“This guy was threatening my son many times,” said Mark Roskos, of Bristol, Tenn. “He told him he’d shoot him. My son never took him serious. He used to just laugh it off.”
Brandon died in hospital Wednesday afternoon. His father didn’t make it there in time to have any last words with his son. He and three others the victim of a jealous ex-boyfriend who couldn’t move on.
Rumley used the excuse of needing help to move furniture to enter the Edgemont Towers where Watson lived with her mother. There he took 43 year old Francis Watson, Brandi’s mother and neighbour Roy Malone,55 to the breezeway where he shot them. The time was about 10:40 a.m.
Rumley then returned to the eighth floor apartment and asked Brandi for a drink. As she opened the refrigerator door he made his move shooting Brandon Roskos,20, and 53 year old family friend Danny Wayne Murray. Somehow Watkins was able to close the door locking him out of the apartment and into the hallway as he tried to reload his gun.
That brave act saved her life. All of those who had been shot were either dead or dying.
Rumley ran. He drove his pickup to Carter county where his family lived and ran into the wooded hills. SWAT was tracking him at about 2 p.m. when they heard a single gunshot. Rumley had killed himself.
Now Brandi Watson is left to pick up the pieces.
Brandi Watson met Brandon Roskos when they were just 12. They two were sweethearts through high school. Later Brandi moved to Knoxville and for a short time dated Bo Rumley. She broke up with him though and reunited with Brandon. She was even working with his mother at a KFC.
26 year old Bo Rumley was in the Army but was discharged after going AWOL. He quickly got into trouble with the law. After being convicted of a federal felony charge of conspiracy to sell stolen firearms he spent two years in a federal penitentiary. He had recently joined the Tennessee National Guard. It’s not clear how a convicted felon with arms charges was able to join the Guard but he made private 1st class with Troop L3278, of Greeneville, Tenn.
Last year he and girlfriend Brandi Watson moved to Knoxville. He was happy until she left shortly after Christmas leaving him a note on the table. She returned to Bristol. Bo was devastated.
He was distraught about his life, he had some issues with his girlfriend, he was obviously in love — along those lines,” Carter County Sheriff Chris Mathes said of the letter.
Somehow he obtained a gun. With his felony conviction that shouldn’t have happened. Somehow the law that should have protected the four that died didn’t work. Somehow Brandi Watson is left to pick up the pieces of her life without her mother or the man she loved.
Another tragedy in the world of domestic violence.
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