Fighting Back: Part 2b

A LIFE CUT SHORT

Grieving Mom Says Even Good Kids Can Make Bad Choices

GULFPORT - Brenda Palmer knew her son, Joshua, had been dabbling with
marijuana, but she wasn't too worried.

After all, at 18, Joshua Missiledine was the picture of the all-American
kid: an outgoing honor roll student, varsity cheerleader at Harrison
Central High, an avid fisherman. He was hanging out with good kids, devoted
to cheerleading, looking forward to college and probably a shoo-in for a
scholarship.

Palmer punished Joshua when she found scraps of marijuana in his clothes or
other evidence. She lectured him, grounded him, even kicked him out of the
house briefly to live with his father, whom she had divorced when Joshua
was a baby.

But Joshua promised he had only been experimenting with pot, and that he
would stop. Palmer believed him. Joshua, as far as she knew, didn't even
drink alcohol. She figured lots of kids experimented with marijuana. She
herself had tried it when she was young. She didn't like it; it made her
sleepy.

"I thought I was doing everything I should be as a mother," Palmer said. "I
kept a close eye on him - it drove him crazy. I made sure I knew who his
friends were. But apparently, he had two sets of friends."

Joshua Missiledine disappeared sometime after cheerleader practice on Nov.
29, 2001. Palmer reported him missing to police, who found his car
abandoned at a Pass Road trailer park.

A couple of days later, a boy found Joshua's body in an abandoned trailer
in Lyman. He had been beaten to death during a drug deal. Palmer said
investigators have told her that Joshua's marijuana use had led to his
acquaintance with at least one of the two suspects. Both were older men
with lengthy criminal records.

"The police told me, 'You don't realize how often it happens that an
upper-middle class kid meets up with the wrong people through drugs, and
they beat him up and take his money, beat him so he won't narc on them,'

" Palmer said.

Palmer said another teen had reported doing drugs with Joshua in the
vicinity of the abandoned trailer.

"This is a sad situation with a fine young man who got involved with the
wrong people," Sheriff George Payne Jr. said after police arrested the two
suspects in the murder. "This case ultimately was related to drug activity
and his dealings with the wrong people. It cost him his life."

The case, which is still pending, continues to trouble Payne: "Any parent
that thinks marijuana is not a dangerous drug is fooling themselves. It is
a pathway that leads to so many other problems."

'A normal teen-ager'

Palmer is pained with guilt and unanswered questions. She said Joshua's
friends tell her that they did not know about the other people he was
hanging out with or about the drugs.

Palmer herself still questions whether Joshua was trying to buy or sell
drugs, or was just being nice to the people who killed him, giving them a
lift somewhere. She is afraid people will write off her son's slaying as
just another drug murder.

"I don't care if they were sitting there shooting up heroin," she said.
"That didn't give anyone the right to murder my son.

"He was so into cheerleading," Palmer said. "They work their butts off for
hours every night practicing. There's no way you can be doing a bunch of
drugs and do that. He was on the honor roll. He had been on the science
team for a while. Everybody liked him. He had lots of girlfriends. He had
even started going to church.

"Joshua had been taught since he was 3 years old in day care to say no to
drugs. I thought (his marijuana use) was a passing thing, something we
could look back on later and laugh about and I'd say, 'Gee, you gave me so
many problems back then.'

"He was just a normal teen-ager."

'It's everywhere'

But instead of normal memories of her teen-ager, Palmer is left with
haunting images of him dying slowly in an old trailer after being beaten.
Friday nights, when Joshua should be on the sidelines with the Harrison
Central cheering squad, are the worst.

"That image will drive you crazy," Palmer said. "That image, of him laying
there for 45 minutes unconscious, is burned into my brain."

Palmer has a warning for teens who might try drugs: "Even if you're just
experimenting, you don't know who these people are, if you're hanging
around the drug scene," she said. "I'd tell these kids in a heartbeat, stay
away from drugs and stay away from people who do them, because you don't
know who they are."

And Palmer has a warning for parents: "I thought I was doing everything I
could. I would check his room, check his coat pockets, check his computer
e-mails, try to keep up with what he was doing. I didn't think he had a
problem.

"It's everywhere. I know that. There are parents out there doing it. I'm
not sure that there's not even a judge out there in Harrison County
somewhere that doesn't come home and toke on a joint. Even if you have a
good kid, you don't know.

"That new TV commercial they have, where the little girl calls home from
the dance club and says, 'Mom, I'm with so-and-so, can I stay another
hour?' How do you know she isn't lying?"