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By Jim Carney
Beacon Journal staff writer
POSTED: 10:18 p.m. EDT, Aug 12, 2009
Shayla Moody believes she has reason to celebrate today.
She is alive to say thanks to those who saved her life two years ago.
And she is once again talking to her son who is in prison for shooting her in the head.
She plans to mark today's anniversary of her being shot by her son, Allen L. Knott, by visiting the people at Akron General Medical Center, Akron City Hospital and the Akron Fire Department who worked to save her life. And she will visit her son in prison.
''God is good,'' said Moody, 39, who has undergone 14 surgeries for bone reconstruction around her eye. She lost her left eye in the shooting at her home in Akron.
Her 21-year-old son is serving a seven-year sentence at Mansfield Correctional Institution.
''I told him I love him and I am always there for you,'' she said.
Knott had a gun in the waistband of his pants when she confronted him two years ago.
''I said, 'Why do you have a gun' and he said, 'cause I have problems' and I said, 'whatever problems you have, having a gun is not going to solve it.' ''
Moody said her son then hit her in the face and pulled her hair.
''He put me on the ground and had his hands on my neck so I couldn't breathe,'' she recalled.
Moody said her boyfriend, who witnessed the incident, begged Knott to put down the gun.
Wounded, Moody said, she crawled out of the house and to the end of her driveway, where she saw two little boys and asked them for help.
She was in a coma for 15 days and remained in the hospital eight days after that. The bullet slammed through her head but did not strike her brain. It shattered the bones on the left side of her face.
A week before the violent confrontation at the home, Knott had pleaded guilty to robbery in connection with a beating and robbery of an Akron man on New Year's Eve in 2006.
Police found Knott hiding in a garage on Grant Avenue a day after he shot his mother.
Knott said in a letter mailed to the Akron Beacon Journal that he has been diagnosed as being bipolar and schizophrenic since the shooting.
In July 2008, after Knott was deemed sane again, he pleaded guilty in Summit County Common Pleas Court to attempted murder with a firearm specification and was sentenced to seven years in prison with a mandatory sentence of at least four years.
His mother and other family members regularly visit him in prison.
Knott, a graduate of Akron Garfield High School and the Universal Technology Institute in Houston, Texas, where he studied auto body and detailing work, offered some insight in his letter about the confrontation with his mother.
After returning home from school in Texas, Knott said he ''started hearing voices.'' He said he has since learned that people with schizophrenia ''tend to slip off in their own world.''
The voices, he said, had him convinced that family members weren't really family members and his mother was ''seeing a professional basketball player.''
In the letter, he also shed some light on the New Year's Eve attack.
Knott said after that incident, while in the Summit County Jail, the voices weren't as strong. But he began believing the voices were actually coming from his mother.
''It got so bad that one night I was literally screaming while I was laying down,'' he wrote.
He said after he got out of jail, he got into an argument with his mother, and he told her he was going to shoot her. A few months later, he saw a gun at a relative's house and took it.
Recalling the day of the shooting, Knott wrote, ''the voices told me to shoot my mom.''
By shooting his mother, Knott said, he thought the voices inside his head would stop. ''I was thinking about being by myself for the rest of my life'' and ''if I did it, the voices would stop.
''So I told myself I'm throwing away my life and I shot her once and I ran out of the house.''
His mother, who worked in the mental-health field for 18 years and was a year away from finishing nursing school when she was shot, has not been able to work since the incident. She recently was approved for Social Security disability.
Moody believes her son might have taken some type of drug that triggered the conditions that led to his temporary mental illness.
''He is remorseful,'' she said of her son.
Moody said her son once asked her, ''How can you love me after what I did?''
Moody, a Firestone High School graduate, said she told her son that she would always love him.
''If I wouldn't have taken that bullet, he would have walked out of here and killed somebody else or the cops were going to kill him,'' she said.
She said she still suffers from post-traumatic stress from the shooting.
