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Ronald and Christine Holt of Toms River lost their 6-year-old son Brandon, when he was shot and killed by a 4-year-old neighborhood playmate on April 8, authorities say. Ronald recently created a shrine to his late son in the couple's dining room.

(Saed Hindash/The Star-Ledger)

The two houses stand just 70 yards apart, on a quiet cul-de-sac found at the end of a leafy street in Toms River.

Up a small embankment, in a low-slung rancher fronted by a trickling fountain, lives Ronald Holt, a doting 44-year-old father and local drain cleaner. For years, he has shared a comfortable life on McCormick Drive with his wife, Christine, and her teenage son from a previous marriage. And in 2006, they gave birth to a son of their own — a bouncing, blond-haired boy named Brandon.

And soon, they say, Brandon was always running about the court — always playing, always quick with a smile.

Up another sloping lawn lived the Senatores — until recent weeks, that is, say neighbors. Just two doors down from the Holts, and new to the neighborhood last fall, they’d brought three new children — ages 4, 8 and 12 — to the picturesque suburban street.

Their rented house appeared nothing like the Holts’, though. Boxy and bare, its tall, dark wood-covered garage extended toward and faced the road.

The father of the Senatore family, Anthony Jr., was a quiet man, neighbors have said, and so perhaps Ronald Holt wouldn’t have had reason to spend time with him. But their children played together constantly, and so Holt says he made it a point to shake hands with Anthony Senatore and to walk into his home, where he noticed the deer heads mounted on the walls.

They were the type, Holt says, that hunters might keep as trophies.

Brandon Holt is remembered by his family and neighbors as an active little boy who was always smiling.

What he never saw, though, he adds quietly — and what law enforcement officials allege sat in the Senatores’ home — was a raft of at least five guns and rifles, and a collection of ammunition.

Much of it unlocked.

Much of it untethered.

This is the tale of two families whose lives intersected — violently and permanently — on April 8 in Toms River. While playing "pretend shooting" games with Brandon Holt and other children, authorities and neighbors say, the Senatore’s 4-year-old boy bounded into his father’s bedroom, grabbed an unlocked and loaded .22-caliber rifle, walked outside to his yard, and hoisted the weapon. Suddenly, one shot exploded, discharging a bullet that traveled 15 yards and hit the head of 6-year-old Brandon, killing him, authorities say.

Police have said it is unclear whether the 4-year-old triggered the gun intentionally, or whether it went off by accident.

This is also the story of another American gun tragedy involving young children. In this case, it’s the type of suburban, child-on-child shooting that, at first, seems nearly unimaginable. But it’s more common than many realize.

News articles and interviews with gun-control advocacy groups reveal that the Holts and Senatores are far from alone in confronting the horror of what happens when young children grab loaded and unlocked guns.

This is also a story about how many Americans live today, even as the gun-control debate, fueled by Newtown, Conn., and other mass killings, rages around them. Through detailed reporting, this article examines a lifestyle among some New Jerseyans in which guns, hunting and target shooting are revered forms of recreation and protection.

Some gun-rights advocates say the Senatores’ way of life played no role whatsoever in the tragedy that struck Brandon Holt. But gun-control groups push back: They pound the argument that the prevalence of household guns in the United States leads, unfailingly, to disasters such as the one that took the young boy’s life.

Furthermore, say groups such as the Children’s Defense Fund, in America a child or teen is injured from guns every 30 minutes. And between 1963 and 2010, an estimated 166,500 children and teens died from guns on U.S. soil, the Defense Fund reports, whereas fewer than 53,000 American soldiers were killed in action in the Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq wars combined.

In 2010, 82 children under age 5 lost their lives to guns, the advocacy group also says, compared with 58 law enforcement officers killed by guns in the line of duty. Meanwhile, children and teens in the United States are 67 times more likely to die from guns than children and teens in the United Kingdom.

But the National Rifle Association, the powerful lobbying group, cites statistics of its own. In just one example, the NRA writes that the nation’s total violent crime rate hit an all-time high in 1991, and then declined in 18 of the next 20 years — a 49 percent drop overall — until it reached a 41-year low in 2011. At the same time, says the NRA, gun ownership and the number of privately owned guns rose to all-time highs, with the number of privately owned firearms in the United States increasing by more than 120 million.

