After masked men murdered her son, a Bloomington mother waits for justice
Michelle Massey's phone rang about 7 the morning of May 25 with news that made her shake.
Two masked men with guns had broken through the back door of an eastside Bloomington apartment. They chased her 20-year-old son outside, firing at him as he bolted into the 6 a.m. darkness, into the depths of Latimer Woods, trying to escape.
The gunmen disappeared before police arrived. Officers talked to witnesses, collected evidence and searched more than an hour for a man last seen running away.
Massey got in her car that Wednesday morning and drove around looking for her son, Desta Clark. Of her eight children, he was the one she worried about most, the one who had been in trouble with the law since he was 12, the one she prayed would someday set himself straight.
"I always told Desta that if he didn't stop doing what he was doing, he'd end up in prison or dead," she said this past week, wiping tears from her eyes with the back of her hand.
He ended up dead.
'That's when I knew'
"Something in my gut told me I'd never talk to him again when I got that call that Desta had been shot at and they couldn't find him. But I drove around for hours. I circled the crime scene over and over and drove around the south side and everywhere I could think of."
About noon, a call came through from the sheriff's department. "A lady said, 'I need to speak to you about Desta Clark.' And I asked, 'Is he in trouble? Just tell me.' And she said, 'I really need to speak to you in person,' so we agreed to meet in the parking lot at Walmart because it was close."
More:Police responding to gunfire calls on city's east side find man shot to death in woods
Her older son was with her and they drove to the west side. She scanned the parking lot for a sheriff's car, but the coroner's office van appeared instead.
"That's when I knew he was dead," Massey said. "I dropped to the ground and started crying and the woman said, 'I'm so sorry,' and she said he'd already been identified by the police because the cops knew who he was.
"It was raining and I was crying and she tells me the autopsy is at 2 o'clock in Terre Haute and it was 12:30 and then I knew my son was probably in that van. All I wanted to do was go over and open the door. But I knew better."
Little is known, Bloomington police say
Police rushed to the 700 block of South Clarizz Boulevard at 5:55 a.m. May 25 in response to 911 calls from people who reported hearing gunshots. When officers arrived, there was no indication what had happened, until they found an apartment with the back door busted open and no one inside.
They searched the wooded area adjacent to The Woods at Latimer complex and found Clark's body lying on the ground near a large fallen tree. He had been shot multiple times and died there.
Massey went to the scene that night with a bouquet of flowers.
"At this time, little more is known about the homicide," a BPD news release said, asking anyone with information to call Detective Wade Berry at 812-339-4477. Capt. Ryan Pedigo said last week there are no updates to report.
"People are scared to talk, and I get that," Massey said. "But I don't want to be 10 years down the road and still not know what happened. I can't let Desta's murder go unsolved."
A chance to change with counseling and education
Massey said Clark stayed out for trouble for a few years after completing a therapeutic day-treatment program that included schooling, counseling, behavioral therapy and volunteer work.
He was 15 when he entered the program in 2017 after refusing to attend court-ordered therapy sessions and continuing to smoke marijuana and fail drug tests.
“My parole officer and my mom sat me down and had a serious talk with me,” Clark recalled. Judge Steve Galvin warned him to change his ways or be sent back to secure detention.
“This,” the 15-year-old said, “is where my journey to do better for myself starts.”
Trouble brewing
Clark's mom started worrying about him again when her son was 18.
"It was the last two years, when he started venturing back to the streets, doing what he was doing with people he shouldn't have been with," she said.
A scary incident this past February foreshadowed what was to come.
Massey got a frantic call from Clark saying some men he knew with guns were on the way to the Larkspur Lane house where the family was staying. They had threatened to hurt his mother.
Clark got there first and retrieved a 9mm handgun from his mom's room. It was new, she said, still in the box. Her brother had helped her pick it out, saying she needed a gun in the house for protection.
Massey and her younger kids hid in the bedroom closet. The men drove by and fired shots at the house. Clark fired back and the police came. It was 2 o'clock on a Sunday afternoon. There were bullet holes in the house and Clark's car.
Clark was arrested on a warrant for failure to appear in a court hearing in an illegal gun possession case. His mom paid his bail to get him out.
Then Massey sent her younger kids to stay with her husband's family in Michigan. She quit the overnight nursing assistant job she'd had for 14 years, and she and her husband left Bloomington too.
After a time, they returned. Massey got her job back. And her son got killed.
Reach reporter Laura Lane at llane@heraldt.com.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Bloomington mother waits for police to find Desta Clark's murderer
