Evidence technicians, detectives and beat cops remained behind, guarding a scene that extended half a block out in each direction from the restaurant.



But the Jackson brothers' mother remained. She blamed herself. She questioned her faith. She said she had nothing to live for, and that she planned to take her own life.



"I can't go on, my life is over. I'm about to goddamn kill myself. I was standing right here in the window, they killed 'em right in front of me."



Her family consoled her. They hugged her. When she ducked under the tape to try and see her sons, the officers guided her gently away from lines of sight but kept her inside the crime scene.



She paced through ankle-deep water in a nursing home parking lot to get to a black iron fence, peering into the yard where Raheem's body lay slumped against a tree. A relative nudged her away.



She settled in a space in the parking lot, inside the tape but near the officers, a space she called a "mutual zone" where she was about the same distance from each of her dead sons.



"I gotta stand with 'em both. I can't leave. I gotta stay with both my sons 'til they get 'em up," she said.