Scott Bach, head of the Association of New Jersey Rifle & Pistol Clubs, makes his position clear. He says a properly handled gun is "an instrument that can save lives," and that private citizens should be able to own them and keep them in their homes for protection, without worrying about over-reaching government intrusion.

The Shooting

Seventy-nine days after his son was killed, Ronald Holt is working up a sweat, leaning over the exposed engine of his black pickup truck in the driveway of his home. Tools fill his hands. It took his family nearly two months, he says, of staying with relatives before they could return to the neighborhood where Brandon was raised, then died.

Holt says he’s still depressed and slightly angrier about the tragedy than in the first six weeks after the shooting. If anything, he says, his mental state is worse than in May, when he first spoke publicly.

He says the feelings that flood him — and the emotional and mental battles he fights — remain much the same as they have for several months now. And still, he says, the memories of finding his son shot, bleeding and gasping for air, rush at him all the time.

The Holts wear bracelets bearing Brandon's name to remember their son.

"I mean, I’ll be fine, and all the sudden it will just pop right into my head," Holt says. "But then I try to think about all the good things that we did together."

Then: "I mean, I get upset. And I get like a — a — a sick feeling in my stomach, ’cause I knew he had a lot to live for."

Holt says he had just come out of the shower around 6:30 on the evening Brandon was shot when he heard a knock at the front door. Christine answered it. Ronald was standing in shorts and a T-shirt behind her.

A slightly tense but not panicked 12-year-old boy, the Senatores’ oldest son, stood there.

"Brandon got hurt," he told them.

"I didn’t think too much of it, at first," Ronald Holt recalls. "I thought maybe he (Brandon) fell, or he had a broken bone or something."

He and his wife walked slowly down their sloping driveway, then headed across the cul-de-sac. His wife, Holt says, said, "Hurry up."

He broke into a jog.

As he climbed the driveway of the Senatores’ gray-and-white house, he saw a golf cart resting at the top, near the garage. To his horror, he also saw Brandon slumped but still sitting in the cart’s seat — bleeding and gasping for air — though the boy seemed to be unconscious, too.

"I pretty much knew it wasn’t going to be good, but I had hope," Holt recalls, his face a little tired-looking, his eyes lifting slowly as his voice falls, closer to a whisper.

"It was puffed out," Holt says of his son’s eye. And no image or memory, he says, has bothered him more than seeing his son, dressed in springtime shorts and a T-shirt, with that injury.

Holt remembers Melissa Senatore, Anthony’s wife, being on the phone, talking to 911 before an ambulance arrived. He also says Anthony Senatore was home; and he doesn’t recall seeing the Senatores’ 4-year-old boy.

Later, Holt says he was told by witnesses that the Senatores’ 8-year-old daughter was sitting next to Brandon in the golf cart when the rifle fired.

"Um ... what they (the Senatores) told me," Holt says, "I guess (the children) were playing with guns — I have no idea. ... And the youngest son grabbed the gun, I guess, aimed it at both of them; and it just happened to hit Brandon ...

"I have no idea."

In near shock, standing on the driveway as the evening sun lowered, Holt says he leaned over the golf cart and stared at his son in pain. Then he placed his hands around the boy’s small shoulders.

He didn’t want to hug or lift Brandon, for fear of injuring him more.

He made his voice grow calmer and steadier. And over and over again, he spoke to Brandon.

"Daddy’s here," he told his son. "Daddy’s here."

The Response

For the next five weeks, no criminal charges were brought against anyone connected to the killing, even as some in Toms River grew impatient. Almost immediately, the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office took over the investigation from Ocean County because certain extended Senatore family members had worked in county law enforcement.

Then, on May 13, authorities arrested Anthony Senatore Jr. at his father's home in Bayville as he was eating dinner. Suddenly, he faced five counts of second-degree

endangering the welfare of children (his own); one count of third-degree endangering the welfare of a child (Brandon); and a disorderly person's misdemeanor-offense for enabling access by minors to a loaded firearm.

