American homicide and suicide at age 17. The troubled son of Vietnam veteran, gun collector and electrical supply businessman Steven Golly, and Pamela Golly, who died of a drug overdose in 1990.
Chris Golly was described as a typical teenager who liked to play video games, pool and enjoyed the driving, guitar-based music called “speed metal.” A good student in elementary and junior high school, he drifted away from neighborhood childhood friends the last two years of his life, becoming more of a “tough kid” who ditched school, neglected his studies and took drugs. His father had taught him to shoot and despite increasing friction between them, bought his son two cars; after the first car was stolen it was replaced with a Chevy S-10 pickup truck. A gun case with plenty of ammunition was kept in the family living room.
Chris’s friends said he was daily drug user who liked to party with beer and pot. He favored a type of speed known as “Pink Champagne.” He loved bands such as Pantera, Ministry and Metallica whose loud, aggressive rock ‘n’ roll made them a favorite of teenage boys. He was enrolled in a continuation school program because he was unable to keep up with his studies at high school due to his frequent truancy. He had left the continuation program a month earlier to continue with a home-study program. Chris had frequent and very loud arguments with his father and his friends reported that in private conversations he had often threatened to kill his father. Also living in the family home were his father’s companion, Susan Bever, her son Aaron and Aaron’s girlfriend, Connie McGovern. Tensions increased in the home a week earlier, since 2/14/94, when Christopher was convicted of possession of marijuana and his driver’s license was suspended for a year.
On the evening of 2/21/94, Christopher Golly wolfed down a big dinner and spent time with his friend Matt, sitting outside in front of the house talking over an hour-and-a-half period. Steven Golly came out three times and argued with his son about the truck, each time becoming longer and more explosive. Matt went home by 10:30 PM, with Chris’s promise to not kill his dad.
Connie McGovern returned home around 11:30 PM and was asked by Chris to drive him to a local store to buy cigarettes. When they came back, they went to the back yard where he sniffed nitrous oxide, an anesthetic called “laughing gas.” Connie went to bed in her room at the opposite side of the house. Chris turned on his music, a title “The End,” in which singer Jim Morrison fantasized about killing his father. Just before 1 AM, Susan Bever awoke from the vibrations from the stereo in Christopher’s room next door. Five minutes later, the sound was cranked to its highest volume, awakening Connie and Aaron. Steven went to his son’s door. Susan heard Steven open the door and angrily ask his son what was “going on?” Chris was waiting with an AR-15-type assault rifle. When his father opened the door to his room, he shot and killed him. There was a flash of light and the “pop” sound of a gun.
When Susan started to go toward Steven, Chris calmly warned her to get out of the house. Aaron joined his mother in the hallway and was also told to get out. They left. Connie had already been outside because she thought the music was coming from the garage, when she heard the shots. She ran back inside for a cordless telephone and called 911. When the police cars arrived, Chris fired at least 14 shots at two squad cars as the officers emerged. Killed was rookie policewoman Christy Lynne Hamilton who had ironically graduated from the Police Academy only four days earlier and who had been given a bulletproof vest by her mother. The bullet entered through the vest armhole. Hamilton’s father was a retired police officer.
Chris then took a .22 caliber handgun and shot himself to death. His friend Matt later said that Chris intended to kill his father and that he wanted to “…take out a cop and a cop car.” Matt left his friend for the last time with his promise that he would not carry out his threat to kill his father. Written on his bedroom wall with a black marker pen, Chris wrote “Friends & Butthead made me do this hah-hah. Tell Matt I said, ‘Sorry.'”