Moody said she hopes others learn from her experience that it is important to pay close attention and seek help for loved ones who might have mental-health issues.
''I don't want the world to consider my son a monster,'' she said. ''I wish mental-health issues were more important.''
And she believes she survived to be able to share her faith in God with others.
''God is good all the time and all the time, God is good,'' she said. ''That is why I am still here.''
Jim Carney can be reached at 330-996-3576 or jcarney@thebeaconjournal.com.
Shayla Moody believes she has reason to celebrate today.
She is alive to say thanks to those who saved her life two years ago.
And she is once again talking to her son who is in prison for shooting her in the head.
She plans to mark today's anniversary of her being shot by her son, Allen L. Knott, by visiting the people at Akron General Medical Center, Akron City Hospital and the Akron Fire Department who worked to save her life. And she will visit her son in prison.
''God is good,'' said Moody, 39, who has undergone 14 surgeries for bone reconstruction around her eye. She lost her left eye in the shooting at her home in Akron.
Her 21-year-old son is serving a seven-year sentence at Mansfield Correctional Institution.
''I told him I love him and I am always there for you,'' she said.
Knott had a gun in the waistband of his pants when she confronted him two years ago.
''I said, 'Why do you have a gun' and he said, 'cause I have problems' and I said, 'whatever problems you have, having a gun is not going to solve it.' ''
Moody said her son then hit her in the face and pulled her hair.
''He put me on the ground and had his hands on my neck so I couldn't breathe,'' she recalled.
Moody said her boyfriend, who witnessed the incident, begged Knott to put down the gun.
Wounded, Moody said, she crawled out of the house and to the end of her driveway, where she saw two little boys and asked them for help.
She was in a coma for 15 days and remained in the hospital eight days after that. The bullet slammed through her head but did not strike her brain. It shattered the bones on the left side of her face.
A week before the violent confrontation at the home, Knott had pleaded guilty to robbery in connection with a beating and robbery of an Akron man on New Year's Eve in 2006.
Police found Knott hiding in a garage on Grant Avenue a day after he shot his mother.
Knott said in a letter mailed to the Akron Beacon Journal that he has been diagnosed as being bipolar and schizophrenic since the shooting.
In July 2008, after Knott was deemed sane again, he pleaded guilty in Summit County Common Pleas Court to attempted murder with a firearm specification and was sentenced to seven years in prison with a mandatory sentence of at least four years.
His mother and other family members regularly visit him in prison.
Knott, a graduate of Akron Garfield High School and the Universal Technology Institute in Houston, Texas, where he studied auto body and detailing work, offered some insight in his letter about the confrontation with his mother.
After returning home from school in Texas, Knott said he ''started hearing voices.'' He said he has since learned that people with schizophrenia ''tend to slip off in their own world.''
The voices, he said, had him convinced that family members weren't really family members and his mother was ''seeing a professional basketball player.''
In the letter, he also shed some light on the New Year's Eve attack.
Knott said after that incident, while in the Summit County Jail, the voices weren't as strong. But he began believing the voices were actually coming from his mother.
''It got so bad that one night I was literally screaming while I was laying down,'' he wrote.
He said after he got out of jail, he got into an argument with his mother, and he told her he was going to shoot her. A few months later, he saw a gun at a relative's house and took it.
Recalling the day of the shooting, Knott wrote, ''the voices told me to shoot my mom.''
By shooting his mother, Knott said, he thought the voices inside his head would stop. ''I was thinking about being by myself for the rest of my life'' and ''if I did it, the voices would stop.
''So I told myself I'm throwing away my life and I shot her once and I ran out of the house.''
His mother, who worked in the mental-health field for 18 years and was a year away from finishing nursing school when she was shot, has not been able to work since the incident. She recently was approved for Social Security disability.
Moody believes her son might have taken some type of drug that triggered the conditions that led to his temporary mental illness.
''He is remorseful,'' she said of her son.
