Editor’s note: In this story, KAZU’s Doug McKnight speaks with a close friend. If you are a long-time KAZU listener, you may know her as well.
Erika Mahoney was News Director at KAZU four years ago and was at the station on what became the worst day of her life.
Her parents lived in Boulder Colorado. Her father went to the local supermarket to pick up a few items. That’s where a gunman opened fire, killing 10 people. Kevin Mahoney was one of the first to die.
It was a gut punch. How do you process that? For Mahoney, it was using skills she learned as a journalist. She recently produced Senseless, a podcast about her experience.
But processing what happened through audio journalism began with an interview on NPR the day after the shooting.
Mahoney recently spoke with KAZU’s Doug McKnight, who was at the station with her when she found out what happened. She described that first interview and what followed.
Erika Mahoney: It was really, really hard. But it filled me with a sense of purpose that really was my guiding light through that first period right after the mass shooting, of just giving me a reason to get up, brush my hair, show the world that my dad was a human being who shouldn't have had to run for his life in a parking lot of a grocery store. So, this was me trying to make some sort of meaning out of something that made no sense. And I did get to a point that I just was like, I have to stop now.
Doug McKnight: I was not surprised when you took the interview with NPR because that's what you do. But you continued in a very public way. I admire the strength that it took to do that, but I got to ask you, why?
EM: It wasn't very public for a long time. And then about a year after the mass shooting, I started therapy. It was so hard to do. I became so numb that I couldn't even cry, and so she encouraged me to write a letter to my dad. I started, “Dear Dad, I miss you.” And it just flew out of my body, this letter to my dad catching him up on everything that had happened since he was gone, and I was finally able to cry. It was such a win because I've realized going through this, that it's totally normal and natural to feel numb. Just to feel was incredibly freeing and the way for me to feel was through creative expression. I think if you were a painter, maybe you would turn to painting. If you're a poet, you'd write a poem. If you are a musician, you make a song. So, for me, as a(n audio) journalist, it was making a podcast.
DM: You did a lot of things on this journey for the podcast. I think one of the most profound was your decision to go to the trial, for the first time to come face-to-face with the man who killed your father. And I'm wondering why, in the end, did you decide to do it?
EM: Oh, it was such a tough decision. I appreciate you so much for helping me just talk through the pros and cons, and I don't think that there's necessarily a right answer. What I decided was, I'm going to go and if I ever need to stop going, then I will. I would say the hardest part about the trial was sitting in a room for three weeks with this man who killed my dad.
DM: You called him a monster.
EM: I don't remember saying that.
DM: In our conversations, you called him a monster.
EM: Oh, I probably did. I don't think he is. I don't think that now. Or, I don't want to call him that now. There was a lot of anger and hurt in me.
DM: What changed?
EM: I think the trial changed that because I saw his family. And at one point they put pictures of him up on the screen as a teenager before his onset of schizophrenia. On the night of the shooting, I remember lying in bed, and I was staring at the ceiling, and I couldn't sleep. I just was picturing myself screaming at the shooter in court. I just remember feeling really kind of bad and deciding in that moment that if I ever got the chance to say something to him, I wanted to say something that he would be able to understand. And that was, I wished he'd received more love in his life because then maybe none of this would have happened.
“Senseless with Erika Mahoney,” from Lemonada Media, is available on podcast platforms.
If you are suffering from the loss of a loved one, these resources offer help:
- Hospice of Santa Cruz County, grief support services, 831-430-3000
- The Compassionate Friends of Santa Cruz, (831) 332-9893
- Papillon Center for Loss & Transition bereavement services, 800-214-5439
- Central Coast Visiting Nurse Association and Hospice, bereavement and grief counseling, 831-751-5500
