Much will be said and written this week about the mass shooting four years ago that took the lives of seven people and injured more than two dozen others.
We’ll never really know the motivations of gunman Seth Ator, who like his seven victims, was killed that day on Aug. 31, 2019.
Ator’s deadly rampage was stopped by the brave actions of numerous law enforcement agencies. He was shot to death by law enforcement while he was driving the mail truck of Mary Granados, 29.
Ator shot her to death earlier that day as she was making her postal rounds that Saturday of Labor Day weekend 2019. He killed so many from both the Permian Basin and around the country on that tragic day.
Nothing will ever change that tragedy. I am, as always, amazed by the generosity of the Permian Basin in supporting those affected by the mass shooting and also the willingness of both the survivors and the family members of those killed to talk about that terrible day. They talk about their pain and fear and even their hopes for the future.
Even more amazing, some talk of letting go and of forgiveness.
Mary Granados
Rosie Granados, Mary’s twin, was still coming to grips with the loss of her sister that day in 2019 but spoke to me by phone about Mary’s horrifying last moments.
The twins often chatted by cell phone while Mary was making her postal deliveries. That last call ended with Mary’s screams as she was shot to death while her postal truck was hijacked by Ator. Rosie, at the time, thought Mary had been bitten by a dog and rushed over to her sister’s route.
Instead of finding Mary with a dog bite she found her twin dead on the ground. Mary was just months from her 30th birthday. Rosie grieves the loss of her best friend who came with her to Odessa from Mexico when the pair were 14. Both sisters attended Permian High School and still lived together at the time of Mary’s death.
This year, Rosie said, is no different as her mother and her young children (now 7 and 9) and her siblings still grieve the loss of twin, daughter and aunt. They are doing “good,” she said, but are still in pain from that day.
She plays it over in her mind — being on the phone with her. Her children cry sometimes missing the aunt who lived with them. Rosie finds comfort knowing that her twin is still with her. “I feel like she is still with me and comes with me everywhere we go. … We were always so united … I feel her everywhere I go.”
Rosie said she is helped in her grief by feelings of the heroics of Mary’s death and how the community has wrapped the family up in love and support.
“People always make sure to keep remembering her … We really appreciate that and it brings us a lot of comfort knowing she won’t be forgotten.”
Rosie said she likes to remember Mary and the position she had at her job as a postal carrier. “She was able to save so many lives that day because the authorities knew her truck had been hijacked and knew what vehicle to look for … My sister’s life was taken for that vehicle, but she helped get this man stopped,” Rosie said.
Prior to the hijacking of Mary’s truck, it was not entirely clear to law enforcement what Ator was driving or if he was the only gunman.
Amazingly, Rosie is able to speak about Ator despite the traumatic loss her family suffered at his hands. She said she does not give him a lot of thought but also says she has forgiven him and she doesn’t hate him.
“I am very close to God and I know we should forgive,” she said. “I do know he regrets it … Maybe people won’t believe this, but I dreamed of him and he seemed so ashamed and I believe dreams have a connection with life … He was very ashamed of what he did … If God can forgive … I must … I don’t need to live with hate in my heart it would make me miserable.”
Instead Rosie chooses to remember her “kind and sweet” twin by talking it through with family and sharing with each other. “It is like therapy for us to talk and remember her and cry together … It helps us a lot.”
Rosie and her family will attend Thursday’s memorial and she said she appreciates the U.S. Post Office memorial to Mary at the 52nd Street office. The family will attend the memorial and then be with family for the rest of the day. “Praying together is best and it helps and keeps us connected with her.”
Four years later, and for the rest of her life, Rosie said she will mourn her sister but also remember the good times.
“We have not fully recovered yet and it hits really hard at times,” Rosie said. “Sometimes I will be driving and all of the sudden tears roll down my face … It is the same with my mom. … It is very hard to cope with that still and sometimes it just seems like it happened yesterday…”
Rosie, like other family members of the victims, is particularly complimentary of Odessa Chamber of Commerce CEO Renee Earls. She said Earls is in contact and keeps families updated about everything that is going on to honor those lost.
Each kindness helps, but there is also still fear.
“We also live with the fear that something could happen to anyone in the family and having to deal with that is difficult … For us to have lost someone so close to us … having to lose another would be devastating,” she said.
The Grimsleys
The story of the Grimsleys is one I’ve thought about often. I met them at the Odessa Chamber of Commerce and was amazed at how willing they were to share the horrifying story of that day.
Brad Grimsley is a tough Marine who, four years later, still carries shrapnel in his body from that Aug. 31 mass shooting. The Grimsleys, along with Brenda’s sister Kay Perea, were driving down Interstate 20 from their home in Mustang, Okla., that Labor Day weekend to visit Brenda and Kay’s parents when they witnessed Ator shoot DPS Trooper Chuck Pryor.
“We saw Seth get out of the car with his gun and we saw Trooper Pryor hit,” Brenda said.
She said her husband wanted to go back to help the trooper when she realized that the gunman was right behind them in his car and that she wanted to take his photo because he had shot the trooper. That’s when she realized he had a gun hanging out the passenger window of his car.
What happened next is both riveting and terrifying. Brad said he was going more than 100 mph trying to outpace Ator who had pulled up beside them. Brad said he and the gunman were eye to eye when Brad hit the brakes and was shot in the lower abdomen.