According to prosecutors, the first five counts sprung from Anthony Senatore keeping five firearms unsecured in the home and in his children’s reach: The loaded .22-caliber rifle that killed Brandon Holt, a Stevens 12-gauge shotgun, two Harrington & Richardson shotguns, and a Remington 12-gauge shotgun. And the guns, prosecutors said, were also found resting close to ammunition in the house.

Melissa Senatore, 29, has not been charged in the case, but Anthony, who some neighbors have said worked in construction and is an avid hunter, faces the possibility of spending years in prison if convicted.

Meanwhile, Brandon’s death quickly spurred at least one legislative action: Sen. Jim Holzapfel (R-Ocean) introduced a bill in April to increase penalties for allowing children access to firearms — changing the offense from a disorderly conduct misdemeanor to a fourth-degree or third-degree crime, depending on whether bodily injury or death or serious bodily harm happens as a result.

Soon after that, Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-Gloucester) added similar language to a broader gun bill he’d been pushing — although the bill would only increase the children-access offense to a fourth-degree crime, no matter what harm is done to someone’s body or life.

Sweeney’s bill currently sits on Gov. Chris Christie’s desk, awaiting his signature before it can become law.

Still, some members of gun-control groups point out that states such as Massachusetts and California have more proactive and weightier gun laws.

In Massachusetts, for instance, laws require gun owners to always store their weapons in a locked container or use guns equipped with a locking device that renders the weapon inoperable when it is not being carried.

And in California, when a child-access prevention violation leads to death or great bodily harm, the gun owner faces up to three years in prison — as opposed to the six-month potential maximum in New Jersey for the current disorderly conduct provision, or 18 months if the Sweeney bill becomes law.

"Parents need to understand the risks of having guns in a home with children," says Marty Langley, a policy analyst at the Washington-based Violence Policy Center, "and that there is no foolproof way to lock up a gun."

Langley also says the gun lobby and gun industry encourage, in certain ways, small children to use and handle guns, and that is "counterproductive" to preventing a shooting like the one that killed Brandon Holt.

The Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a group of advocate lawyers, aligns itself with Langley’s views — and says that more than 1.69 million youths under age 18 were found in a 2005 study to be living in households with loaded and unlocked firearms.

The NRA was contacted by phone and e-mail numerous times for this story. It did not comment.

Bach, the rifle and pistol association director who is an NRA board member, said he could not speak for the NRA. But speaking for his New Jersey association, he says he strongly opposes laws such as the one in Massachusetts. "If there is a need for the gun in an emergency, the last thing you want is to have it buried away, making it impossible to use, because of a government regulation," he says. "The government is treating the gun as a ticking time bomb."

He adds that he "supports laws that create a strong incentive for gun owners to prevent unauthorized persons from accessing their firearms." But when asked, he also declines to specify what those incentives should be. "There is not a one-size-fits-all solution," he says.

The Senatores

It’s a late Thursday afternoon in mid-May, and Anthony Senatore Jr., 33, charged just a few days earlier, answers a knock at the front door of his father’s home in Bayville, where he has stayed since Brandon Holt was shot in April.

He’s somewhat reluctant to talk with a reporter, and quickly blurts out: "I’m not getting into details … ’cause I ain’t got my attorney here and everything."

But he also seems to want to get his story out — at least for a few moments. An athletic-looking and tattooed man, dressed neatly in a crisp T-shirt, his face appears earnest; and his voice is soft but direct. He speaks with an almost Southern-sounding drawl.

The house the Senatores rented in Toms River is two doors away from the Holts' home.

"I mean — it, it’s tough for everybody," he says, after being asked about how his family is getting by, although, first he acknowledged how incredibly hard things must be for the Holts.

And he seems ready to say more. But then his father appears on the front porch, one adorned with a large American flag and red-white-and-blue bunting.

A fit, broad-shouldered man with a crew cut, Anthony Senatore Sr., who worked for years as a Jackson police officer, lets out a booming voice.

"Who are you?" He peers at the reporter.

In turn, Anthony Senatore Jr. crouches, and at times appears to hang his head. His father dominates the conversation. He says the tragedy that struck his family and the Holts’ is "not entertainment."

