A little girl once saved herself from a gunman by pretending to be dead. Robin Doan's entire family was murdered after a man entered her Texas home with a firearm on the night of September 2005, CBS News reported.
The shooter, later identified as Levi King, killed everyone in the residence but Doan. The girl remained immobile and the killer eventually left, believing her to be dead. She then called 911 and reported the crime in her home.
"I pretended I was dead the whole time," she said in the 911 call on September 30, 2005, reported NBC News. "I'm 10 years old and I don't know what to do. I'm scared."
"There was a shootout in my house and I don't know who's dead. And I'm scared half to death," Doan told the 911 operator.
Doan lived with her mother, Michell Conrad, who was six months pregnant; her stepfather, Brian Conrad, a farmer; and her older brother, Zach Doan.
The family was reportedly well-liked within the community, making it difficult for the investigators to determine who might have committed the crime.
The assailant broke through the back door and immediately went to the master bedroom, armed with an AK-47 assault rifle, NBC reported. The intruder shot Brian Conrad three times, then proceeded to kill Molly, the family dog. The intruder then aimed the gun at Michell Conrad, who began screaming, Prosecutor Lynn Switzer shared in court.
"Her screams were cut short because the defendant put five rounds into her body," Switzer said. "Can you imagine what it would be like to be awakened like that?"
The killer next went to the kids' room and shot at Zach and Doan, NBC reported.
Doan's silence likely fooled the killer, CBS News reported. For the next two-and-a-half hours, the little girl remained immobile.
All through her call, Doan was calling out for her family.
King, who was a suspect in a double homicide of Orlie McCool and Dawn McCool, came under suspicion in the triple McCool homicide when an officer made the connection between shell casings on the site and a complaint made by King's father, CBS News reported.
King's father had reported a burglary of guns from his house and the detectives found that the ammunition used in those firearms was similar to the ones found at Robin's home and the double-homicide site, CBS News reported. The father had pointed his fingers towards his son as the thief.
King became a person of interest in the double homicide case.
King was caught by the border patrol in El Paso. He confessed to the double homicide during police interrogation.
King asked to speak with the officials after some days in the prison, and said "You know there's four more in Texas?". The officials figured out that he was talking about the murders in Doan's house, CBS reported.
Later King admitted that he had no idea why he chose to murder a family he had never met previously. "It's something that I still can't explain. You can read theories, sort of understand I guess a bit of logic and reasoning. There's one that really resonates with me. It was an outward way of expressing something I would have rather done to myself or have done to myself. All that pent-up aggression and rage. It all more or less came to the surface. One of the officers on the stand referred to it as being evil. There was a certain amount of that there... I didn't care about them me or any of it," King told Newschannel 10.
For the McCool killings, King was sentenced to two consecutive life terms without parole, NBC reported. For the murder of Doan's family, he was sentenced to life imprisonment.