His last glimpse of Ator was the gunman smiling at him as he shot him with an AR-15. “Seth turned his head around and he looked at me and smiled, and I’ll never forget it; it was like an old jack-in-the-box wind up toy and he was just bouncing up and down that he got me,” Brad said.
This year, Brad said from his home in Oklahoma via phone, they will not be able to attend the local service. He said his body continues to have some issues. “But they are minor … The shrapnel is still in me … but we are doing great and we had been to every memorial so far.”
Both Brenda and Brad say they often talk about that day as a sort of therapy for each other. “We talk about it all the time and you go through it again … but it is like well, we made it and we are here because of another purpose,” Brad said.
He said he tells “anybody’ about that day because of the seven who died and “I ask them to look it up and read the state trooper report.”
When Brad reflects on that day he said he thinks about how the whole thing started about 9 a.m. and that he wasn’t shot until almost 3 in the afternoon. “I think why was he out there and why no BOLO (be on the lookout was issued) …I wish that something would have been sent out that this guy was hot and coming back to kill people he worked for … I mean if (trooper) Pryor would have known a madman was driving around … things may have been a little different.
The Grimsleys have stayed in touch with Trooper Pryor. Brad said he believes some policies have been adjusted for better communication between law enforcement. “I sat down with Pryor and his wife and gave him a little police car my brother had had for years … We talked and I am glad he is alive … We shared the same hospital (Midland Memorial) and I was there six days.”
He said doctors told him that it was “divine” intervention that he did not bleed to death.
Brad is grateful for donations to the victims’ fund that Earls helped set up following the shootings. Brad said he believes Texas should have better funding for victims of crime to help in the aftermath of these type of crimes.
He said the fact Odessa has remembered with a memorial each year means a lot to them.
Brenda agreed and said they both suffer from PTSD. “We watch closely when we are on the road … If a car backfires, we jump … We keep living each day like our last because you never know.”
She said her sister likewise has PTSD, but is doing fine and has moved back to Pecos.
Both Brad and Brenda look forward to the coming birth of a new great-grandchild. They have 22 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren right now and seven children. The family is spread around the country. Both Brenda and Brad prefer for that family to come to them rather than for them to drive.
Neither of them give Ator much thought. Instead they reflect on a higher power.
“I should have died that day,” Brad reflected. “My aorta was hit four times …”
Brenda said Brad “finally admitted to me that he knew he was going to get hit” when the pair were racing away from the gunman four years ago. “In the last moments before he was shot he said he hears a voice saying ‘now’ and he hit the brakes … The doctor told us a centimeter in any direction would have killed him immediately… but a higher power than him was at work and God had his hand upon us that day.”
Brenda said she continues to pray for the other survivors and the families of the dead. “We were not lucky … God had his hand on us.”
Anderson Davis
The sweet, smiling face of Anderson Davis is one Odessans have become familiar with since Aug. 31, 2019. Anderson wasn’t even 2 years old when she became the youngest victim of the mass shooting.
Parents Kelby and Garret Davis, along with Anderson and her twin brother Rhett, were heading to the grocery store that day when a bullet went through the rear driver’s side of the car and broke apart sending shrapnel into Anderson’s face and chest.
Anderson, four years later, is doing well and is a thriving kindergartner. “She is still healing in different ways, but we are loving this ‘school age kid’ stage of life we have just embarked on with her and her twin brother Rhett,” Kelby wrote in an email.
The Davis family has been generous with their time since the mass shooting. They have helped raise money for Medical Center Hospital’s Children’s Miracle Network and attend and speak at memorial events.
The family has grown by one with the addition of 10-month-old Maverick. The entire Davis family will be on hand for Thursday’s memorial.
“The Bright Star Memorial will be a beacon of hope in our community for years to come. Its completion and symbolism is important to me as a member of this community and also as Anderson’s mother,” Kelby said in an email. “This memorial is a way for us to come together as a community and honor all that was lost while committing to shining our light forward. This year’s 2nd annual Sunrise Service is a beautiful opportunity for us to start this day, that was once filled with such darkness, with the light that hope brings.”
Kelby said as the sun rises up over our community, drowning out the darkness, we will be gathered under the deck at UTPB standing together in unity moving forward toward a brighter tomorrow. She said she is honored to speak again at this year’s Sunrise Service and looking forward to a morning of hope, light, remembering, and healing.
She is asking the community to come to the service and to spend the day doing acts of kindness.
“As we go out into the community following the service, we are encouraging community members to take the light with them. We encourage you to commit to random acts of kindness, wear yellow, donate blood at UTPB, or spread hope however is meaningful to you. Together, we can shine the light of hope on those around us, reminding all we are Odessa Strong.”
Sunrise Service
The Shine a Light Sunrise Service will be held at 7 a.m. Thursday under the Mesa Deck at the University of Texas Permian Basin.
UTPB is hosting the event in partnership with the Odessa Chamber, Odessa Arts, the City of Odessa, The Bridge and Vitalant.
The community is invited to attend as we reflect and remember the lives that were lost on Aug. 31 four years ago. Everyone is encouraged to wear yellow. There will be a blood drive on campus immediately following the service. Also, a portion of the Bright Star Memorial art piece will be on display, a news release said.