Moody said her son once asked her, ''How can you love me after what I did?''
Moody, a Firestone High School graduate, said she told her son that she would always love him.
''If I wouldn't have taken that bullet, he would have walked out of here and killed somebody else or the cops were going to kill him,'' she said.
She said she still suffers from post-traumatic stress from the shooting.
Moody said she hopes others learn from her experience that it is important to pay close attention and seek help for loved ones who might have mental-health issues.
''I don't want the world to consider my son a monster,'' she said. ''I wish mental-health issues were more important.''
And she believes she survived to be able to share her faith in God with others.
''God is good all the time and all the time, God is good,'' she said. ''That is why I am still here.''
Jim Carney can be reached at 330-996-3576 or jcarney@thebeaconjournal.com.
Comments
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akron, OH
Posted 10:53 PM, 08/12/2009
God Is Good!! To be "shot" and, live to talk about it. God is worthy of all the praise. I strongly believe in the power of prayer.
I remember this story from 2 years ago. I wondered how things worked out. I'm glad to know she is doing well and has a forgiving spirit. Only God can heal the hurt and pain of something this tragic.
Tallmadge, OH
Posted 03:01 AM, 08/13/2009
Sorry, I beg to differ just a little, forgiveness comes from one's own heart, alot of people would have a hard time reconciling their grief, but God does insist that such a path is the quickest route towards inner peace.
Ms. Moody is right about such an illness, and about Her choice to stand up to Her son, when he needed Her most....very sad, hopefully he discovers(and TRUELY appreciates) just how lucky HE is.
Akron, OH
Posted 07:03 AM, 08/13/2009
Great! He only got 7 years!! I'm sure he won't stay on his meds and he'll end up killing someone else. 7 years is not enough for attempted murder in any case! And if he pleaded guilty for beating up an old man in a robbery, why isn't he serving time for that???
Akron, OH
Posted 08:06 AM, 08/13/2009
I recall this event. I have to commend Ms Moody for her abiltiy to move forward from this tragedy.
Alas, I too think that 7 years isn't enough for attempted murder.
Canton, OH
Posted 08:16 AM, 08/13/2009
Wolf - what does the fact that she had him when she was 18 have to do with anything?
Her son went to high school and college and sounds like he did OK until he came back from Texas.
She worked in the Mental Health field for 18 years and was one year away from finishing nursing school.
your comments make no sense.
God Bless you Ms. Moody!
Akron, OH
Posted 08:53 AM, 08/13/2009
I am totally with you Ms Siete God is great! Good luck and God be with you and love you always Ms. Moody.
Posted 09:05 AM, 08/13/2009
I'm glad to hear she is healing, and she has a positive outlook which will help her get better faster.
But what I don't understand is how a Judge can hand down a mere 7 year sentence for a crime this bad.
It's not like the gun went off accidentally. This lump of flesh willfully pulled this piece and shot his own mother in the head.
Seven years is nothing.
How do we find out who the Judge was on that decision?
Because come election time, people need to remember it.
Akron, Oh
Posted 10:15 AM, 08/13/2009
Does it really matter if he was diagnosed as being bipolar and schizophrenic. He shot his mother in the head trying to kill her because the voices told him to do so. Does anyone remember Billy Milligan? This guy from Columbus raped several coeds from the campus. Well he totally convinced a gauntlet of shrinks that he was bipoler schizophrenic. He got out and did it again, got caught, but this time they found he was lying, and had lied the first time. If he shot and tried to kill his mother that is how he should be charged.
Green, Ohio
Posted 10:53 AM, 08/13/2009
I pray and hope he does not get out in 4 yrs or so and kill someone else or her or some other family member. Sad story, but I wish them all the best and wish a happy ending for them all.
Posted 10:57 AM, 08/13/2009
He had to have taken a plea deal or he would have got the max 10 years for attempted murder unless the mom(the victim) gave a statement and asked the judge for less time and the judge agreed.
