Dad Who Wrote Letter 'To the Teen Who Planned to Kill My Son' Speaks Out

When Charles Martin learned of a 16-year-old’s thwarted plan to set off explosives at the school where Martin’s son is a freshman, the 38-year-old dad’s reaction was unexpected. He wrote a letter to the suspect, who is facing criminal charges, but instead of lashing out, Martin offered understanding and gratitude. The letter, “To The Teen Who Planned To Kill My Son,” went viral, with more than 3,000 shares and 200,000 page views. Now Martin is sharing his story with Yahoo Parenting.

Charles Martin and his son Michael, a freshman at the high school where there was a thwarted plan for a mass casualty. Photo by Charles Martin. 

A letter to a troubled teen who threatened my son’s high school went viral for whatever mystical reasons that make one post take off and other posts languish in obscurity. I wrote the letter quickly, not thinking it would garner more than a few hundred hits. The frenzied traffic that followed wrecked our publishing company’s website which, days later, is still hobbled and glitchy.

Journalists have been swarming my inbox and I’ve found that I am talking a lot about myself. A lot. Don’t get me wrong, I love talking about myself. I adore it. Since I was a child, I have interviewed myself about all of the amazing things I would surely do as an adult like battle space aliens and/or date Paula Abdul.

STORY: Father Writes Letter ‘To The Teen Who Planned To Kill My Son’

But this feels different. The letter wasn’t supposed to be about me, but rather the lost soul who felt violence was his only escape from an unhappy life. It now feels a little like my own ego-gratifying media tour.

I’m capitalizing. Of course I am. Every time I am asked for an interview, I question my worth as a father. But I still say “yes.”

I asked both my sons if they were comfortable with the sudden rush of interest and they shrugged, said “sure” along with the other non-committal grunts common among teenagers bored with a troublesome adult. They just wanted to enjoy spring break and didn’t particularly care about the media or the school threat. It remains vague to them, a weird thing that could have happened but didn’t happen. So why worry about it? And that’s good. I am the dad and it’s my job to do the worrying.

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When asked directly about the threat and whether they still felt safe at their schools, my youngest (still in middle school) said he thought the teen wanted to be caught, as I proposed in the letter, so the threat was just a plea for help. My oldest (the high schooler) seems to find the situation odd and exciting. This is the benefit of being the target of an unexecuted plan, I suppose. What could have instilled fear to his high school experience injected a bit of novelty instead.

Charles Martin’s sons, Michael, 15, left, and Joseph, 13. Photo by Charles Martin.

But I could be off base. They could be terrified and just too proud to tell me. I wouldn’t have admitted fear to my father either.

And what of the 16-year-old who made the threats and his family? I haven’t reached out. I can’t imagine it would do any good. Maybe I’m wrong. There is no guidebook to these moments in life. I know I am making mistakes. As well-meaning as the letter was, would the family be offended by it? Would they think I am moralizing from my much more comfortable perch? And what of families who have lost loved ones to school shooters?

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So much to think about. So many things I wish I’d said when the moment was right.

One mistake I can correct was not mentioning Marty Peercy more during the interviews. It was the conversations I had with him on a recent trip to Austin that really crystallized the thoughts on forgiveness and empathy I later expressed in the letter. First rule of journalism, always attribute.

Peercy worked for a rehabilitation clinic, so he understood the need to control how we react to dangerous situations. Never let yourself be swept away by anger, but instead find common ground, search out the ways to start a constructive dialogue. Hurt people hurt people. I stole that gem from another friend who stole it from Sandra D Wilson.

There are other mistakes, I am sure. Days, weeks, years down the road I will cringe at how I handled these last few days with my boys, but that is parenting. No matter how many books we read, how much advice we absorb from family and friends, raising humans is an ever-shifting, unsolvable puzzle. We simply do the best we can and hope our children grow, against all odds, into respectful, responsible adults.

The teenager who allegedly planned this horrible attack is still alive, so he is still growing. That means there’s still hope. I won’t presume to know what this family is going through, but I hope that they haven’t given up on him. As a community, we shouldn’t give up on him either.

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