INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Sheila Hole sobbed has she forces herself to sing the lyrics of “He Has His Hands on You” by gospel singer, Marvin Sapp.
Hole says the song has been her constant companion this past year and restoration of her faith.
“The doctor that called me from Eskenazi, the counselor that saw him one day before the shooting, where he said, and I quote — these words will burn in my mind forever — ‘I have no empathy for anyone, I’m a danger to society (and) society should be afraid of me,” Ms. Hole said.
The next day, April 15, 2021, her son Brandon shot and killed eight people a FedEx facility he had worked at. He then shot and killed himself.
Sheila puts much of the blame on herself.
“Because he was just going to kill himself and I tried to stop him and in doing so I think I’ve created this whole horrible thing.”
Sheila Hole showed I-Team 8 a police report from March 3, 2020. It details the moment Sheila had called the cops on her son for threatening suicide. It also details his abuse toward her, his willingness to shoot others, and “disturbing internet content (that was) observed, (including) neo-Nazi type rhetoric.”
Sheila says she begged for officers to put him in a psychiatric hold. But after being taken to Eskenazi, she says, he was released a few hours later.
The neo-Nazi rhetoric was what got the FBI involved. On April 15, 2020, the FBI agent and state agent showed up at the door, demanding to speak to my son,” Hole said.
However, Hole says, her son was never arrested even though she was told by an FBI agent that “your son meets all the red flags of a mass shooter.”
“I believe he felt wronged” by police and agents, Hole said when describing what is motive for the mass shooting was. “I’m thinking he’s red flagged. Why would he not be? He had purchased a gun, they took it away. … FBI saying he’s a potential mass shooter.
“But that didn’t happen. (Months later) within 15 minutes of walking into the gun store, he came out with a box smiling from ear to ear.”
That box held the assault rifle he would use the following year to take the lives of innocent people.
I-Team 8 asked Hole if she could speak to Brandon now, what she would say.
“You should have just taken your own life. You had no right.”
Hole says she never grieved his death, she never buried him and she never had a funeral.
To Brandon, “when you took innocent lives. You made that choice for me. So (when) somebody says (they) can’t believe that you’re not grieving your son’s death, (I say) he made that choice. I’m not choosing to grieve his death. I cannot. You took innocent people out of this world. Who do you think you are? Nope. No.”
Hole says the only reason she’s stuck around is in case she can be of any help to victims. She says if she is asked to testify in any lawsuit they file, she will. Ultimately, she says, she believes she was at complete fault for what happened.
“I’m so sorry this happened,” she said over and over again.