Akron, Oh
Posted 11:22 AM, 08/13/2009
This really shows me there is no greater love than a mother's love, and no greater power than faith. I can't say I understand it, not being a mother or a Christian, and never having loved a person with mental illness. My knee-jerk reaction is anger and shock, but I really respect the unwavering love this Christian woman shows her son, and the people who saved her life. Her heart is what Jesus would want but I don't know if I'd be as strong as she is to truly forgive and seek happiness. Most forum posters couldn't survive as she has because most forum post of negative and full of hate, when this woman has found a way to remain in God's grace, in light of such tragedy. Utterly admirable...
AKRON, oh
Posted 11:32 AM, 08/13/2009
i think it is very important to listen to what the man had to say. What caused him to do it and why. by ignoring the causes of these kinds of incidents and only concerns ourselves with punishment, we only set ourselves up for more events like this. i would like to hear more about how to identify people who are suffering with bipolar disease and how we can help.
Akron, OH
Posted 11:49 AM, 08/13/2009
To Ms. Moody yes GOD IS GOOD. It is a blessing that you are alive, and forgiving your son for this. It's tough I can imagine, but with God's goodness you are alive! This is very sad story. I actually work with inmates on a daily basis, and I never really see the "bad" side of them. Once in prison, they recieve rehab and time to concentrate on a crime and often they repent and change, hopefully your son can find medical treatment and solice within himself. May God bless you & your family
akron, OH
Posted 12:09 PM, 08/13/2009
holy cow I agree with bright star...mental illness is no joke!
Mom is a strong person apparently. But yeah, seven years is too short, especially if you add the previous robbery charge.
Posted 12:14 PM, 08/13/2009
It is very difficult those who have not experienced this situation to even comprehend how a child that you dearly love can turn on you. You love your child, but you're frightened of him. I understand the love Ms. Moody felt. My son turned on us, though, thank God, he did't physically hurt anyone. He was on drugs, and from there went down hill. He was depressed and later diagnosed Bipolar. He experienced voices. All the doctors we took him to, and all the meds necessary did no good. We saw something wrong and we did everything necessary. We lost him to suicide. The pain is unbareable, even now, 3 yrs. later. Ms. Moody is a strong woman and my thoughts and prayers are w/her and Allen. I hope that upon his release he has the strength to stay on his meds. I know how I feared my son while he was alive and very unpredictable. She will need to be vigilent when dealing with him upon his release.
When a child/teen steps out of character and what a child does or says doesn't make sense, then parents need to immediately deal w/it before it gets too far.
Akron, OH
Posted 12:28 PM, 08/13/2009
The power of love and forgiveness is strong. Ms. Moody, I will keep you and your family in my thoughts prayers.
Akron, OH
Posted 12:33 PM, 08/13/2009
CarolynC: I am very sorry about your loss. May memories of happier times when your son was younger and not ill help you through the hard times. Here's hoping time will help heal your heart.
Posted 12:51 PM, 08/13/2009
justagirl - thank you. My husband and I have made ourselves available to anyone who is dealing w/a teen who is out of control and we have made this know by word of mouth. As verteran teachers, we know children and have gone thru 6 years of hell, but something good has already come out of this. The Y-bridge will be fenced. His death scared a lot of his friends straight. There is a gift (if you will) if you can turn that grief into something positive.
Posted 01:00 PM, 08/13/2009
God Bless Ms Moody and CarolynC Thank God you have the strength and ability to understand and forgive.
To all of those that say - what if he gets out and does it again I say -what if he doesn't. Our newspapers are full of the stories about those that fail but we hardly ever hear about the ones that succeed. I pray that this young man is one of the success stories we don't read about
Posted 01:19 PM, 08/13/2009
Common Sense Guy - Do you have children? Ms. Moody is not a dumb***. She is between a rock and a hard spot. You love your kids no matter what, but there is a time when love and fear become an issue and you must push them away. But you still love him. I don't know if I would have visited my son had he been injailfor such a heinous crime, but remember, you raised, love, and nurtured that child. Fear and love of a chld at the same time is an emotion that is like mixing oil and water. It will always weigh on Ms. Moody's mind when he is released. Here on in, life for her will never the same.
