NOTE: This is the text of a letter written by David Howard to one of his friends in the U.S., Bob Armstrong, who was attending the Stony Brook School on Long Island at the time. Both boys were 14 years old. David did not keep a copy of the letter, but Bob showed it to his headmaster, who recognized its significance and sent a copy to David Howard, Sr. The text below is retyped from that copy; the original syntax, spelling, and punctuation are retained unchanged.

Thursday, September 15, 1966

Dear Bob,

I'm real sorry that I haven't written you. The last I wrote was in May.

On July 25, Mr. Fowler came down from the mountains and took me up to be with them for a couple of weeks. Their boy, Johnny, is my age. I had been up there for a little over a week when he was killed.

On Wednesday, August 3, Mr. Fowler took his daughter, Valerie, 15, and the Colombian girl who helps them in their home, Elvira, on a hike up to the ridge about a half a day of walking away. They ate lunch up there, and were due to come back down at about 5 in the afternoon. At about 4, I was up in the little hut where I had been sleeping when Mrs. Fowler shouted, "David, come here, I need you." So I came down (the hut was about 40 yards from the house). When I got there, there was a group of 7 well-armed men dressed as police there, talking to her. I wondered what she wanted me for. Later, it turned out that she just got kind of nervous when those men got there. She didn't need me. It proved to be of the Lord, since if I had been up at the tent when those guys went up there to rob, and found me there, they would have shot me right then.

They said they were a police commission, looking for "bad people." They said they were going to spend the night over the ridge. Mrs. Fowler whispered to me, "I bet they're looking for Communists." I noticed that they didn't have on police's pants; one had on jeans. They didn't have on boots, they had sneakers. They must have stolen the shirts and caps. One of them had a beard. We learned later that Colombian police don't wear beards. I noticed that one of them was about 17, and I wondered how he could have gotten into the police at that age. Well, anyways, we talked for a while, then the leader asked for something cold to drink. So we took them in and served them lemonade and bananas.

Then they stood up. Mrs. Fowler told them to wait for coffee. Then the leader forced us all at gun-point to line up against the kitchen counter. Then they forced her into the bedroom. They said they were going to search the house. We thought they were just police looking for illegal stuff. But after about 10 minutes, they began throwing stuff around. Then I knew that they weren't police, but criminals. But what could we do? They had guys at each door, and one about 10 feet from us with a cocked pistol pointed right at me. After about 20 minutes, the dog started barking. They quickly became alert, and pointed their guns at the door. (One of them had a machine-gun.) It turned out to be an Indian, coming to visit us. They made him come over by us.

10 minutes later, they told me and the other kids to come. I though they would line us up against the wall and mow us down. But they took us into the little room where the washbowl was and told us they'd have guards posted at the door and the window, and that if anyone came out they wouldn't be responsible. The thing that saved our lives throughout the whole time, was our timidness. If we had ever made any protest, they would have shot the whole bunch of us. We prayed almost the whole time we were in there, not that we'd be saved, but for forgiveness of sins, so as to be ready to come into His presence. I became quite happy at the thought of seeing Jesus in less than half an hour. For days afterwards, Mrs. Fowler kept marvelling that they didn't end it all up by shooting us all. We guessed they wanted to save bullets! All this time they were ransacking the house, and even fighting over pens. They were totally ignorant. They asked us what a camera was, and what it said on the film, when it said plain as day, Kodak. Oh, what beasts! If Mrs. Fowler didn't answer right up, they'd say they would take the kids with them. Since she couldn't hear us, she thought they maybe had beheaded us or taken us away.

Then after about fifteen minutes, they brought Mrs. Fowler in, too. We talked, and she prayed aloud. We settled down to a period of whispers and waiting. Though we didn't know it, the men went up to the tent, and took all my stuff, including my watch, school ring, camera, clothes, and pack. They tore the sheet off the cot there, and burned it. The strange thing was that they did it outside the tent on the grass! We wondered at that later, and concluded that they must have gotten the mimeograph ink on their hands, and left fingerprints on the white sheet.

