Christopher Parker, 15, died of a gunshot wound in Catoosa County, Ga., last weekend.Becky Parker saw a change in her 15-year-old son in the months before his death.
Christopher Parker always had been a shy teenager who loved rock bands and needed extra time to learn in school.
The Parkers had adopted him and his older brother when he was 18 months old and, as he grew, he wrestled with abandonment issues. In middle school, Becky Parker found her son cutting himself several times.
But that was years ago. Now she noticed Chris had become more social. He had become more involved with his church youth group and had befriended a new classmate at Heritage High School, where he was a sophomore.
"In the last eight months, he had really been blossoming out," she said.
So when she received a call from her husband last Saturday, telling her there had been an accident, that their boy was dead, she didn't know how to react. She ran screaming out the house.
Chris had been shot once in the chest. He died as police arrived at the trailer off Alabama Highway.
At first, the Parkers got little details. They were told it was an accident, but that their son's death would be investigated by multiple agencies, a protocol for all child deaths in the county.
But as the week went by, rumors began to spread, saying Chris may have been trying to kill himself. The words cut even deeper because she knew it couldn't be true, Becky Parker said.
"I know my son," she said.
Police agree his death has been ruled an accident, and no one will be charged for his death or for leaving a loaded gun out where he could reach it.
But police still say something may have been wrong that day.
Chris had spent the night at his new friend's house on March 23.
Chris's dad, Richard, had talked to his son around 11 a.m. the next day when Chris asked to stay another night. Richard Parker told his son he could stay a little longer, but he would pick him up that afternoon.
When Richard Parker drove up to the trailer to get his son, he saw the police cars in front. He thought his son and his friend may have been in trouble. But he was quickly given the news.
Police arrived at the trailer at 1:30 p.m., and no adults were home. Chris was lying on the floor, bleeding and not breathing, an incident report from the Catoosa County Sheriff's Office said. Another teenage boy - who hasn't been named - was beside him, sobbing.
The teenager told police he was outside when he heard a "Boom!" and ran inside to find Chris dead inside, the report states. But he changed his story.
He said Chris was upset by a phone call he had received. The teen said he saw Chris go outside and began punching a tree, yelling, "I'm going to kill myself," the report states.
Chris then went back into the trailer, to a bedroom where a gun was lying on the dresser, and picked it up, the other teen told police. He said he and Chris began to wrestle over the gun. In the struggle, the gun fired, hitting Chris in the chest, the report states.
Early reports that Chris shot himself are false, but the teen stuck to the rest of his story, said Catoosa County Sheriff's Capt. Scott Jordan. The investigation showed that Chris told his friend he wanted to kill himself, but whether he was serious about it or what he was upset about is unknown, Jordan said.
But his parents don't believe Chris was upset. They believe they have the answer to what happened.
Chris just picked up the gun out of curiosity, Becky Parker said, and the boys were joking when it was accidentally fired.
"Christopher's never been around a gun," she said. "I'm sure he was just fascinated by it and did not realize the danger."
And Becky Parker said she has reached out to the teenager and his father, hoping to bring them comfort.
"I wanted him to know that we had no hard feelings," she said. "They're probably hurting worse than we are."