SAN DIEGO — Mari Gordon-Rayborn rummages through plastic bag after plastic bag, sometimes returning to the same one to scour through in search of something seemingly unattainable.
The backseat of Gordon-Rayborn's white Nissan Versa is filled with white plastic bags, her life's possessions since becoming homeless in 2012.
The little sedan has been Gordon-Rayborn's home for nine years. She parks it every night on the outskirts of El Cajon and Santee, less than two miles from Santana High School where in 2001, her son Randy was shot dead in San Diego County's deadliest school shooting.
Gordon-Rayborn said her life was destroyed that day. While it took a few years to collapse entirely, it was that singular loss that led her to life on the streets. She's suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, permanently hunched over from debilitating back pain and forever in grief for her son, Randy.
On September 10, her son's killer, Andy Williams, will have his chance at parole. On that day, Williams, whom CBS 8 interviewed in 2023, will tell California Parole Board Members why he should be granted a second chance.
Williams will also read dozens of letters he penned from his prison cell to his victims that day, and to the mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters of the two boys he killed on March 5, 2001.
Those same victims, their family members, and former classmates still traumatized by the day's events will face Williams for the first time in more than 23 years.
On September 10, Gordon-Rayborn will log on to the parole hearing from her small white compact car and tell Williams how he ended not only her son's life but nearly hers as well.
"I guess my world went black for a bit. I think I went somewhere. There's my life before the shooting, and then after the shooting." said Gordon-Rayborn.
'It destroyed my family'
Gordon-Rayborn walks toward a set of steel picnic tables near an enclosed duck pond overlooking a storm tunnel by Gillespie Field.
Gordon-Rayborn looks frail, her shoulder bones protrude from her small frame. She leans to her left side, permanently hunched over from a severely curved spine, and suffers from numerous physical ailments as well as a seemingly equal number of mental health ailments such as depression, PTSD and anxiety. The look on her face appears to be half-smile, half grimace from the pain.
Gordon-Rayborn looks into the channel as a trolley passes across from the storm channel.
She sleeps there sometimes when the pain in her back is unbearable.
"Down there, I could lay down on a mat, sometimes it's easier for me to be on concrete, to be able to stretch out," she said. "Every time I'm in the car I can't stay flat or, you know, stretch out. My back is in too much pain. I really can't take anything, because I've got ulcers, and I've had six transfusions from bleeding ulcers, I can't take anything to help."
Gordon-Rayborn said she has tried to find housing but options are scarce. Her disabilities prevent her from entering most shelters and she is scared to live in a congregate shelter setting or share a room with someone.
After the trolley passes, Gordon-Rayborn turns somber as she begins to speak about her son Randy and the day, March 5, 2001, when Andy Williams shot him to death as he walked with his friend to class.
"It destroyed my family. I got PTSD and I got too sick to work. Then we lost our home. I lost my other two kids, and everybody in my family left me."
Gordon-Rayborn said she first learned about Williams' chance at parole from CBS 8's reporting. She said she also heard the interviews with Williams.
March 5, 2001
But before commenting on Williams and the interviews, the former nurse talked about the day when her 17-year-old son was shot dead from a bullet in the back of his neck.
She was driving on State Route 52 to her home from a doctor's appointment when she heard the news on the radio.
"I heard that there had been a shooting at Santana. I didn't realize until I had almost gotten to the off-ramps I was going over 80 [miles-per-hour]," she said.
"I got to the market on the corner near the school where everyone was gathering and I saw Randy's [military] recruiter and he shook his head," Gordon-Rayborn recalled. "I knew something was wrong."
Gordon-Rayborn then went to the Del Taco across from the school, the official triage location for victims and their families. At first, she said the people there told her to leave, meaning Randy was not a victim. That changed shortly after.
"A teacher grabbed me. Randy had collapsed near her classroom. Looking back I know she knew he was dead but she wasn't allowed to tell me. She just put her arm around me, grabbed my shoulder and pulled me towards the Del Taco," Gordon-Rayborn said,
It was a captain from the San Diego Sheriff's Department who approached her.
"I don't like hearing those words anymore but he said, 'I'm sorry to inform you that your son is dead," she said.
Gordon-Rayborn said her entire world changed that day.
Soon after, she and her husband began having problems and she grew estranged from her other two children.
"God wanted Randy more, and this almost killed me losing him. I had him when I was 16, and I was almost 34 when I lost him," said Gordon-Rayborn, "I know life would be a lot different. I had a home and a family, and that's all I ever wanted. Ever."
'He doesn't want to stay in jail anymore. That's too bad'
While Gordon-Rayborn's pain and heartache are evident, so too is her disdain for her son's killer.
Listening to CBS 8's interviews with Andy Williams from prison didn't help.
"Nobody talks to the victims. They talk to him a lot," said Gordon-Rayborn. "He's very eloquent. I listened to the interview you had with him and he says a lot of words, but not the right ones, because when you don't know what those words mean, you can't use them in the right way. He never says, 'I'm sorry' for what he did."
CBS 8 shared a letter Williams wrote to her and her family which he plans to read at the Sept. 10 hearing. It is one of more than a dozen letters that Williams wrote to his victims and the community.
"I am so very sorry for the inexcusable and senseless murder of Randy. You had an amazing family unit and I had no right to break into your lives and steal such a promising young man away from you. My callous actions took your boy from you and with the deepest remorse, I am sorry," reads an excerpt of Williams's letter.
Gordon-Rayborn was unconvinced.
"He took two lives and he tried to take 13 others, put seven bullets in the campus supervisor. He put a gun behind somebody's head and shot him. He said in his interview that he doesn't want to stay in jail anymore. That's too bad," she said.
"I want to understand why," said Gordon-Rayborn. "I understand that the laws have changed, but that doesn't change what he did. It doesn't change the lives he affected. Not just my life was affected but every student there, everybody in that community, everything changed that day."
Gordon-Rayborn fears what may happen if Williams is released.
"He killed two people, including my son. He took their lives. I don't think I have the right to steal anybody's stuff or hurt them. I've never hurt anybody on purpose. If you don't have an understanding between right and wrong, I think you're going to be a reasonable danger to society."
While she has moral questions about Williams's actions that day, the grief and the loss of her eldest son Randy appear at the forefront of everything about Gordon-Rayborn's life.
His death marked the beginning of the end of her family, drove her to destitution, and forced her to the streets of El Cajon. She remains in a painful limbo, not traveling more than a few miles from Santana High School.
As she hopes to be able to find housing and take care of her medical issues, Gordon-Rayborn said more than anything, she looks forward to one day maybe being reunited with her son.
"I have a date in heaven, now I just need to get there," she said.
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