All of a sudden we heard a gun go off. Then we heard another one about three seconds later. I said, "That's the Indians!" Mrs. Fowler said tensely, "No. that's Ernest." I realized that she was right. Then we heard still another shot. That was when we heard the girls screaming and crying. Mr. Fowler was like a father to Elvira. She lived with them, ate at their table, and was one of the family. She felt his death as bad as anyone. The girls' screams continued. I thought they had shot the girls in the leg, or something like that. When they got to the house they didn't see or hear anyone, so they expected to find us all dead. You see, we thought there was still someone in the house, so we kept quiet. Finally we asked them if anyone was there, and when they said no, we came out. The first thing Valerie said was, "They killed Daddy!"

This is what they told us: They had cut their way down the mountain through the grass. They stopped to look for his glasses, and couldn't find them. Elvira said she had never seen Mr. Fowler so tired, because the day before he had just come back from a real rugged overnight trip with Johnny and me up a terrifically steep mountain. They finally got onto the trail about 5 minutes before they met up with the bandits. Now think, if they had just left the ridge 10 minutes later, he would have missed them! I guess that was the Lord's plan. That morning, I had pleaded with the girls to let me go with them, but they said it was their trip. I had had mine the day before. If I had been with them, Mrs. Fowler told me later, I would have been killed, too. I guess it was Mr. Fowler's time to leave us, but that the rest of us still have things to do for the Lord.

When they were about 500 yards from the house, they met the guys. Mr. Fowler said hello to them, thinking they were police. They asked him for his rifle, which they took in case they saw any game, etc. He asked them for a receipt, so he could get it back later from the police station. Then they asked the girls for their machetes. Elvira took hers off and said, "Take all our stuff, but leave us alive." That may have given them the bright idea of killing him. Then Mr. Fowler saw one of the tape recorders, and said, "What are you going to do with that?" They responded, "None, of your business." So they asked him for his machete. He was kind of hesitant, but gave it to them, again asking for a receipt. Then one of the guys simply pulled the trigger, and he was hit in the mouth, killing him instantly. He fell up against the side of the trail, and rolled over on his side. Then the same guy shot him in the back through the heart. They asked the girls roughly where the other men were. Valerie threw herself on him and cried, "Ay, Elvira, They killed Daddy!" So one of the man snarled, "Shut your trap!" Elvira told them that they had just killed the only man around. They told the girls that if they didn't be quiet, the same thing would happen to them. Then they started urging each other to hurry up, and finally took off at a run. Now what would 7 armed men, young and in their prime, hope to gain by killing an old (58 years old) man that was unarmed, after they had robbed everything they wanted? They were evidently afraid, for they fired at a rock rolling down the hill. (The third shot). They threw the machetes into the brush. Elvira rushed on to the house, while Valerie lingered with her father to turn him onto his back, and empty his mouth of blood. Then she caught up to Elvira, and they arrived at the house together.

After about 20 minutes of crying, Mrs. Fowler asked one of the Indians that had been in the house while the robbers were there, to go get Mr. Fowler and bring him back. The Indian was afraid. So we all decided to go. Then Alison didn't want to go, but she didn't want to stay home alone. So, Mrs. Fowler stayed with her, and the rest of us took a ladder, a canvas tarp, and a towel. I went ahead with the towel. When I got there, I was sick. I wrapped the towel around his head and waited for the others to catch up. There was a ring of Indians around him, but no one would touch him, since by their customs only the immediate family is supposed to touch a corpse. When Johnny got there, he flopped down on him and sobbed. He cried most of the way home. We got the ladder ready, with the tarp on it, and rolled Mr. Fowler over onto it. When we tried to pick him up, we hardly could. I asked one of the Indians if he would help us carry him. Nothing doing. So we went slowly, stopping to rest about every thirty yards.

