Couple talks of shooting that woke them from their sleep and made them victims

If Brian Kennedy concentrates, he can move his big toe a little. The movement is almost undetectable. But the swollen purple and yellow bruise that surrounds his lower leg is not.

The color marks the spot where last week, as Kennedy slept, a bullet tore through his bed and into the flesh above his foot, narrowly missing his fibula and passing just in front of his shin.

At first, said Kennedy on Monday, he thought the heater next to his bed had exploded.

Girlfriend Shawna Hollis was next to him at the time and thought the same thing. It must have been the heater exploding that sent some foreign object into Kennedy's leg, she said.

But the noises shattering the early morning silence were hard to dismiss. They sounded like gunshots. When the couple fled to the safety of the walkway out front, bullets hit the concrete below their feet.

With every foot fall, the couple agreed, they were certain, whomever was below them, was trying to kill them.

All Hollis could do was clutch her 3-month-old son who'd been sleeping next to her and scream, she said.

"It was horrible,'" Kennedy recalled. "Shawna was saying 'I'm scared,' And I said 'me too.'"

On that Tuesday morning, neighbor Richard Lanave, 70, found himself on the floor of his bedroom apartment below them. His blood sugar was dangerously low. He told investigators he did not have the strength to pull himself to his cell phone on a desk in another room. The former California attorney and Navy veteran thought he would die alone in a small one-bedroom apartment in northeast Carson City.

Near his head was a new night stand he'd bought that day. Inside, he found his gun.

He thought he would fire a gunshot to get someone to call for help, officials said. But in the delirium of his potentially fatal condition, Lanave unloaded the clip of his handgun into the ceiling. Out the window. Into Kennedy's bed upstairs.

"I hate that this happened," said Hollis on Monday in a downstairs apartment in the same complex. Lanave, who called his actions "unforgivable," and is awaiting criminal charges, still lives three doors away. He was arrested the morning of the shooting and bailed out a day later.

"Hopefully someday I can not be as mad. But right now, I'm just upset," Hollis said.

When she sees Lanave her heart races. Though he's moving out of the complex, it's not soon enough, she said.

Sometimes she feels bad for him.

"But at the same time he's (messed) up our lives," she explained

Since the shooting, Hollis has new rituals. She makes certain her doors are locked and draws her curtains so tight there isn't even a sliver to peek through.

"We're scared still. I don't like it when the sun goes down," said Kennedy. "It was scary. I thought he was trying to kill us."

Kennedy's not able to return to his job as a mason until he can walk. And Hollis, who worked an opposite shift from Kennedy so their child would not have to go to daycare, has taken a leave from work so she can care for the their son. Their small savings will quickly dwindle.

"They've been struggling as it is, so to have this happen," said Kennedy's mother Michelle Ault. "They were getting one step ahead and this has thrown them five steps back,"

An account has been set up at Nevada State Bank to help Hollis and Kennedy pay their bills. Donations can be made at any Nevada State Bank branch, account number 0548033729.

Already the community has reacted. The couples neighbor's came and moved their furniture downstairs for them.

When Ault shared the story with JM Furniture, the family received a discount on a new mattress and box spring.

Contact reporter F.T. Norton at ftnorton@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1213.