The couple, D.J. and Crystal Howard, were parents of four children, Bradley told BuzzFeed News. The children will be moving to the state to live with grandparents.
Advertisement
Stephanie Oliver, the children’s grandmother, is thankful for the kind actions of Bradley. I wanted to preserve these kids’ Halloween and the ones to come. “I care about them a lot”. Again, they mentioned their parents would be arriving soon.
They had no family in the area and would have to be turned over to the Department of Family and Child Services while authorities tried to locate a family member. We were able to reach the kids’ paternal grandmother. So, they went for burgers and ice cream, and afterwards to the precinct, where they spent the night. He wrote that he held off on telling the kids what had happened in order to make sure the holiday wasn’t ruined for them.
Leftover money will be used to help the kids and their grandmother. After a tour of the facility, Bradley wrote that around 10 p.m. the police Corporal stopped in with his family, candy, popcorn and “a variety of Disney films”. The deputy then asked the eldest boy if anybody was home, hoping for a “Yes” but the boy would unknowingly disappoint us. “After the kids woke up, we walked them to the truck so that they could head home”. The move comes after a a Georgia State Patrol Trooper going above and beyond for the family. “I also wrote down my number so that he could contact me if he needed support”.
Bradley started a GoFundMe page to help the family with funeral costs and to transport the parents’ bodies to Florida, where they will be buried. “I’m only 28-years-old, one child and my niece that I have been trying to help take care of, so I don’t too much know what to do”.
“It’s definitely humbling”, Bradley told BuzzFeed. “It’s fantastic how fast social media and all the media outlets have spread that…”
“The whole objective was to preserve their Halloween”, explained Bradley, both this year and for the future.
“Compassion is a core value of our Department”, it said in a Facebook post.
Bradley and others in the community celebrated Halloween with the kids and kept the deaths of their parents from them.
“It was important to me that I would not lie to them”, Bradley wrote. “You couldn’t get one to go anywhere without the other one”, Oliver said.
They weren’t told about their parents’ accident until the next morning when their grandmother arrived. “I don’t want this tragedy to shadow the rest of their lives”, Bradley said.
Advertisement
Would you have told the children that their parents were dead?
