhood was situated in the Colorado community of Centennial.
Brice and Lillie’s house was in a newly established portion of Centennial that most considered in the “country” as there was little urbanization in that area. This area was surrounded by major highways and roadways where Brice and Lillie’s porch light had become a beacon in the night.
The twist to this tale takes shape clean across the country where the perpendicular path begins with Sissy, Billy and Mark. Sissy is the oldest sister of Billy the youngest and Mark the mean one.
Billy and Mark have been in reform school working the dairy farm where the two of them were granted a weekend furlough to go visit their sister in Portland. Sissy drove to Salem in her ramshackle Granada to pick the boys up. Once on the road to Portland the boys announced to Sissy they were done with the “joint” and not going back.
Sissy tried to reason with them but could not bring about any sense to them. When they arrived in Portland the boys took off while Sissy was gassing the car. Later that evening the boys show up in a nice Cadillac Accolade telling her that this would be the last they would see her for they were heading off to Mexico. In her best big sister way she asked them just how were they going to do that being broke with no money in their pocket.
Mark with a big grin spreading across his face motioned to Sissy that she should follow him outside to their newly acquired vehicle. Going to the back of the vehicle he opens it up and throws back a blanket revealing a pile of guns and ammunition. Any other questions, he asks Sissy?
Troubled and concerned for the safety of her brothers she told them that she was going with them, while thinking to herself that somewhere down the line she would bring about some reason to them where they would end up doing the right thing.
So they quickly loaded up Sissy and headed out toward Mexico. As they moved south, they left behind a nasty trail of larceny and mayhem. Now we fast forward to Englewood Colorado; Sissy and the boys had become quite infamous in a short period of time as it was becoming harder for them to pass through any community un-noticed. In a sleepy corner of Englewood the trio found an old beat up pick-up truck sitting there with a key in the ignition. They quickly changed vehicles to eventually putter off to the south down highway 85.
In their flight south they somehow ended up in Centennial Colorado, late at night where they saw the rear porch light of Brice and Lillie’s blazing; guiding them to what they hoped would be gullible and helpful people. They ditched the truck close by and went calling on Brice and Lilly.
Sissy was the one to knock on the door while the boys hid off to the side. When Brice cracked the door to ask Sissy what it was she needed, Mark threw his full weight on the door blasting it open to see Lilly just behind Brice freaked and screaming. This is when Mark popped her in the head with the butt of the AK-47 knocking her out thus silencing her.
Brice being protective and scared himself as these intruders force their way in, he fights to defend his house and wife only to be brutally beaten. Once the trio has Brice and Lilly tied up and muffled, they move to ransacking the house in search of money and anything else of value.
In their foray around the house they have seen numerous items of pilot memorabilia. Many were pictures of Brice and Lilly with their twin engine Beechcraft Baron. Sissy questions Brice about the aircraft to which he responds that it is not his but a friends. Sissy is not buying it as Marks walks up with a picture showing Brice flying the aircraft as the pilot.
Things are getting ugly as Sissy tells Brice that he is going to fly them to Mexico and if that seemed to be a problem she would have the boys talk to Lilly about it and it would not be in a nice way! That did it for Brice; he agreed that he would fly them to Mexico while thinking that when they were airborne he would send a distress signal with his transponder, for these fools would be none the wiser.
The trio decided that when it was darker out they would go to the plane and get under way to Mexico. When at the airport preparing to get underway the first thing Brice does is to set his transponder to 7500; the code for hijack!
After flying for around two hours there had been no response or coded radio communication to his distress code which worried Brice. Sissy had taken up the co-pilot seat while the boys were in back along with their cache of destruction. It had become very apparent that something was wrong with the transponder and even more so that they were going to kill him sooner or later.
