SORROWFUL BUT NOT VENGEFUL
MAN STILL TRYING TO COPE WITH LOSS OF FAMILY 10 YEARS AGO

Nearly 10 years ago, Talbott was the oldest survivor of one of Dayton's most tragic crimes: Moreland's Nov. 1, 1985, shooting rampage that took the lives of five members of Talbott's family.

The 11-year-old's testimony was key to the conviction that sent Moreland to Death Row for the murders of Talbott's grandmother, Glenna Green - Moreland's longtime girlfriend - his two younger brothers, 6-year-old cousin and 23-year-old aunt. Dayron and two other children were seriously injured.

Talbott scarcely notices his physical scars, and for the better part of a decade he has tried to camouflage his emotional wounds.

During the past 14 months in prison, however, he has finally confronted past demons.

His life unraveled after the killings. "I was real bitter," Talbott recalled, "and I didn't want to talk about it. I couldn't sleep, and every night, I had bad dreams when I saw my grandma get shot and fall, all over again."

Jumpy and unsettled, he decided to live with his great-grandmother, Willa Powell, Glenna Green's mother. His mother, Tia Talbott, moved to California for a time with her other surviving children, Glenna and Danyuel. She returned to Dayton in 1990.

"During holidays or anniversaries - my grandmother's birthday, my brothers' birthdays, the anniversary of the killings - I would be so stressed out," Talbott said. "It drove me to drinking and heavy into marijuana. I had to grow up fast."

He began carrying a gun, he said, because he felt a desperate need to protect himself: "I did it more or less so I wouldn't get hurt again. But I learned that having a gun will hurt you more than protect you." In May 1994, he began serving an 18-month sentence at the Pickaway Correctional Institution near Columbus for carrying a concealed weapon.

Although Moreland changed his life forever, Talbott doesn't want him to be executed. "For them to take a life wouldn't bring my family back," he said. "I leave it in the hands of the biggest judge of all, the Lord.

"Because to be hoping for something like that would make me no more than him."

Powell is proud of her great-grandson's philosophy. "It hurts me to my heart to think of them putting him to death," she said.

Their hopes and prayers are focused instead on Talbott's future.

"He's good-hearted and good at everything he puts his mind to, but he couldn't cope with what happened," Powell said. "The person he saw get killed was the grandma he loved very much. We all went through so much, but no one else went through that.

"Now he needs to get on with his life."

Talbott still doesn't sleep well, still continually replays the night of the killings. Even now, it's difficult to recount his story:

The boy and his grandmother were watching Carrie in her bedroom. Moreland - a man Dayron disliked but didn't fear - asked Green for money to buy wine. She refused, and Moreland left the room.

Dayron fell asleep, only to be awakened by his grandmother shaking him and urging him to hide. He looked up to see Moreland standing in the doorway, pointing a rifle at his grandmother. She threw a bottle at him, and he started firing.

"I flipped out, and started hitting him with everything I had," Talbott recalled.

Moreland struck the child again and again with the rifle barrel, then aimed at his temple. "I knocked it down, and the bullet grazed my face and lodged in my jaw," Talbott said.

Moreland aimed again at Dayron's face, hitting the hand the boy threw up to protect himself. After being hammered several more times with the rifle butt, Dayron blacked out.

The terror of those moments has stalked Talbott ever since, and he plans to seek counseling when he gets out of prison. His furlough has been approved, according to Pickaway officials, and he will be released to a halfway house within 60 days.

"I appreciate everything I have out there, and now my main goal is to get out and accomplish the goals I have set for myself," said Talbott, who hopes to resume at the Dayton Barber College.

He thinks about being a better role model for his sister Glenna, now 12, and brother Danyuel, 14.

He thinks about how much he misses the brothers who died: Daytrin, 7, and Datwan, 6. He thinks about their stocky little bodies and feisty little hearts, about how they took his side in any squabble.

He thinks most of all about how violence nearly destroyed his life - and how he can reclaim it.

"I want to quit hanging with the wrong people," he said, "and leave guns alone."