ST. JOHNS, Ariz. — A week after the police charged an 8-year-old boy in the premeditated shooting deaths of his father and another man, the boy’s mother, teachers and others who know him say they are no closer to understanding the roots of such a heinous crime.
“I don’t believe he did this,” said the mother, Erin Bloomfield, 26, who has shared custody of her son with his father, Vincent Romero, 29, since the couple divorced six years ago. She said she talked to the boy every week and visited an average of once a month, driving the 20 hours to St. Johns from her home in Mississippi.
Ms. Bloomfield had just returned from her latest visit when she got a call about the shooting and immediately returned to St. Johns, a windy hamlet of horse ranches, low-slung houses and double-wide trailers about 170 miles east-northeast of Phoenix. The largest buildings are a few churches and schools along the single main road, which has no stoplights.
“People like their independence and freedom here,” said Wendy Guffey, 60, a substance abuse counselor at a local health clinic. “It’s sort of the redneck ethic. A lot of people haul their own water and live off generators and candles out here. Back to the land.”
Many of her clients struggle with unemployment, drugs and tedium. “A lot of people around here say there’s nothing to do,” Ms. Guffey said.
Ms. Bloomfield described her son as a “normal boy” who played video games nonstop and doted on his new dog, a boxer. But in recent months, she said, he “seemed to be changing.”
“There was a distance with me after a while,” she said.
Whenever she spoke with her son, Ms. Bloomfield said, “I had to go through Tiffany,” a reference to his stepmother, Tiffany Romero. “Tiffany would always sit there while he talked to me on the phone, and after a while, he became more and more distant.”
She worried, she said, that the boy might be being abused although she had no proof.
Before Judge Michael P. Roca of Apache County Superior Court blocked anyone connected to the case from talking to the news media, Police Chief Roy Melnick of St. Johns said there was no evidence that the boy had been abused at home or in school.
A person answering the door at the Romero home on Tuesday said Tiffany Romero would not discuss the case because of Judge Roca’s order.
Ms. Bloomfield said that after her son told her that his father and stepmother quarreled often, “I called Tiffany about that, and I think I got my son into trouble.”
“The next time I talked to him about it,” she added, “he said that Tiffany told him that ‘what happens in this house stays in this house.’ ”
Ms. Bloomfield also said that her son was close to his father, and that the two regularly played softball and basketball, and went hiking and hunting together, sometimes joined by the other man who was killed, Timothy Romans, 39. Mr. Romans worked in construction with Mr. Romero and rented a room in the family house.
Ms. Bloomfield confirmed that after first seeking permission from their parish priest, her ex-husband recently bought their son a .22 rifle for hunting, a common pastime of young boys and their fathers in this town of about 4,000 people.
The boy “took his religious faith very seriously,” said Sister Angelina Chavez, who has known him since he was a baby and taught his religious class every Monday at St. Johns Catholic Church. It is the church where the Romeros were married in September, and where hundreds of townspeople turned out for Mr. Romero’s funeral on Monday. “I just don’t know what happened to him spiritually, emotionally,” she said.
“This is going to take a while to get over,” Sister Angelina said. “Parishioners have come to me asking why it happened. I just don’t know.”
Ms. Bloomfield expressed disgust at rumors sweeping the town, among them that her son killed his father because he had not been allowed to go trick-or-treating on Halloween. “This town is too small,” she said. “Everybody thinks they know what happened. They’re saying all kinds of things about my son. They have smashed him down to nothing.”
If you had a serious illness, wouldn't you want to be treated by a doctor who specialized in that area? Criminal law is serious. Mr. Gillespie is a certified specialist in criminal law. The State Bar of Arizona questioned judges and lawyers who know Mr. Gillespie's work in court and found that he possessed the skills and experience necessary to meet the standards required for certification as a specialist in criminal law.
Carolyn Macias graduated cum laude from Claremont McKenna College with a BA in 1986 and obtained her J.D. degree from Golden Gate University in 1989. She is a member of the State Bar of Arizona and the State Bar of California as well as various professional criminal defense associations. Ms. Macias has approximately 22 years of criminal litigation experience. She has significant felony and misdemeanor jury trial experience beginning as an Assistant District Attorney in Kern County, California in 1989, a Deputy County Attorney in Maricopa County, and as an Assistant City Prosecutor in the city of Peoria. While with the Maricopa County Attorney's Office, Ms. Macias headed the Training Bureau where she trained approximately 80 attorneys over a 2 years period; instructing on legal education, case law, policy, advocacy, and trial preparation. Ms. Macias has worked exclusively in the area of criminal defense since joining private practice in 2002. She has been with The Gillespie Law Firm since 2010 and focuses her practice on the defense of felony criminal matters and DUI cases.
Dave Roscoe, associate attorney, was born in Oxford England, in 1978, and immigrated to the United States in 1983. He graduated in 2002 with a Bachelor of Arts from the University of California at Berkeley, and in 2005 with a Juris Doctor from Arizona State University College of Law. Mr. Roscoe was hired as a law clerk by the Gillespie Law Firm in 2005 while in law school after he scored the first perfect score in his Criminal Law class in over four years. During his time as a clerk, Mr. Roscoe gained invaluable experience within the criminal law field, performing a variety of research and writing assignments. In 2006, Mr. Roscoe was hired by the Gillespie Law Firm, P.C. as an associate lawyer to the firm. He now regularly litigates DUI and criminal cases in courts throughout the valley. In addition, he handles restoration of civil rights matters and professional licensing issues for the firm. He has authored multiple successful motions and appellate briefs, including in cases before the Arizona Court of Appeals.
Cindy Kovack, a legal administrator, was originally from Hubbard, Ohio before relocating to Phoenix in 1987. Cindy maintained a career in office management for over 20 years prior to taking a position as a court clerk at the Glendale Municipal Court in 1990. While employed with the Court she became proficient in all aspects of court administration and procedure while working closely with prosecutors, defense attorneys and each of Glendale's six judges. In 1991 Cindy accepted a promotion to legal assistant with the Glendale Municipal Prosecutor. There, she gained invaluable experience working with the city prosecutor on pre-trial motions, appeals, criminal complaints, subpoenas, interpretation of victim's rights, orders of protection/harassment, and the city's diversion programs. Cindy also was appointed as Glendale's administrator and advisor for the Arizona Department of Motor Vehicle computerized system. She worked exclusively with 13 prosecutors during arraignment, pretrial, treatment court and trial stages of criminal proceedings. Cindy has dealt extensively with courts, judges, police departments, police officers and prosecutors across Arizona and brings years of legal experience and office management to the Gillespie Law Firm. Cindy is often complimented on her superb customer service and ability to quickly provide answers to client's questions.