Glaring, he adds, "Let me just say this to ya: There’s a 5-year-old boy that died; this is not entertainment for anybody. ... This is not for people to watch (on the) news or read in the newspaper."

"You understand my position?"

Asked how his 4-year-old grandson and his other grandchildren are doing, his voice grows slightly calmer. "It is what it is, okay? So we’re trying to shield them, that’s all."

Then, as his son continues to stare at the porch steps, the elder Senatore’s voice starts to crescendo again. "But we’re still grieving for that little boy. Okay?"

Louder, then: "As far as my son goes, that little boy was part of his family also, was over his house every single day playing with his kids.

"That’s the end of it. You know, there’s nothing to say, there’s no words to make this go away, or to make this better.

"Every day, you deal with it. Every day. And that’s it."

* * * * *

On the street in Bayville where Anthony Senatore Sr. has lived for more than 30 years, neighbors remember Anthony Jr. as a playful and respectful youngster who, for the most part, was well-liked.

"A nice boy" and "well-mannered," say neighbors who knew him 15 years ago or more, when Anthony would run around with their children on Princeton Avenue and in the surrounding woods.

"A normal kid, he had no worries."

At the same time, the neighbors — who asked that their names not be used, fearing an argument with Senatore Sr. — also recall trying to keep their children from going over to the Senatore property. It was okay for Anthony Jr. to come to their house, but not vice versa.

Throughout the neighborhood, several neighbors told stories of their suspicions: The Senatores hunted illegally in the woods behind their home ... they shot arrows onto other residents’ property … and they shot paintballs from a hunting stand. But none would provide a lot of detail or be quoted by name for this story.

A woman who, like others on the street, has followed the shooting of Brandon Holt and the charges brought against Senatore Jr., says her feelings are mixed about what should happen to the Anthony Jr. she remembers from Bayville.

"I haven’t seen him in years," the woman says. "I hate to even see him do jail time, because of (the impact on) his kids. But at the same time, if he does nothing (no jail time) out of this, what was that child’s (Brandon Holt’s) life worth?"

Still, others on the same street, which abuts dense woods that years ago were even more plentiful before many homes were built, offer a more sympathetic view.

One college-age woman who says she has been friends with the Senatores since she was 5, said Anthony Jr. was nice, often laughing and somewhat outgoing. She called him "very respectful" and says that, as a hunter, it makes sense for him to have five or more guns in his home, since many hunters have licenses in different states and hunt in different areas, for different animals, using various guns.

"He’s very outdoorsy," the woman says, describing the camouflage clothes and boots Senatore would wear. And she described Bayville, a wooded area in the Pine Barrens, as full of people who call themselves "Pineys" and who ride ATVs, drive pickup trucks through the mud, and go hunting, all for sport.

"I have a dog named ‘Swamper,’ " she explains with a chuckle, before growing more serious at the thought of what happened to Brandon Holt in April.

"I know this has changed a lot of people’s views," she says of the shooting. "I’ve heard, even where I work, people coming in and saying, ‘How could they (Anthony Jr. and his wife, Melissa) do this?’ and all this stuff, and wanting their kids to be taken away. ...

"But, for me, growing up with them, seeing them and knowing them — it doesn’t change the people closest to them. I’ll always care about them — I hope for the best — and I hope for the best for the little ones, and for (Anthony) Jr."

The Holts

About 4 miles away, back on McCormick Drive in Toms River, Ronald Holt is keeping busy in the garage — always trying to distract himself, he says.

In May, he spoke openly about the "crying fits" he went through in the first couple of weeks after Brandon’s death. And he talked about how he tried to work during the day at his drain cleaning business, then all of a sudden, halfway through, "I wouldn’t want to do anything more."

It’s a little more than three weeks ago, and Holt is explaining how the loss of his son can make him alternately depressed and angry.

"You know, we miss him so much," he says haltingly, his voice starting to break. Then he mentions that Brandon would have turned 7 on June 23.

The home of Ronald and Christine Holt.

And his voice deepens as he talks of the civil lawsuit for money damages his family has brought against the Senatores — and how, in his view, Melissa Senatore is as responsible as her husband for what happened.