When we got home, we put him under a tree, and started digging his grave. But we got too tired, and decided to sleep in the field by the grave. We didn't want to sleep in the house. We thought that the bandits might come back, and made us let them sleep in the house. After about 20 minutes, we saw a light coming down from one of the Indian villages. We got scared, and hid behind a huge boulder in the field. It turned out to be Indians. But then we heard a shout from the main trail, where Mr. Fowler was killed, which the Indians said was a "civilized voice." So we got our bedding and took off for the nearest village, a half hour away. On the way, the light kept getting closer and closer. We decided that if it was the bandits, we'd dive into the brush, and stay together. You see, I was afraid that they'd come back after a few hours, and shoot us all, because we came out of the bathroom. Well, anyway, we got to the village safely, and the voice turned out to be one of the Christian Colombian men, who had heard the shots and had come to investigate.

He told us that we had to leave the house in the condition it was, and that we shouldn't touch the body, because that was the law. We would have to send word down to the police in the nearest town, 8 hours away. We couldn't bury him. So Johnny and the chief of the village took off to the house of another Christian man, 2 hours away, at 9:30 P.M. He got back at 1:30. When they got to the man's house, the man sent his hired man down at 11:30. He himself came down to our village at 3:30, arriving at 5:30 in the morning.

We doubled up on our sleeping bags, blankets, etc. and slept in short snatches the rest of the night. When Jesus Perez got there in the early morning, we went back down to the house. We found that some of the Indian women had taken the rest of the food, and other small items during the night. Mr. Perez left to go down the mountain at 6:30. He told me I could go up to his house and get food, and get his son to come down to help us in any way that he could. So I left at 7. When I got to the ridge, I expected to look across to another ridge, and see the robbers over there. On the way back, I heard a gunshot in the other valley. I guess it was someone hunting. We dug the grave in the afternoon.

About 5:30 on Thursday, we had a little service together, singing, reading the Bible, and praying. When we went to bed at 7, we could begin to smell Mr. Fowler, even up at the tent. No one wanted to sleep inside the tent, so we slept under the thatch roof beside the tent. Right after we went to bed, we heard a shout. Someone was coming. Then I heard the tramp of a horse, and knew that it couldn't be the bandits, since they didn't have any horses. But I didn't tell anyone this, and they were all scared. The person kept shouting, but since we didn't answer he went on. It turned out to be the hired man coming back, but he didn't know our names, so we weren't going to answer anybody who didn't know our names. Then at 11:30, we woke up to hear someone else shouting. We got up and prepared to run away, but it turned out to be Jesus Perez, with the police commission, and Mr. Clark, another missionary in that area, whose 10-year old son was with us, too. The police took reports from us as to the men's appearance, etc. We went to bed again at 1:30, and woke up at 5.

At 5:30 in the morning, Friday, August 5, over 36 hours after the tragedy, we buried him. Mr. Clark took his ring off, and gave it to me, and I grabbed his beret that he had been wearing, and took them to Mrs. Fowler. She told me to bury the beret with him. So I ran back to the grave and threw it in. After we had the grave half-filled, the girls and Mrs. Fowler came out of the house, and we had a short funeral service. I think it impressed the policemen, since Colombian services for non-Christians are full of screaming and wailing. No one even cried, now.

Then we set about cleaning up the house. We took down the tent, and put everything into one room, so that the Indians couldn't take anything. The house was swarming with Indians. At 12, we left the place that when we came up had seemed so beautiful and warm, but that now [was] a place of horror for all of us, and would be associated in our minds from now on as the place where Mr. Fowler had been murdered in cold blood. It was good that he was buried there, because that was where his heart was, and that was the place he loved. He loved the Indians, and was one of them. Mrs. Fowler was saying afterwards that even if he had known that he would be killed this summer up there, he would likely have come up anyways. That was the type of person he was. Unselfish, and willing to stay in the background, out of the limelight. Mrs. Fowler said that he stepped out of the way to let the Christian giants pass, and stayed behind to help the ones struggling up. He did that in the real sense, too, on the trails; he'd wait for me to catch up to him many times. One of the things I'll remember him for is his happy nature. Elvira, who had lived with the Fowlers for 5 years, says she has only seen him get mad once!

When we were about 45 minutes from the bottom of the mountain, we met my father coming up the trail. The rest of the story you can read in my father's report on the tragedy.

Your friend,

David