December 27, 1974, at approximately Midnight: the events of this night would become a miracle.
Not just any miracle.
It saved two lives, all at once.
Warning: Graphic Nature.
The following account is real, and the names have been changed, somewhat, to protect the interests of those involved.
The backstory to this event at Midnight must be discussed briefly for any of this to make sense.
I was 18 years old. My mother had died three years earlier from cancer, and I was already an out-of-control drug addict.
An accident, waiting to happen.
It turned out to be a spiritual and physical head-on collision with a gun.
Six months before, in early July of 1974, a burglary took place. I was with friends, fellow drug users and abusers, when we decided to go to my trailer house a few miles away to continue our party.
Once we finished, we went back to our friend's house and discovered the entire house had been burglarized. My girlfriend was a Marijuana dealer, and all her dope was gone, along with all her stereo equipment and booze.
All four of us knew who did it.
He had been to her house earlier to buy drugs. We watched him go into her bedroom, score the Dope, and then leave. He knew exactly where it was in her closet. Nothing was disturbed in her room, except the box the Marijuana was in.
Besides, my best friend David was a notorious burglar. His method of operation was to take off the screen from a bedroom window, primarily in the back of the house, away from the main street and the front of the house.
His methods were like fingerprints. His fingerprints were all over this house, and so our next move was to call the police.
The police arrived around two a.m. and searched the premises. They concluded that there was not enough to charge anyone for this crime.
Then they left.
I was furious. My girlfriend was also mad, mainly because the two pounds of Marijuana was fronted to her (like a consignment) from her dealer.
Now she must come up with the value of all that Dope.
It would have been sold in ¼ ounce baggies, for $15.00 per baggie. You can do the math. That was a bunch of money that never was earned.
Now she is obligated to come up with the loss of the amount of monies and the profit, all on her own.
I made a promise to her that July night.
“If I ever see David ******* again, I will kill him!”
This was almost a prophetic voice from within my demon- possessed heart and mind.
Four months passed since the night of this burglary.
It is now early November of 1974 when I decided to go and visit my Daddy. He was living with a woman who was a policewoman.
“How many of you know that Dope Fiends and PO-lice, do not get along?”
(My opening line to inmates in prison when I preach sometimes, regarding the beginning of my sermon.)
She did not like me, and I did not like her.
I had only met her once, and this next event was the one time, until December 27th at midnight.
I arrived at my Daddy’s apartment and ran up to the door. (Meth makes you run and hide when necessary).
Here is the scene.
The policewoman is in the tiny kitchen cooking, and my Daddy is at the small breakfast nook table about 10 feet from the kitchen.
She can hear our conversation.
Remember that.
Daddy answered the door, and we sat at the small table.
I hollered at my Daddy,
“I can’t believe that the %$#@**&^%^ police department who came out to investigate my girlfriend's house, did nothing to help us. It has been almost 4 months since the burglary, and they won’t help us at all.”
I said,
“If I ever see David again, I am going to kill him!”
My father replied, trying to comfort me, attempting to persuade me against such a violent thing. He tried to settle me down.
But the Meth and my anger were getting the best of me.
I left my Daddy abruptly.
Fast forward: Literally, two weeks after this short meeting, my Daddy came out to my trailer, and was off to El Paso, Texas to be married to this cop.
(That is another story, for another time).
The day after seeing my Daddy and watching him drive away to go and get married, he was found dead.
A single gunshot wound. To his head.
I am going off the deep end of a pool of heinous and unspeakable evil after my Daddy’s death.
I am completely out of control.
Keep in mind, as I now approach December 27, 1974, just about four weeks since we buried my Daddy.
I am a lunatic looking for prey.
I found out, through a set of circumstances, that my enemy, David was back in town, selling the remaining Marijuana he had stolen from my girlfriend.
When I overheard this news, I was off to kill David.
I had mainlined 5 tabs of Purple Microdot Acid, (L.S.D.) and was high, but not so high that I didn’t know what I was doing.
I got in a car with my other friend, and off to a neighboring town a few miles away from where I was.
I had been using a 38-caliber pistol for my armed robberies of late and was planning to use it on David.
Now.
Tonight.
Soon, and very soon.
We arrived at an arcade in this town, and I told my getaway driver to keep the motor running.
