By Jeff Watson
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE

In the dark days after Columbine, one 17-year-old student was labeled “the girl who said ‘Yes!’” Admired for her courage, this strongwilled blond had not lived a life scripted for Mayberry.

Reconciling with God
Drawing from her mother’s no-nonsense account, She Said Yes—The Unlikely Martyrdom of Cassie Bernall, we can now see that Colorado’s most famous  victim had been drifting away for years. By ninth grade, Brad and Misty’s beloved daughter had begun fantasizing about murdering her parents. Ironically, Cassie was living with a violent sentiment—parallel to the one that would trap her future killers two years later.

When the sheriff reviewed Cassie’s graphic correspondence with a would-be accomplice, he described the documents as the worst he had seen in a decade of juvenile crime.

Pressured by tough love and blessed by a surprising friend, the reluctant teen eventually turned toward the light. In the words of her friend: “We were up at Estes Park in the Rockies, about 300 kids …. It was the singing that … just broke down Cassie’s walls … Cassie was crying … pouring out her heart … asking God for forgiveness …. She said it had been the worst hell she’d ever been through and she wanted to keep her younger brother from putting himself  through that … Cassie’s whole face … changed … her eyes were more hopeful. There was something new about her …”

On that fateful Tuesday, the eleventh grader was simply trying to wrap up her  Macbeth assignment. As wicked noises erupted, the junior startled; moments later, a wounded teacher ran through the library urging everyone to take cover. Crouching under a table, Cassie quieted herself; one of the survivors said that her hands were clasped together.

Soon stalking the room, one of the boys taunted this new child of the light: “Do you believe in God?” With the muzzle of the gun pressed against her head,  Cassie instinctively raised her hand as if to shield the blast and answered with a brave voice: “Yes!”