JOYCE — A day later, the answers were no clearer for the family of 13-year-old Joe Rogers.
Why did he take a gun to school? Why did he kill himself?
“We absolutely don’t know,” the boy’s grandfather, Avery Rogers, said Thursday from his home near Salt Creek.
“We don’t know why. It just boggles us, really.
“They’re the happiest kids, and he and his brother get along. They’re together 24 hours a day.”
Joe’s 15-year-old brother, also named Avery, stayed with his grandparents on Thursday and was taking it “pretty tough,” he said.
Rogers had been planning a trout fishing trip to Canada — an annual ritual with his two grandsons and their great-grandfather, who lives in Joyce.
The brothers were especially close and would ride their bikes along state Highway 112 to school.
As they passed the Family Kitchen restaurant, where Rogers goes every morning for his cup of coffee, they always waved, he said.