Anchorage Daily News

It's been more than two years since Dustin Colgrove was shot dead, but the teen's clothes still hang in his closet. His shoes still lay near the front door. His father, Bart Colgrove, still wakes up every morning and goes to bed every night with a sick feeling in his stomach.

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Dustin Colgrove

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But nothing will bring back the 17-year-old, a judge said on Friday. And the dead boy's friend, who is now 19, faces up to 11 years in prison for a crime that was mainly a horrific accident.

Scott Bombard killed his best friend.

What is justice?

TWO LIVES

Bombard was a wayward teenager who dreamed of escaping his Muldoon trailer park one day to become a soldier. At 16, he was still a boy. He didn't know the .44 Magnum he was goofing off with in his bedroom was loaded with a single bullet, Superior Court Judge Patrick McKay concluded.

McKay was supposed to sentence Bombard to prison Friday for manslaughter. But the mandated term seemed unjust, he said. The defendant has taken his lost life and made something of it, the judge said.

So McKay sent the case to a special panel of judges who have the power to issue sentences below the seven-year minimum required for manslaughter, which is what Bombard and prosecutors agreed was the crime he committed.

"This is a very, very, very difficult case," McKay told Bombard, who sat with his head hung low during the court hearing. His attorney sat beside him, a dozen family and friends behind him.

"You immediately took responsibility," the judge said. "Your despair was obvious."

BEST FRIENDS

Colgrove and Bombard found each other at Wendler Middle School in East Anchorage.

Colgrove spent the first half of his life in St. Mary's, a village of 550 people near the Yukon River, where his father was working. Colgrove hunted and fished and had a gift for fixing any kind of machine, his father says.

Bombard's upbringing was different. According to court records, testimony and interviews with his attorney, his parents divorced when he was young, and his mother spiraled downward with addiction, taking her family with her.

By the time Bombard was 16, crack was her drug of choice. At East High, where both Colgrove and Bombard went to school, he skipped classes, scoffed at homework.

The two had lots of common interests, but mostly they shared a strong desire to become Marines when they graduated. Both boys joined junior ROTC.

Bombard's fascination with the military took over much of his life. He had camouflage curtains in his bedroom, slept on a military-style cot and started learning about guns. More than a year away from graduating, he had already contacted a Marine recruiter.

His mother bought him a .45-caliber handgun and ammo. He had others too. He kept it all in his bedroom.

DANGEROUS GAMES

None of the parents knew it, but Bombard was straying into a make-believe world where he was already a soldier, pointing guns at his friends' heads. He put one up against Colgrove's head while the boy played video games just weeks before Colgrove died.

Forensic psychologist David Sperbeck testified Friday. He said Bombard "was basically a little boy, fascinated with weapons, who liked to play soldier with his friends."

On the night of March 24, 2006, Leanne Abel, Bombard's mother, bought an 18-pack of Budweiser for the boys and several friends, both sides said. She said they could drink as long as they didn't leave her Muldoon home.

By the end of the night, Colgrove would be dead, the third Anchorage teenager in six months to die from a gunshot to the head after playing with handguns while drinking.

The boys drank in Bombard's bedroom.

Bombard's blood-alcohol level later registered at .09. Sperbeck said the alcohol reduced the judgment of the boy, already immature for his age, to the level of an 8-year-old.

Only one other person was in the bedroom at the time of the shooting, Chris Dushkin. He told police Bombard pointed the gun at Colgrove's head; Colgrove tried to shoo it away but was too slow.

Bombard pulled the trigger, and the single bullet in the chamber shattered Colgrove's skull.

'OH GOD, OH GOD'

"My son, I think he shot his friend, I heard a loud noise. I don't know what was going on," shouted Bombard's mother to the 911 dispatcher. "My son has a gun. I think he shot his friend by accident. ..."

"Where's your son at?" the 911 operator says on a tape of the call.

"He's right here. I haven't looked. I don't want to look."

"OK. Take a deep breath. Because I don't understand what you are saying."

"I think he shot his friend. He has a gun. ..."

"Where are they at?"

"My house. Scott! Oh god. Oh god. Ah. I'm really scared. I'm really scared."

Abel can be heard handing the phone to her son. "Scott, talk to her. Talk to her. Talk to the police."

"Hello?"

"Yes. What's going on there?" the operator says.

"I shot my friend in the head."

"How did that happen?"

"My best friend in the world and I shot him in the head. Send an officer over here. I know I'm going to jail. I was supposed to be a Marine. I'm going to jail ... Send a medic. He's still alive. He's still breathing. Please. Just send him now! I need an ambulance now!"

He tells the operator the address, tells her what kind of gun, that it was just one shot. He tells her he's sorry.

"Dustin. Stay alive, man. Come on. Dude, I love you man. Come on. Don't leave on me. Come on. Keep breathing. Please."

CAN'T REWIND TIME

Bombard knows he can't rewind time and stop that bullet. His friend is gone, forever. And he killed him.

The past two years of thinking about that have changed him. When he looks out at the world, he sees a different place now.

Two days after the shooting, judged not dangerous, he was released on bail and moved in with his grandparents, far away from his mother, the mother the judge called an "absolutely horrible parent."

He has nearly finished his high school diploma and hopes to go to UAA for an engineering degree.

McKay mentioned all this Friday and questioned what purpose would be served by putting Bombard in prison for a long time.

The Colgroves can't get to that point. Their hearts still hurt, will probably hurt forever. They disagree the crime was manslaughter. It seems like murder to them. Bombard needs to suffer for killing their son, no matter the circumstances, they say.

Bart Colgrove closes his eyes when he goes to bed at night and still sees his boy's body laid out on the medical examiner's table, his mouth agape.

And when his wife Michelle lets down her guard, her mind inevitably drifts to a place where she hears her daughter as the family learned Dustin was dead. A gut-wrenching wail, a primal scream of pain.

The question before the three-judge panel is not simple: What is justice?

Find Megan Holland online at adn.com/contact/mholland or call 257-4343.

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