JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Fletcher High School marching band rounded the corner toward the football field with senior Liam McNew striding forward in his usual place among the band's saxophone players.
Elda McNew, standing near the outdoor grill where band-supporting parents flipped hamburgers, gave Liam a shout-out as the band went by them.
A week had passed since Jacksonville Sheriff's Officer corrections officer Brad McNew — Elda's husband and Liam's father — died when a gunman fatally shot him at a Northside truck stop after McNew intervened when the gunman attacked a woman by a gas pump.
His death came just four years after the family suffered the loss of 12-year-old Elizabeth McNew, the youngest of two children, in September 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a shattering blow that put the McNew family through a tormenting stage of grief.
"The journey through that darkness was horrible," Elda said of Elizabeth's death.
She had finally recovered emotionally and mentally from it, thanks in part to the consolation she and Brad found by supporting the Fletcher High marching band.
So in the aftermath of his sudden death on his way home from the Montgomery Correctional Center, Elda signed up to help with the concession stand at the Friday night football game. Liam put on his marching band uniform.
"We both needed normalcy," she said. "We needed to get back in the swing of things. We needed to be away from the phones and texts and be able to scream and yell."
As the crowd cheered and the band played in the background, she said she felt her husband's presence at the football stadium.
"Oh my gosh, yes," she said. "I cannot see a marching band or hear a drumline or see a percussion ensemble or a choir or an orchestra without seeing him playing the timpani or xylophone."
'Be as brave as your loved one' in law enforcement family
Music has always been a constant for the McNew family. Brad and Elda met in college while playing in the marching band themselves and pursuing music degrees.
She grew up at the Beaches and graduated from Fletcher High School in its class of 1988. She wanted to learn about music therapy and enrolled in Tennessee Technical University in Cookeville, Tenn., where Brad, a Nashville native, also was in the music program.
He was a percussionist in the marching band and she played the piccolo. They were friends and classmates until near the end of their time at the college when one of Brad's fraternity brothers set up a date between them.
"And after the first date, it was like, 'Okay, sold,'" she said.
They married on New Year's Eve of 1994 and moved to Atlantic Beach. He wanted to become a high school band director and did substitute teaching. But after a few years, he decided to join the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.
"And I was like, 'No, I married a musician,'" she said. "And he said, 'I am being called to this.' And he was. When he told me he was going into law enforcement, he told me, 'This is my calling. I need to protect people. I need to be that person that is there.'"
Her father had been a corrections officer for the Sheriff's Office so she had some understanding already of what it meant to become a "law enforcement family."
After Brad joined the Sheriff's Office, she helped with its employee assistance program and would talk to families of incoming corrections officers.
"You must be as brave as your loved one," she would tell them about the mindset needed for marriages and families to succeed.
"And JSO will become part of your family," she said of the change when Brad embarked on what would become a 24-year career with the Sheriff's Office. "And it will be different. It will be difficult. A lot of times, it will not be understood" by those outside the profession.
"It is a calling, especially if you do it for over 20 years," she said.
COVID-19 pandemic's death toll claimed daughter's life
When the global COVID-19 pandemic struck, Brad caught the highly contagious virus but did not have severe symptoms. Their daughter Elizabeth also contracted the virus. In her case, it worsened quickly.
"I can't breathe right," she told her mother late one night.
Elizabeth loved listening to contemporary Christian songs played by WMUV-FM, also known as The Promise. Her mother made sure it played in the heavily-quarantined hospital room. She died Sept. 25, 2020, after being moved into intensive care.
At a small vigil in front of the McNew's home soon afterward, Elda talked about learning how her daughter — "my sweetness" — had done so much to help her friends at school.
"It was like the secret life she had at school, with the level of kindness and giving I always knew she had, but I had no idea the level of lives she has touched," she said at the vigil.
Elda struggled for a long time after Elizabeth's death.
The COVID-19 pandemic meant the McNew family couldn't go to worship in person at church. They couldn't be in musical ensembles. She couldn't teach music lessons. "The things that supported us and gave us strength were smashed to the ground," she said.
She underwent intensive treatment and counseling to recover and reconnect with her family.
"When we lost Elizabeth, it was devastating," she said. "I will tell you for a year and a half, I was not with them. But he (Brad) did not give up on me."
When Liam joined the marching band during his freshman year at Fletcher High School, Brad signed up as a volunteer in the parent association that supports the band. "Obviously, he liked what he was doing because he kept on and kept on and kept on," said Rick Contreras, who served as president of the parent association.
Elda then began attending the events as an outgrowth of the counseling sessions that were helping her overcome Elizabeth's death.
"One thing they hammered into my head so beautifully was if you can't do it for you, then walk the steps and wash your face for your husband," she said. "Do it for your son, and thank God, Liam had started high school and he wanted to be in the band and I couldn't stay away."
In the beginning, she still kept to herself. Only later did parents learn about Elizabeth. Over time, she opened up more and shared in the good vibes of the gatherings.
"That's when I started coming alive because it didn't feel horrible to wrap a burger. It didn't feel terrible to give a kid a water bottle," she said. "That's just part of the therapy and recovery, basically. Band and music helped save my life."
Brad McNew's fatal shooting
The hard-won stability was ruptured all over again in the early-morning hours of Oct. 12. Brad had finished working a shift at the Montgomery Correctional Center on the Northside when he stopped at the Love's Travel Stop on Duval Road near Jacksonville International Airport.
When Brad, who was out of his uniform, saw a violent dispute between a man and woman at one of the pumps, he called out about whether the woman was alright, police have said. The man walked toward him and pointed a gun. As the woman drove away with the man in the car, he leaned out the window and fired the fatal shot.
The following day, a nationwide manhunt ended with the arrest of Demaurea Grant, 29, in Gastonia, N.C., on murder and other charges. Sheriff T.K. Waters said the arrest was "about our community standing in solidarity with those who made the decision to do the good and decent thing."
"I know he didn't have any regrets when he helped that woman who was being abused," Liam said during a candlelight vigil on the night of Oct. 12.
The services will include a committal with full honors Tuesday with plans for a 21-gun volley and a flyover in honor of his 24 years of Sheriff's Office service.
Elda also is mourning him one day at a time. She said she and Liam lean on each other. "He is very mature and he has been amazing," she said. "We talk to each other all the time and now he is really my touchstone."
She still is finding her husband's drumsticks in spots all over the house from when he would rap out rhythms on a practice pad.
"He was the brains of the operation and I was the adventurer," she said. "I told somebody he was my knight in shining armor. He protected me. He protected everybody he touched, but he was my protector, my warrior, my shield, and just like a good knight, he never said, 'This is what's happening, Lady.' He would allow me to lead, and that's a good thing."
One morning, she woke up and rolled over to reach for him only to find that space empty. She said she heard the Sinead O'Connor song "Nothing Compares 2 U" in her head and broke down in tears.
Then she drove to the beach to watch the sunrise while putting the O'Connor song on repeat. She said the song gave her a message of hope. "Renewed somehow," she said. She walked off the beach with Earth, Wind & Fire's "September" and its dancing "Do you remember" chorus on repeat.
