Sister of boy killed with gun blames custodial dad for negligence (Brewster, New York)

We've posted on this case before. Previous articles have made it somewhat clearer that DOUGLAS GRAHAM was a custodial father. Here we just see how condescending he is.

http://www.lohud.com/article/20140224/NEWS02/302240071/Sister-boy-who-killed-himself-gun-blames-father-negligence-

Sister of boy who killed himself with gun blames father for 'negligence'

Feb. 24, 2014 8:03 PM

Written by James O’Rourke

Filed Under News Westchester County, New York

A month after Douglas Graham received probation for illegally owning the gun his teenaged son used to kill himself, the boy’s sister accused their father of refusing to accept “responsibility for his negligence.”

Alexandria Bodden says her mission since Michael Graham’s 2013 suicide at age 13 is to “get child access prevention laws in New York.” She claims that her father’s actions not only caused Michael’s death, but, ultimately, the death of the boy’s mother, Sheila Kearney Graham, 52, who killed herself nine months later in California.

“We lost two beautiful people because of one man’s negligence,” she writes in a letter to The Poughkeepsie Journal, a sister publication of The Journal News. She later continues, “My world will never be the same without my little brother and step-mom. Their deaths — both easily preventable had my father kept his guns locked up — have destroyed the lives of those that were close to them.”

Michael Graham, an eighth-grader at Henry Wells Middle School in Brewster, shot himself to death in a bedroom at his father’s Elmwood Drive home in Southeast on Jan. 14, 2013. The gun he used had been hidden in the home’s attic.

Douglas Graham, 55, was charged with three felony counts of criminal possession of a weapon and one felony count of evidence tampering after three unregistered handguns were found in the house. Investigators said Graham hid two of the weapons after the shooting occurred.

On Jan. 22, 2014, Douglas Graham was sentenced to five years probation after accepting a plea deal under which he pleaded guilty to a single felony count of criminal possession of a weapon.

Despite the court’s decision, Bodden claims her father has never truly owned up to his role in Michael’s death.

“My father has done everything he possibly could to avoid accepting responsibility for his negligence,” Bodden writes. “After his arrest he said to me, ‘Out of all the guns I had in the house, Mikey had to use an illegal one.’ Not once has he apologized for, or even acknowledged, his negligence.”

In a statement from Douglas Graham delivered by his attorney, James Borkowski, the 55-year-old said he was “shattered” by his son’s death and has sought grief counseling to cope with the loss.

“Since Michael’s death, I have learned from counseling that grief is a process with stages, including anger. We have asked Alex to get grief counseling, but she has refused,” he wrote. “Unfortunately, Alex continues to vent her anger by writing letters against her father to newspapers, keeping the wounds open. My prayer is for Alex to get counseling, and we wish her peace.”

In her letter, Bodden, of the Bronx, supports local leaders and others who have joined Mayors Against Illegal Guns, an advocacy group that, according to its website, aims to keep “illegal guns out of dangerous hands,” in order to make communities safer.

“I want my family’s story to be heard all over the country as evidence for why there is still so much work to do,” Bodden writes.