Chapter 7: Finding answers

I let a few days pass and then I called Barb to see if she would talk to me.  She was a little unsure at first but we were able to go see her.  The only thing she told us at that time is that she was not in the car that night.  She said that she and another girl Sue were supposed to go with Normie and Dave that particular night.

Life at this point gave me a little purpose. I needed to find the truth about what happened the night my son was shot.  I kept a journal of who I talked with and where I went.  I started with Normie’s friends.  I talked with them trying to find out what he and his friends were going to do that night.  I was surprised about what I had found out.  Something did not add up to what the boys said happened that evening.  This all made me think something else happened.  Could this maybe have been an accident and they did not know what to do?

In 1991 I made posters asking “What happened the night of March 24th, 1990, and Who Killed Norman Toppel Jr?”  I put the posters up in our neighborhood and where the kids said Normie had been shot.  I sent letters to TV stations in hoping that I would get on TV.  Finally, I received a phone call to go on TV news channels.  It was to plead for someone to come forward and please tell us what happened that night my son was shot and killed.

In the mean time I still talked with all of Normie’s friends.  Every time I would talk with the friends I was able to get more information about that night.  I found out where Dave worked and I decided to go talk to him.  I spoke with Dave on a few occasions but each time he gave me a different story.  Dave was clearly nervous so I reassured him I was only trying to help.  As a mother I wanted, and needed to know the truth about my son’s last moments of life.  Dave also at one point told me he needed to speak with me alone.  I told him when we speak face to face we are alone.  He told me that he would rather call me on the phone where no one can hear us talk.  I told him that no one could hear us once again and that we were alone.  He said he knew of a room at his work where he could use the phone to call me and that is what he would do. Well Dave never called as he said he would.

I think he was so scared to tell me in person or over the phone what he wanted to.  I was out one night looking for some of the kids so I could talk with them.  Instead I was stopped by two detectives who were on my son’s case.  The detectives told me that there had been a break in the case.  I was to go home and that they would call me tomorrow to explain what was going on.

So the next day they called and told me someone had come forward.  They had told them what happened the night my son was shot and killed.  So I sat down to listen to the detectives tell me the story.  This was information I already knew.  This story was the same as the dream I had earlier when my son came to me.  There was a difference and that was a shock. It was the end of the story the detectives had told.  The person who came forward told them, “One of the kids who were in my son’s car that night was the one who shot him.”  I was so shocked; I could not believe what I was hearing. I felt that Dave my son’s best friend needed me at this time, so I went to his house.  I went to his front door and knocked, his girlfriend answered.  I asked her if Dave was home.  She said, “No that he was not.”  I then asked to speak with Dave’s mother?  Dave’s mother came to the door.  I told her I talked with a detective who told me what happened.  I came to help.  Dave’s mother said she was sick and asked me to leave.  I told her, “Dave should do the right thing and tell the police what happened that night.”  I lost my son, I was trying to help her son and she turned me away.  I really did not know what to think anymore.

I left and went down the street to Sue’s house.   She was a very good friend of Dave’s and Normie’s.  Sue was helping me and Barb in trying to find the truth.  Sue was getting out of her car and she saw me crying.  She wanted to know what was wrong.  I told her what just happened with Dave’s mom so she helped calm me down.  She told me to go home and wait.  She would talk to Dave.  A few days went by before Sue called me back.  She said that Dave was very upset and that they did a lot of talking.  Sue told Dave her boyfriend was a lawyer.  She also told him that he should help Mrs. Toppel.  What Dave told Sue was a total surprise to her? He stated during there conversation “Will I go to jail?”  Sue told him not if he cooperates and helps Mrs. Toppel. Sue told Dave that I would help in any way I could.  I did tell Sue to tell Dave and his family that I would stand by him and his family.  Dave promised to get back to Sue.  He never did, so she called him again and would try to reassure him.  He wouldn’t talk to her.  Sue helped me understand Dave.  That was one reason why I wanted to help.  Also because he was my son’s best friend since they started school.  She was one of Normie’s friends who helped me in the search for the truth.  Now was time I talked with someone named Ken, I had never spoken to him before.  I first talked to Sue to see if she could get a hold of Ken for me.  Sue called me a few days later to tell me that Ken agreed to speak with me.  I called Ken and he agreed to meet me at a McDonalds in the neighborhood where he was staying.

