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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Family remembers Sam Strahan as they advocate for the maximum sentence for his killer in Freeman High School shooting

While hundreds of parents and students were in Freeman High School for a community meeting about the shooting on Sept. 13, 2017, a group of students gathered the day after in front of the school sign to add to the memorial for slain student Sam Strahan.  (JESSE TINSLEY/The Spokesman-Review)

When Wendy Adams first heard of the shooting that left one student at Freeman High School dead she felt sorry for the family.

Little did she know, that family was hers.

Victims, their families, and others affected by the shooting at Freeman High School in 2017 began giving victim impact statements to the court last week ahead of shooter Caleb Sharpe’s sentencing this spring. Sharpe pleaded guilty last month to aggravated premeditated murder for killing Sam Strahan along with other crimes for wounding three girls and attempting to shoot many more.

Since last week, person after person shared the lasting effect the shooting has had on their lives, and pleaded with Judge Michael Price to give Sharpe the maximum possible sentence.

Sam Strahan was a positive light at Freeman High School by many accounts. He was thoughtful with his family too, said Adams, his aunt.

Years older than his cousins, Strahan took the time to include them in “big kid things,” Adams said.

He gave one little cousin an Xbox controller, sans batteries, so the young boy could “play” video games with him.

“Sam was a great kid, and I loved him beyond measure,” Adams said.

Adams had sent her two young children off to their elementary school on the morning of Sept. 13, 2017. She planned to drive over to the school just a few hours later for barbecue day, a chance for families to eat lunch with their students.

Instead, she got an automated phone call from Spokane Public Schools notifying her that her children’s school was in lockdown after a shooting at Freeman High School.

She turned on the news to find that at least one student was dead, while her husband called Adams’ sister, Ami Strahan.

Ami Strahan said she was heading to the high school. Adams warned her sister to be prepared to wait for a while based on what she was seeing on TV.

Adams decided she would still go have lunch with her two children who had just been let out of lockdown. She explained to her son, Max, that someone had done something bad at Sam’s high school but that everything would be OK.

“I looked Max straight in the eye and told him there was nothing to worry about,” Adams said.

She repeated the same speech to her daughter, Iris, a few minutes later. After lunch, she called Ami Strahan, who didn’t answer. She said she wasn’t worried.

Finally, Adams’ phone rang. She was about to tell her sister she was starting to worry, but it wasn’t Ami Strahan on the other end of the phone.

A friend greeted Adams in a tone of voice that told her something was wrong. Adams demanded her sister be put on the phone, but the friend said no.

“And that’s when I hear the words ‘I’m so sorry Sam didn’t make it,’ ” Adams recalled through tears.

She said the room began spinning and she fell to the floor.

She later picked up her kids at their elementary school.

“I had to tell him Sam was gone when just two short hours ago I promised them he was fine,” Adams said.

Later when Adams finally saw her sister, “She just looked at me and finally said ‘I must be cursed,’ ” Adams recalled.

Ami Strahan’s husband had died just weeks before her son in a tragic accident.

A few hours later, Adams went to the Strahan’s house to wait for family to arrive. She turned on the TV and learned it was Caleb Sharpe who had killed her nephew.

“Evil wears the face of a child,” Adams said.

Adams would later learn that her nephew had faced Sharpe rather than running away, a decision that cost him his life but likely saved dozens of others.

“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends,” reads John 15:13, Adams said, as she rubbed the spot on her wrist with a tattoo of the verse.

More than four years after the shooting, Adams prays for forgiveness for the “deep hate” she harbors for Sharpe.

Sharpe should be locked away along with his thoughts for the rest of his natural life, she said.

After the hearing, Adams sat on a bench outside the courtroom, her daughter Iris leaning on her, crying, with a comfort dog to help ease the pain.

“Every breath that Caleb takes is one Sam doesn’t take,” Adams said.