Posted 01:24 PM, 08/13/2009
And remember, mental illness is very real. Just because it isn't apparent at times does not mean it's not there. Allen ( article does mention drugs) and at some point drugs affected his brain causing depression, bipolar. He's very responsible for what he did, but he had a metal issue. And for the most part, these people struggle the rest of their lives to keep themselves on the right path.
Akron, OH
Posted 03:54 PM, 08/13/2009
It always amazes me that these criminals all of a sudden get these diseases AFTER they've done their dirty deed. I don't feel sorry for none them. Thankful Shayla is holding on under the circumstances and has a forgiving heart...I could never forgive that. I'd be waiting for the day he gets out of Mansfield, and do the same thing to him. By the time I get to court...I'd be crazier than a loon too!
His daddy should have been the one to confront him on why he's carrying heat, that is if the daddy is alive. All that schooling...should have been some red flags all over the place!!!
cuyahgoa falls, oh
Posted 04:04 PM, 08/13/2009
It's a blessing that she survied God is our help and our strenght. He not only protected her he also cares for those who causes us harm. ,
We don't understand, and it's not for us to questione why. We must never under estimate the power of God or why He does what He does. I know very well about mental illness. And have lived with a daughter conflicted for over twenty years with bipolar, and schizophrena.
Mentall illness is very unpretdictable diease, but can be managed. I am member of NAMI of summit county. It's a program that welcomes those who are exprencing the grief, pain, and anger which engulfs their lives when mental illness strikes someone we love. It meets weekly open to anyone who needs coping skills and it's free.
It's good that Ms. Moody has a positive outlook which will aide her in good heatlh. I pray that the grace of God protects her,and her son. Hold on to God, Ms Moody when you think he is not with you he's right there. He is mighty! May God continue to guide you for his glory.
Akron, Oh
Posted 04:18 PM, 08/13/2009
@Mac Daddy53.....first of all the Mac is dead, died back in the 70's,
donut!
Second, this story was not bout a daddy in the home and what makes u think daddy's are supposed to be the ones to confront a kid, most mothers do the raisining, the confronting and then tell the daddy's what to do.
Third, yes, u would also be forgiving, so quit trying to play so hard, like I said...the Mac is dead!
Oakland, FL
Posted 05:22 PM, 08/13/2009
Just another animal with a violent criminal record (such as robbery) that we will have to support for the rest of his life...But that's OK we've been doing it for 200 years...why stop now? The police should have shot him when they had the chance....22 times sounds good
Akron, OH
Posted 08:37 PM, 08/13/2009
Give it a rest Gildee. How many thugs YOU got runnin round the hood after dark????
I would guess your mama ran your house, by that stupid remark. Consult your local preacher about who is the head of the family home.
You're bout 90 years old...you still remember da Mac??
THE MAC RIDES AGAIN!!!!!!! Oh, and when you come down off that crack high, google daddy/father...ya may learn something...standing by for your final!
akron, OH
Posted 01:50 AM, 08/14/2009
carolynC, stay strong.
Posted 07:20 AM, 08/14/2009
Personally I believe mental illness is hereditary, because she is a couple french fries shy of a happy meal herself. So now, we, the taxpaying, law abiding citizens not only have to pay for this dirt bag in prison, but we are going to be supporting her as well.
There are plenty of people in this world with much greater disabilities then hers that work every day.
So he will get out of prison, not take his meds and kill someone the next time, should have been the death penalty and we should wash our hands of him and not have to pay to support him, feed him, house him clothe him, pay for medicine and medical care. What a bunch of B S .