This meeting was very emotional and difficult.  Ken told me that he would never hurt Normie in any way because Normie was his friend.  He told me he would help in any way he could.  I told him to call the detectives and to do what was necessary to get the correct people behind bars.

When he parted, I went home and called the detectives to tell them about the conversation I had with Ken.  I didn’t hear anything for a few days.  Then the detectives called and told me that Ken was helping them but they still thought that he was hiding something.  Ken changed his story each time they went over the scene and where it supposedly happened.  When I went to see Ken again I asked if he would help me get Normie’s story on Unsolved Mysteries.

He said yes.  I typed the story Ken had told me.  He then signed a statement regarding the night of my sons death.  It read that they were stopped at a light and three individuals of a different race were across the street. They fired a few shots at the car and Normie was hit.  I sent the story to Unsolved Mysteries.

A few more months went by and I was turned down on a few programs that I had

written to.  I was upset, but that did not stop me from continuing to find out what happened that night.  I would never give up.  I wrote a few other shows but received the same response.  (Sorry we have so many stories, we will get back to you.)  I wanted to talk with the person who accused one of the boys of shooting my son.  His name was Charles.  This person had many different aliases’ he went under.   Charles was in a correctional center.  He called me from jail on a few occasions to talk with me.  Charles told me he was married to one of the boy’s sisters and that he had a few kids with her.  Charles told me he wanted me to know what really happened that evening, especially because of his own kids.  Charles wanted me to come up to the jail to talk to him in person. I agreed to go and speak with him.  I was told I needed a letter from the detectives authorizing me to see Charles.  I called the detectives, told them I wanted to go and see Charles but the warden said I needed a handwritten letter from them saying it was ok.  The one detective typed a letter and sent it to me.  I then called the warden to see when I could come speak with Charles. It was then he informed me that Charles no longer wanted to speak with me.  I told the warden that it was Charles that had called me and I was coming at his request.  Well the visit never happened.

Another road block, it seemed liked everything was in my way.  I couldn’t get straight answers from anyone.  At this specific time nothing was being done.  The following year I got another idea to try to bring the guilty people forward.  I put up billboards through Patrick Media Group in four different locations.  I went back on TV news and also arranged a benefit to raise money for a reward.  We did raise a reward from the benefit.  From the billboards there were calls to Crime Stoppers.  The calls were of people saying that one of the kids who was with my son in his car that awful night was the one who shot him. The callers did not want a reward or to leave there names.  The detectives tried to obtain more information but everything else failed.

The strange thing was I had put posters in all of the stores in our neighborhood. Everybody knew about the raising of the reward money.  Yet none of the friends that were in my son’s car the night he was shot helped in anyway.  This hurt the most.  I could not understand why his friends weren’t there for him.  If this was my friend I would want to help catch the people or person who did this to my friend.  This was different (NO ONE THAT WAS IN THAT CAR WAS THERE TO HELP IN ANY WAY.)  Where were Normie’s friends????  Normie always would say, “My friends will always be there for me, THEY GOT MY BACK.”  Those words still stick in my mind.  The night when this story came out one of the boys was brought in for questioning.  He didn’t say a word and had a paper in hand saying he did not have to talk to anyone.  His mother had made a phone call.  A public defender came and took him home.  The detectives told me, “They wanted to get a grand jury together.”  Dave’s public defender told them that Dave would take the 5^th amendment if called.  Ken is in the neighborhood but does not stay in one place.  Nothing is happening at this time.