REMEMBERING JAYCEE

BY RACHEL MADISON, Staff Writer

Something was wrong. Amanda Crossland didn’t know what that was, but what she did know was that she had to act fast. She walked into her house after running a quick errand on the morning of Oct. 10, and went straight to her bedroom, and then to her closet.

She tried opening the door, but it wouldn’t budge, so she started kicking it until she was able to create a gap in the doorway. That’s when she saw her 15-yearold stepson, Jaycee Crossland, lying on the floor.

She saw his arm first. It was covered in blood, and she thought maybe he’d cut himself. But then she saw a gun lying next to him and realized he had shot himself. She tried to revive him, but it was too late.

Next, she called 9-1-1 and left the room, gathering her other five children along the way to get them out of the house. When she stepped outside, she saw her husband (Jaycee’s dad), William Crossland, and had to tell him what she had just seen.

“I was right there,” she said. “I don’t know why he did it. There was no note, no anything. I was right there, and I couldn’t save him.”

William, who serves as a member of the Liberty Hill City Council, and Amanda, who along with her husband runs local automotive shop CrossTech Automotive, had just lost their son to suicide.

How did this happen?

The Crosslands had a good weekend together as a family. On Saturday, they worked at the Liberty Hill Pop Up Market, where Jaycee made and handed out Halloween treat bags to kids and showed off his dad’s classic Bonneville to passers-by. After the market, the family went to Main Street Social for lunch, where Jaycee talked about his plans for the next pop-up market. On Sunday, the family spent time together watching movies and playing games.

Which is why, on that Monday morning, nothing felt wrong. Will and Amanda saw him around 8 a.m. before they left to go to work and told him they’d be back to pick him up and take him to the shop to help out later that morning. By the time the Crosslands arrived back home between 8:30 and 8:45 a.m., Jaycee was gone.

“I had seen Jaycee go into our bedroom on our cameras,” Amanda said. “He said as he was going in our room that he was going to get the laundry and he’d be right back, so that’s what I thought he was doing. But before we got home, my 11-year-old called and told us Jaycee had been in the room and hadn’t come out.”

After finding Jaycee, the Crosslands realized he had opened the gun safe in their bedroom and used one of their firearms. Amanda said she knows the safe was locked, but that Jaycee had learned the code to open it. Will added that gun safety has always been a big part of their family. Jaycee grew up going to the gun range, and he knew how to load a gun and use it, but he was also educated on the importance of being safe around them.

As time has passed since that Monday morning, the Crosslands have come up with a long list of questions, but at the top of their list is a simple one: Why?

“If he was happy, why did he do this?” Amanda said. “That’s not an answer we have right now.”

About Jaycee

Jaycee, who was a sophomore at Liberty Hill High School, loved strumming the guitar, listening to heavy metal and playing video games, but his greatest love was for cars.

“He loved cars,” he said. “He wanted to rebuild every car that we came across. He loved our Bonneville. He would ask all the time if we could do stuff to it, but I just wanted to preserve it. He was really into Mad Max and Wasteland and wanted to build an apocalyptic style of car.”

Jaycee was planning on doing just that with an old Chevy Blazer the Crosslands have at their shop.

“He loved doing research on stuff,” Will said. “He started out loving heavy equipment as a kid and then it evolved into cars. We had a lot in common that way; I feel like he looked up to me a lot.”

Jaycee was legally blind. He had macular hypoplasia. He was also color blind. Because of this, he was told by his doctors that he would never drive, but he always maintained an attitude of positivity around that analysis.

“He told the doctors, ‘That’s not an option—I am going to drive,’” Amanda said. “And he did not let it hold him back from his love of cars. He even told his grandma that even though he couldn’t see the cars, he could recognize their shape.”

This school year, Jaycee had enrolled in the JROTC cadet program and was an active member of that group. He also participated in the agriculture program.

“The JROTC program was looking for logos, and Jaycee created one to submit,” Amanda said, adding that his logo was that of a saluting soldier. “I’m going to be persistent with the school about using his suggestion. That’s the one class he never stopped talking about— that and Ag.”