With a tinge of bitterness, Holt also says, "I mean, I don’t want to see him (Anthony Jr.) — I don’t want to see any of them."

Then Christine Holt steps into the garage.

She wears a lime-green plastic bracelet showing Brandon’s name, between open hearts. Her husband wears one, too. She is in a reflective mood, she says, as she talks about returning to the neighborhood where her son was killed. In late May, she decided to come back to the rancher because her 18-year-old boy needed the "normalcy."

But living in the home again is also "hard on us," she says. "A lot of memories are here, and a lot of, um ..." She pauses. "Some sense of comfort, but a lot of memories; and I think that’s what is making it (feel) mixed" to be here.

"I just — I just do what I have to do," Christine offers. "I try not to — I really try not to" look at the Senatores’ old house across the court.

Since her bright-eyed, wiry boy was killed, Christine says, she has discovered and read many stories in the media describing shootings in which young children have grabbed firearms and injured or killed others, or themselves. "It’s almost every day," she says of the reports.

The stories come in mournful bunches, from Arizona, Alabama, Oregon and elsewhere. In fact, according to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, in the nine days between April 29 to May 7 of this year: 2-year-old Caroline Sparks of Kentucky was killed by her 5-year-old brother; a 4-year-old Alabama boy was accidentally shot in the head while he and another child played with a handgun; an 8-year-old Alaskan boy was fatally shot by his 5-year-old sister; a 6-year-old Florida girl was fired upon and killed by her 13-year-old brother; a 4-year-old Indiana boy shot himself in the hand; and a 3-year-old child in Florida accidentally killed himself with his uncle’s gun.

"I just want the laws to be stricter in a sense of these adults that leave the guns out, and (allow) access to anybody, never mind children," Christine Holt says, her voice rising. "I don’t think any gun should be left out, unattended!"

Then Christine, 38, grows quieter as she explains that she takes solace in the well wishes she receives from friends and people she doesn’t know. Recently, her family held a fundraiser in memory of Brandon at a restaurant in Jackson. Four hundred people turned out — many of whom she’d never met.

"They always pray for us," she says of what a lot of people said to her as they walked up slowly. "How wonderful it is to hear that."

* * * * *

Ronald Holt has also said that, at times, the thought of Anthony Senatore being separated from his own children, if he were to be sent to prison, bothers him.

"I don’t want their father to be missing," he says.

But in the end, Holt says he does believe someone must be responsible for the death of Brandon. "My son got killed … should he (Anthony Senatore) get in trouble for that? Yeah, I think so."

Holt also believes in the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

"I don’t have a problem with guns," he says. "I think we need them to survive, to protect ourselves."

But in the next breath, Holt makes clear that he believes training on the proper and safe storage of guns should be mandatory for all owners who are not experienced with firearms.

"Someone like me, I don’t know how to use a gun," he says, adding that he doesn’t own any.

Brandon

The little boy who is gone now loved "everything outdoors," says Ronald Holt. And "he always wanted to help you out, no matter what you were doing."

"My son wouldn’t sit in front of the TV much," the father recalls, a smile beginning to lighten his face. "He was always just very active."

So now, says Holt, when the searing images of his son’s fight to live after being shot in the head rush back at him, he tries hard to remember "just us having a good time" together.

"Just everything," Ronald says. "Taking him to the boardwalk in Seaside — taking him on the rides and getting him excited. He liked roller coasters," and they took Brandon to Great Adventure and Hershey Park, the father says.

"I played catch with him — not a lot, but I played catch with him." Then his voice turns soft again. "No doubt about it — it’s the worst thing you could possibly go through," he says of losing a child who was the center of his life in many ways.

"The only thing I can think is that maybe there’s a reason why God took him."

His neighbor down the street, Diane Mlenak, remembers Brandon Holt’s boundless energy and how he made her and her husband laugh.

"Full of life. He loved to explore, loved to know what everyone was doing," she says. "Always, always was smiling."

"Well the first day he met us, he asked, ‘Can I stay for dinner? What are you havin’?’ " she recalls.

She’s smiling now, too.

"You know, like I said to his parents: ‘We don’t have grandchildren yet — (but) anytime he said something, my husband and I would laugh.’ "

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