'I don't know why': Red Lion searches for answers in 12-year-old's fatal shooting

AJ Webster recounted all the firsts his friend Kain Heiland wouldn't have, among them getting his driver’s license and having children. 

“Kain, I love you so much,” the 13-year-old AJ said at a memorial for his friend Wednesday night at Family of God Community Church in Red Lion. 

The 12-year-old Kain died last weekend after another boy shot him in the back with a .380-caliber handgun, police said. As of Thursday, the boy who allegedly pulled the trigger had not been formally charged.

More than 200 people attended the Wednesday night vigil, listening as Kain’s friends shared their memories. 

“Know you are loved,” said AJ, who noted how the 12-year-old boy’s friends had decorated his locker following his death last weekend. AJ choked up as other friends began to gather around him and comfort him. 

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The service opened with an introduction from the Rev. Howard Edmondson and the song “Amazing Grace.”

The friends called for a moment of silence before they shared their memories of how Kain lit up a classroom every time he walked in and how he could make anyone laugh. The friends said they can’t explain how much Kain will be missed and asked him to look after them.

Edmondson said people ask him why this happened or why didn’t God intervene.

“I don’t know why,” the pastor answered. 

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He doesn't focus on knowing why such events happen, he said. Instead, he focuses on who God is, to know God cares for humanity.

Edmondson said he understands the grief the family is experiencing because he lost a son. His son’s death wasn’t as tragic as Kain’s, but “loss is loss,” Edmondson said. 

Parents cannot go through this pain alone, he advised Kain’s family; they need people around them to help. 

Edmondson said there were lessons to take away, such as how people need one another and they should be loving their neighbor. Now, neighbors fight with each other. 

“We need to put an end to it,” he said. 

He closed, telling the family: “You might not see it right now, as difficult as it might be, there is hope.”

Before sending the crowd down the street to a candlelight vigil, Edmondson said grief hits people differently, and the church’s staff would be there that night if someone needed to talk.

Meanwhile, a pile of balloons, candles and handwritten signs has accumulated at the site of Kain's fatal shooting on First Street.

“Our hearts are broken right now," said Matthew Templeton, Family of God's youth minister. "We don’t know what to feel or think.”

He prayed, saying he knows God has a plan and that the community will comfort each other through this period. He added the community doesn’t want to replace Kain, but rather remember him. 

Following the prayer, mourners released balloons into the sky.

Some floated away. One cluster became tangled in the power lines and burst in a loud pop.

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Staff writer Aimee Ambrose contributed to this report.