Aside from Jaycee’s interests, his personality was one that changed the community, Amanda said, adding that their family has received hundreds of messages and comments about how good of a person he was, how he stuck up for his peers, and was accepting to all people.

“Jaycee was just an all-around good kid,” Will said.

Bullying

The Crosslands may never know why Jaycee did what he did, but they have a strong suspicion that it was because he was bullied. He had “come out” as gay to his classmates 11 days before he died, they said.

“We’ve known he was gay since last school year, and we were fine with it,” Amanda said. “But the other students at school were making comments to him. He got called into the assistant principal’s office one day and [students] asked him if he got caught kissing a dude. They asked him what kind of porn he liked, and they were calling him ‘faggot’.”

Amanda said when this happened, she decided not to report it to the school. She was hoping to resolve the issue outside of school with the students involved, by trying to contact their parents via community Facebook pages.

“I’m carrying a lot of guilt that I didn’t say something,” she said. “But I was afraid they wouldn’t listen in the first place. But now I know, if your kids, especially your boys, say something is bothering them, especially in high school, you have to report it. It doesn’t matter if you are worried about other students getting in trouble. If it’s bothering them, it needs to be addressed.”

Since Jaycee’s death, the Crosslands have had good conversations with school district leaders and said they have been accommodating and caring, being sure to check in on their family often, but both Amanda and Will plan on following things through to make sure their son gets justice.

What’s next?

The Crosslands have moved out of their home in Liberty Parke and have found a temporary space for the next couple of months. The family plans to stay in Liberty Hill so that Will can continue to serve on the City Council.

“We will be selling our home,” Amanda said. “The kids don’t want to go back there and neither do we. There is not any amount of prayers that could comfort us in that home.”

The Crosslands will continue to run CrossTech Automotive, but plan on making Jaycee a big part of the business’ future. The shop is moving to a new location in early 2023 and is absorbing a body shop, which will expand its services.

“We want to start a DBA called Crusader Jay Body Work,” Amanda said. “With that we intend to rebuild the Blazer. We plan to reach out to family and friends and the community to help us in obtaining parts for it, and then we’ll do the work and get it painted, and we want to put his name on the rear door.”

The Crossland family is mourning the loss of Jaycee, 15, who took his own life Sept. 28. (Courtesy Photo)

Seeing things through

The Crosslands understand that they’ll never know exactly what happened to Jaycee, but they know their son wouldn’t have taken his own life without good reason. He had never attempted suicide before that day.

“We have a very open and transparent family,” Amanda said. “We’ve had heartfelt conversations many times and talked about how we feel. I always wanted him to know he wasn’t alone. But he hadn’t come to me lately to confide in me, and boys don’t say anything until it’s gotten out of hand. He didn’t say anything on Sept. 19 when he came out as gay, but he did tell us what was happening on Sept. 28, so obviously it affected him.”

The LHISD Police Department is looking deeper into the factors that could have played a role in Jaycee’s decision.

“They told us something doesn’t feel right and they are not going to leave any stone unturned,” Amanda said. “We didn’t allow him to have social media, but he had a school laptop, and we don’t know everything that was on there. They took his school laptop to see what they could find.”

Pending the investigation, the Crosslands are also going to use their son’s death as the catalyst to bring awareness to bullying and suicide. William plans to use his role on the City Council to bring awareness to the community, while Amanda wants to make sure the school district makes some changes.

“I’m not going to go down quietly,” Amanda said. “Throughout this whole situation, the community has confided in us a lot and we have a problem. I believe with the current administration we have at the high school and district that they are going to do their best to correct the issue. For our family it is too late, but for other families, maybe we can save a life.”

#BeKindForJaycee

A campaign using the hashtag #BeKindForJaycee has been started by members of the community to bring awareness to bullying and the impact kind words can have. To get involved with future community events, search the hashtag on Facebook for more information.