Sword tragedy so awful, random
Friends and relatives ask, "Why?" But they have no answers for the accidental death of a 15-year-old boy.
By BEN MONTGOMERY
Published March 8, 2006
BRANDON - Joshua Hershberger, 15, smart, funny, sat with his 14-year-old brother and his 9-year-old sister in a bedroom in a quiet home in a typical neighborhood on Monday night.
They were bouncing a ball.
The ball, about the size of a basketball, hit a bedroom wall and jarred loose an ornamental sword that fell on Josh, who was sitting on the floor, cutting him in the neck and shoulder, a spokeswoman for the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office said.
Within a few hours, he was dead.
"It's just a strange thing, man," said Shawn Kart, 24, a neighbor who ran to help.
The scene was hectic, Kart said. The children were crying.
Josh's mother told WFTS-Ch. 28 that she had bought fantasy swords for her children for Christmas from a store called Classic Imports in Brandon. Tom Watson of Classic Imports said that the popular swords come with tip protectors.
The tip protectors had probably fallen off the sword hanging in Josh's room, his mom told WFTS-Ch. 28. Josh had just taken everything down from the wall because the family was getting ready to paint, she said.
The sword was still hanging up, she said, because Josh wasn't allowed to touch it.
As word spread across the area, then across the country, folks here - neighbors, friends and relatives - tried to make sense of something so awful and random.
"One of them freak things that happens," said Richard Spidel, 53, who lives a few houses away.
"The thing that (stinks) is how something like this could happen to such a good person," said Ryan Beaupre, 17, who ate breakfast with Josh every day at school. "Something so terrible."
Josh played football for the Brandon Cowboys varsity squad in a youth league for the past two years, but he wasn't a jock. He was honor-classes smart and joined the Future Business Leaders of America last year. He played electric guitar and listened to Cradle of Filth and Marilyn Manson. Sometimes, he wore black fingernail polish.
"He was funny," said Waltz. "I remember him and his brother sumo wrestling. Josh shoved pillows in his shirt and down his pants, and they went at it."
And the boys were always playing catch in front of the house.
"They didn't bother nobody, didn't create no problems at all," said Spidel. "They played like kids, they just looked different."
Different?
"Black clothes," Spidel said. "Combat boots."
A hearse was parked in the driveway. Neighbors said it showed up before Halloween and was part of a yard display. They said Josh was due to drive it when he turned 16 next month.
"He was really excited about it," said Beaupre.
What troubled friends and neighbors was the way he died.
"It was just a horrifying tragedy," said Chuck Jaskec, a crisis counselor for the school district. "There are tears. Tears and asking, "Why?' And you can't answer that."
"From all indications, according to the interviews we did, we don't believe there was any foul play," said Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Debbie Carter. She called it an accident.
Josh's parents, Paul and Trina, are upstanding people, their friends said. Paul served in the Army for years and now works as a computer technician for a fertilizer company, said his father Willis Hershberger, reached by phone in West Virginia. "It's one of those families you're glad to have around," said Jim Emch, the athletic director for the Brandon Cowboys. At their house, a single-story on Valley Drive where flower baskets hang from the fence out front, a young man answered the door.
"What do you want?" he asked. Then he shut the door.
"Hell, they're so d--- shook up," said Willis Hershberger. "He was a wonderful boy, he really was."
He said he knew nothing of the sword. "I never seen the d----- thing."
At Brandon High School Tuesday afternoon, Beaupre and some art students carried a piece of cardboard outside. They stenciled a memorial on the front, then held it up for the television cameras stationed along the curb.
"In Memory Of Josh," it said.
Times staff writers S.I. Rosenbaum and Kevin Graham and researcher Angie Drobnic Holan contributed to this report. Ben Montgomery can be reached at 813 661-2443 or bmontgomery@sptimes.com