The tragic events of May 30, when Ian Stawicki took the lives of five people, ended in West Seattle when, surrounded by police, he shot himself.

But for many people, especially his family, questions as to what happened, and why linger in a mixture of pain, regret and confusion.

Walt Stawicki, Ian's father came to West Seattle on Saturday June 2, "Just to see where this occurred," he said quietly and to speak to neighbors near the location close to 37th and Raymond. "I wanted to come and see that there wasn't going to be a lot of connection and have him stuck," Stawicki said.

Stawicki walked along 37th s.w. speaking to whoever was outside and asking them about their feelings and memories of the incident.

Neighbor Kitty Pelkin told him, "We heard the police say 'Put your hands where we can see them and almost two seconds later we heard one shot. My husband stood in the window and saw four policemen come around a car, in a line, cautiously walking, but the shot had already been fired."

Stawicki said of his son, "He was angry all the time. Some of us have a buffer. Some of us don't have a buffer. Some of us can make black humor comments about it. Some of us can say 'isn't that flower beautiful?' My son was, 'Can you see the horror in that?' Can you see what's happening to this beautiful planet? Do you know what people are like? What kind of people are crawling around out there?"

Stawicki said he has had some metaphysical experiences following his son's death.

"The first night," May 30, "I was ghosted. The second night I wasn't. The third night I wanted to see what this felt like here," referring to where the suicide took place. "A fella down the block said it was here and I got really strong vibes right around here, but last night," after he went to identify his son's body, "I was so much more relieved. He's gone... A couple of years ago my daughter had gone down to Santa Barbara to see my father. He died in a hospice and we missed it by a half an hour or so. He was literally not cold, but he was gone. There was nothing hanging in the air. I've been around around beds where it hangs for days and days."

At the Medical Examiner's office on June 1, "When I saw him, he was gone," but he did spend a few moments there. "I touched him and took a little lock of his hair and some for his mom, but his beard was almost like a shadow."

Stawicki then described a waking vision he said he had.

"The first night, about 3 in the morning. Very dark, dark, dark scene. Almost like a cave but there's no outside so it's like an old movie that just fades away. His mother and myself and then in the cave is his face like an old man/baby. Dark, dark dark red, almost like copper bronze, and an arm, saying 'I'm sorry' and almost shaking and all the lights going dark and light and darker, white light, darker, light, darker." Stawicki said nearly sobbing, "I'm glad I only had one of those."

Then yesterday," Stawicki continued,"my son's friend in Ellensburg calls up and said he had had a dream a couple of days before. A fella walks into a cafe and starts shooting people. He's a friend of my youngest son."

Stawicki said he has some friends who have offered to come back to the spot in West Seattle and help him with letting go. They wanted to wait 2 weeks because they were worried the neighbors would be angry. Instead, those he spoke with have been compassionate and understanding.

As one neighbor said of the elder Stawicki, "It wasn't his fault."

Standing at the scene of the conclusion of one of the most tragic days in Seattle's history, he searched for reasons why his son might have been so troubled.

"This was a boy who went to high school, took the G.E.D. and passed it with flying colors even though he was dyslexic and couldn't read. He went into the Army and they didn't like the way he put things together. He came to conclusions that didn't fit with their system. He had a couple of PTSD instances. One in which a grenade went off near him and ruined his hearing. He had an SS tattoo put on him without his permission one night when they'd been having a drink and he was out. He woke up with this tattoo, embarrassed for the rest of his life. He was involved in an incident (in the Army) where his buddies were trying to come up with an initiation for the guys and he ended up on the receiving end of a knife," making the motion of a knife against a throat "so I got a call that same night, 'Why did he make me do it? I'm so sorry but what did he expect me to do?' ", Stawicki explained that his son reacted violently and injured one of his fellow soldiers. "The guy was in the hospital and my son was crying his guts out."

As his father he knew the young man had emotional and mental illness issues but, "There's no way you can force people to get help," he said. "Meds would have helped. Forced meds, a case worker. You know we approached him to do therapists and he refused all of that."

Stawicki said he believes more tragedies like this will happen. "I know it," he said, It's that thing you take a thousand monkeys and you put them on typewriters and you get Shakespeare and if you take a thousand, two thousand, three thousand crazy people who are untreated and there's no beds or ways to get them help (...) If I put a thousand land mines on these streets and had kids playing on them do I think somebody would step on them? I know somebody would."

"I don't know what demonish thing got a hold of him that day but it sure had a grip on him."