Navy Yard City’s Lost Boy

The Navy Yard City residents successfully fought off a company that attempted to put a crematorium within the neighborhood. Folks said they didn’t want school kids experiencing the smell of death.

The events of Tuesday proved, however, that it’s tough to predict when death will come to a neighborhood unannounced.

Shane Williams died on the street in front of his house a little after 4 a.m. Tuesday. Kitsap County Sheriffs deputies said he charged them with a machete. At least one cousin believed officers didn’t have to shoot, while others seemed sad for Williams yet understanding of the deputies.

Sheriffs diverted traffic around the scene, reducing to a minimum the number of kids who could have seen Williams lying dead in the street.

More than the normal amount of residents in the area are related. Those that weren’t seemed genuinely close. Of course, like any area, there is bound to be a diversity of relationship. Some are close. Some aren’t.

Williams, according to his cousin Chris Chichester, grew up in Navy Yard City playing sports as a kid. Chichester lived on the next street over. Williams’ aunt, Judy Callaghan, lives in Port Orchard, but owns the laundromat at National Avenue and G Street. Across G is the C & C Super Save market. One “C” stands for Chichester, the other for Callaghan.

In front of the C & C a woman gave Chichester a hug and told him to “Call Mommy,” if he needed anything.

The neighborhood was hurting and life was going on. One of Williams’ brothers went to work that day. No one was in the laundromat around 2 p.m., but Callaghan said she thought it was probably just a slow day.

Business at the Crazy Eric’s burger joint was brisk at lunchtime not long after Williams’ body was removed from the street.

At 2:10 p.m. a crew from South Kitsap Fire & Rescue arrived to clean up the scene for good. Wearing light blue sanitary gloves, the same kind that had been used earlier when sheriffs may have attempted to revive Williams, fire crews discarded the blood-stained tarp that had covered Williams’ dead body most of the morning. At 2:30 p.m. they had finished pulling up tape off the street, applying sanitizer, then using a fire hose to pressure wash the concrete.

By the time the kids got out of school, the evidence that anything had been amiss that morning was gone. The sign out front of the Westside Improvement Center advertised Bingo that night.

On Wednesday morning if you weren’t looking for some sign, you might have missed the flower arrangements left in the driveway of Williams’ house.

Nor would you sense that there are two people reliving the same sad moment over and over, that for the rest of their lives they’ll see things that will remind them of what happened at 4:06 a.m. Tuesday. Chief Steve Boyer said no deputy ever wants to shoot someone. Today, probably no one knows that more than the two in uniform who happened to be near E Street when the call went out at 4 a.m. to go to a house there for reasons unknown.

Williams, according to his cousin, had been through some down times in the past. He had been suspected in someone’s death, which drove him to depression and drug abuse, said Chichester. He had been recovering, giving hope to those who loved him.

Six minutes after a call to “Send police,” was made, that hope ended.