As I walked into this two-story house that had been converted into an arcade, time seemed to slow down.
Like in slow motion.
Yes, it was the drugs that caused this, but much of it was the anticipation of me wanting to shoot my best friend.
And kill him, fulfilling a vow to my girlfriend.
“If I ever see David again, I will kill him.”
This promise was about to turn into a major problem.
I walked down the narrow hallway, leading to the snack bar where David was supposedly working. I entered the dimly lit room and saw him behind the counter. No one else was in this area of the house except David, and a demon- possessed killer, namely me.
David made eye contact with me from about 15 feet away, and he was smiling. He was smiling because he had heard I had been looking for him for months and wanted to confront him about the burglary.
He sold all my girlfriend's dope, so he knew I was out to get him.
His smile seemed to say,
“Hey, Joe it is cool, we can work this deal out, right?”
Wrong.
Without saying a word, I am now standing point blank in front of David.
I slowly pulled out my pistol from underneath my oversized shirt. The gun was lodged just inside my jeans near my belt.
I pointed the gun at David’s face, and the look of horror in his eyes was not describable.
Fear and panic were written all over his face; his brown eyes were quivering from side to side.
Two feet from my future victim, I pulled the trigger.
It looked like two feet of fire and sparks coming out of the barrel of my 38.
Slow motion was in full affect in my dilated eyes from the drugs.
The first bullet hit his face, and I remember watching him clutch his face with both hands. Blood was gushing out from his face through his fingers and dropping to the floor like a flood.
Before he fell, I shot again.
This time hitting him in his chest.
The impact of the shot forced him to fly backwards in mid-air. His feet were off the floor for two seconds before his bloody body hit the wood paneled wall nearby.
I stood over his convulsing body, ready to unload the remainder of my four bullets, when I came to my senses. Blood was pooling all around his head and torso.
I heard screams from every room in this arcade. Young teenagers were running through the front door, as I realized, it was time to go.
To make a long story a bit shorter, I was arrested within two hours after this shooting.
Taken to police headquarters in the town where I shot David, were several officers ready to interrogate me. In the back of the room, was the policewoman my Daddy had been dating.
She was staring at me, as if she never knew me.
Mystery.
An unsolved mystery to this day, as to why my Daddy was murdered.
Remember it had been just a few weeks before this December night, that we buried my Daddy.
The pain from all of that was still fresh in my mind, as I took all my anger out on my best friend.
I recall my getaway driver asking me on the way back to our home,
“Did you kill him?”
I sat in silence. Clutching my warm pistol, all I could think about was sweet revenge.
John said to me,
“Did you hear the music that was playing when the gunshots rang out?”
(Of course I didn’t, I was focused on murder, not music.)
John continued to tell me that, precisely when the gunshots were fired, the song by Eric Clapton was playing on the jukebox inside the arcade. He could hear the loud music because it was piped into the parking lot, to draw the young people inside, from outdoor speakers on the porch.
The song played,
“I shot the sheriff, but I did not shoot no deputy. Yeah! All around in my hometown, they’re trying to track me down, yeah.
They say they want to bring me in guilty, for the killing of a deputy. For the life of a deputy but I say Oh, now, now, oh...I shot the sheriff, but I swear it was in self-defense. Yeah, I say, I shot the sheriff, Lord, they say it is a capital offense.”
John told me at the very moment the song said,
“I shot the sheriff,” the two gunshots rang out.
Then the song continued, “but I did not shoot no deputy.”
“Perfect timing,” he said.
Well, the timing was real. The shooting was real. Jail is real too.
David’s blood was real, and he was dying.
When I was arrested, it was found out that my Daddy’s fiancé, who was there during the interrogation, was the one who put out the All-Points Bulletin on me.
She was the one who overheard me that day when I was at their apartment, while she was in the kitchen cooking.
She heard me say to my Daddy, in my frustration,
“If I ever see David again, I will kill him.”
While patrolling, that fateful night in December, the news on her patrol car radio came with the news of a shooting in an arcade.
“The victim is David *******, and the shooter was described by witnesses as a white male, six foot two with long brownish blond hair.”
She knew it was me, and I was arrested rather quickly once they found me.
She is, indeed, a cop.
Cops listen. Cops obey.
Cops.
