after a nine-year nationwide ban. Gary Mark Gilmore, convicted of killing motel manager Ben Bushnell in Provo, Utah, was the first death row inmate to trudge to his doom after the moratorium was lifted. He faced a firing squad in Provo twelve weeks later.
But none of the controversies or evils in the world touched young David’s life. He was the eldest of three boys. Brother Adam was born in 1978, followed by Max in 1983. “We had a Leave it to Beaver family,” Dave remarks, referencing the Cleavers, the fictitious squeaky-clean family in the popular television drama that debuted in 1957. The Kroupa family, however, was not only formed a whole generation after the Cleavers, they were also far more devoted to their religion than the TV family who were vague about their beliefs. “We grew up going to church. Southern Baptist. We went three times a week, once on Wednesday and twice on Sunday.”
The Southern Baptist Church is considered to be much more strict than the Baptist Church, and followers believe that each word in the Bible is the truth, while Baptists allow for looser interpretations. Their many differences include their stance on female clergy. The Baptists allow it, but Southern Baptists forbid it. Leaders of both denominations encourage old-fashioned family values, and neither is a fan of divorce or promiscuity. Southern Baptist ministers often preach the virtues of marriage and monogamy, but despite the indoctrination in their formative years, neither Dave nor his brothers embraced it. “My brothers never married, and I’m the only one who had kids.”
Their parents, however, have been happily married for over forty-five years. Tom and Trish worked hard to give their boys everything they needed. “My father worked at a printing company for forty years, and my mother was a county veteran-service officer for thirty-seven years,” says Dave, explaining that she processed documents to help veterans obtain their benefits.
The Kroupa home was inviting with its shuttered windows, peaked roof, and a big backyard for the boys to play in. It sat on a quiet, gently curving street where the sidewalks were shaded by American elms, hackberry, and sycamore trees. Yards were kept up in the family-oriented neighborhood where gardens bloomed in the summertime with bright red and yellow daylilies. Jack-o’-lanterns grinned from the porches in October, and nearly every house on the block wore strands of twinkling lights in December. Neighbors knew each other’s names, and they smiled and waved to each other.
It was an innocent era in Dave’s life, one that seems almost surreal when he looks back on it from the perspective of someone exposed to an evil he could not have imagined as a kid. The biggest crime to touch his life had been the theft of his father’s fishing tackle. Back then the Kroupa family looked forward to warm days when they could take their sixteen-foot boat out on one of the area’s many lakes. Between fishing trips, the boat was parked in front of their home. As the family slept one night, someone climbed onto their boat and stole the fishing tackle. It certainly wasn’t a violent crime, and it wasn’t even a mystery. The thief was a kid from down the street “who was always in trouble.”
“I grew up in the perfect household.” Dave is grateful for the good times and his idyllic childhood. His parents had a harmonious marriage, and the brothers usually got along pretty well with each other, too. His parents not only made their sons feel secure, they also encouraged their interests.
Dave gravitated toward sports, playing football on a City League team. “I was a football jock up until my freshman year of high school. I was good enough, but I wasn’t the fastest or the biggest or the smartest. I got plenty of trophies, but they hand out trophies to everybody. One year we won the championship. We beat the hell out of a team from Minneapolis. Some fancy team. Must have been seventh grade.”
The next year he fractured his leg the night before the first game of the season. “I broke my leg in three places during practice. It was the last time I ever played.” It was around that time that Dave started to rebel. “I grew my hair out long, I hung out with the wrong people, and I smoked. I even sported a Mohawk for a while.” It was the typical teenage rebellion, but Dave never got into real trouble.