K-9 Brix and Sheriff Deputy Mark Easter

In this 2012 file photo, Jackson County Sheriff's Deputy Mark Easter plays with K-9 Brix with his daughter McKenna, 7, left, wife Melissa and daughter Mollie, 5, and son Michael, 2, at their home on South Jackson Road. (PAIGE CALAMARI/MLive.com)

(BPN)

JACKSON, MI - Thinking every day - every hour - of the boy he lost, Mark Easter bought a gun safe. It cost him $100.

"I could have prevented my son from dying, and that will haunt me. That's a cross that I got to bear," Easter told Sheri Jones of WLNS-TV, Channel 6, the Citizen Patriot's media partner, for a story aired Wednesday, Nov. 29.

It was the first time Easter, a Jackson County sheriff's deputy, and his wife Melissa spoke publicly about 3-year-old Michael Easter who managed in March 2013 to access his father's loaded firearm, sitting atop a tall dresser in his parents' bedroom. He accidentally fired the weapon, killing himself.

Melissa Easter recalled noting her son's absence, walking around a corner, and hearing a gunshot. "I honestly at first thought it hit me. I don't know why, I just remember... my chest just hurt... I think it was my heart dropping..."

She saw Michael fall to the floor, she told WLNS. "I tried to do everything I could." She shut the door to her daughters and told them to call their father, who was two minutes down the road.

"But it's my fault he is dead... No one else but mine... I was the parent on duty and I failed my son," Melissa Easter told Jones.

Nearly four years have passed. During the interview, the Easters wiped away tears. They held hands.

Their son would have turned 7 on Nov. 11, a day now commemorated at a cemetery. There will be no parties because of a "three minute mistake that cost us everything."

"We think it is important enough to tell people our story. Listen, it doesn't take long. It can happen in a blink of a minute. It will shatter your life. Your life will never be the same. It could easily be avoidable," Mark Easter told Jones for the story, part of a series on home safety.

Hiding a weapon and stashing it in a high place is not enough, Mark Easter indicated. "It doesn't matter," Melissa Easter interrupted, the WLNS video shows.

The news channel showed pictures of the boy in a police costume, wearing his father's too-big patrol cap.

"I lost my son," Mark Easter said. "What more could you do to me, you known, than that? There is no worse punishment than that."

The Michigan State Police investigated and a prosecutor declined to issue any charges. There was insufficient evidence to prove criminal negligence, said Washtenaw County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Steven Hiller, specially assigned in 2013 to review the case because of Mark Easter's position in Jackson County.

"I have other law enforcement friends that say, by the grace of God, you know, that wasn't me..." Easter told WLNS.

In the interview with Jones, Easter said he knows what he would do with more time, with a few moments on a bench. "I'd just like to hug him and tell him I love him, and that I'm sorry."