My favorite pastime, sitting in the back of a cop car with handcuffs on.
Miracle Number One: David lived.
The first bullet hit his left cheek bone and lodged in his right jaw. The second, more serious of the two wounds, blew out the aorta in his heart, and lodged in his spine. He lost 64 pints of blood total, during and after surgery.
There was a special blood drive to help save his life that early morning of December 1974.
I received a two-year probated sentence for Conspiracy to Commit Murder, Aggravated Assault, and Attempted Murder. All three charges carried a 25- to- life sentence.
Miracle Number Two: I received probation.
That is a story for another time.
Miracle Number Three: 20 years after the shooting, God put me on the phone with David’s mother after all this time had gone by.
She said to me while on the phone,
“Joe, I remember when your mother died, my son David went to the funeral with you that day. And I heard about your Daddy dying. But the night you hurt my son, I went to Parkland Hospital in Dallas, and they were taking my son David into surgery. His blood was all over the floor under the gurney.
While he was dying, and headed into surgery to save his life, I got down on my knees in my own son’s blood and prayed. I forgave the person who shot him, not knowing it was you yet, Joe. I forgave you because I am a Christian.”
Wow, what could I say to her after that moment on the phone?
With tears in my eyes, and all choked up, I told her how sorry I was for hurting her son and traumatizing the entire family. We talked and finally she asked me,
“Joe, will you do me a favor please?
Will you pray for me and for my son David now?”
(Remember, this was twenty years after the shooting.)
Before I prayed, she told me that after David came out of surgery, in critical condition at first, he woke up out of a coma. He was in a coma for quite some time, and he ended up in a wheelchair for a season because the bullet that tore his heart valve in pieces, lodged near his spine. He was temporarily paralyzed.
“Joe, David never learned his lesson after that shooting. He never stopped using drugs, and I do not know where he is now.”
(This call was in1994. David would have been 40 years old. He was two years older than me when I shot him).
I had told her how I got saved by Jesus while in prison, and she was so happy to hear that, and thanked God over the phone with me for my salvation.
She continued talking on the phone with me,
“Will you pray that my son will come back to Jesus, as he was raised in a Christian home, but he became the Prodigal Son to me and his Father. Please, Joe, pray for reconciliation and restoration for me and for my son, okay?”
With tears in my throat now, I prayed for her, and wept with her, and rejoiced with her for all that the Lord Jesus had done over the phone that day.
God allowed me to bury my past. He let me talk to her, to remind me that “Nothing is Impossible, for them that believe.”
If God can do what you just read about, and bring healing to the broken hearts like he did with me and with my victim’s mother, He can, do what you need Him to do.
If you hurt, cry out to Jesus.
If you are in pain, cry out to Jesus.
If you are doing okay today, still cry out to Jesus.
What He did for me will never be forgotten.
On a drug-fueled high, late on a December night, shots rang out.
I didn't shoot a Sheriff. I certainly did not shoot a Deputy of the law.
I did shoot my best friend.
I regret some things to this day.
I regret the hurt I caused to those around me, and to my family.
Not many of them left now.
Before I knew Christ as Savior, I had a bunch of excuses and traumas to blame for my behavior.
I do not hold any blame for anyone now. I do not blame myself.
I was a different person in 1974.
Jesus made me into a new man when He saved my soul.
As most people would say today,
“If I had it to do all over again, I would have done things differently.”
We all would.
But we can’t.
Let us keep a posture of thanksgiving for all Jesus is doing and is planning to do in our lives.
Yesterday is gone forever.
Tomorrow is not promised.
It is the “now” that we must live in and make the best out of a situation that seems hopeless.
It was hopeless for one woman the night of that shooting.
A mother.
A mother who loved her son.
He did not deserve what happened to him that night.
What he deserves is to know that it was his praying mother, kneeling in his blood on a hospital tile floor, praying. Praying for a miracle.
She got hers. I got mine.
Let us believe for your miracle.
Miracles are what God is all about.
The fact that you are reading this story is a miracle.
Jesus is not only the Lord of all, but He is also the Lord your God who is dealing wondrously with you and me.
It is not a happen-stance that David lived.
The phone call with his mother was not some random chance thing.
It was Divine.
It is truly a divine moment in time.
Copyright © 2025 by Joe Wilkins
