Too young to die

As a fifth-grader who had been accepted as a
flutist into the middle-school band, David
Carpenter-Kohler couldn’t wait to enter sixth
grade. And most recently as an eighth-grader who
volunteered to switch to percussion and play the
drums in the high-school marching band, he
couldn’t wait to be a freshman.
“It was something that he had been thinking about
for awhile, it was something he was looking
forward to,” his mother, Leiha Carpenter, told
msnbc.
David, 14, was influenced by his older sister to
practice an instrument before he entered Barberton
Middle School in Barberton, Ohio. “They were like
two peas in a pod, partners in crime,” Carpenter
said. “They stood up for each other. They were
together all of the time; you couldn’t separate
them.”
David’s mother required that he spend two hours
outside each day. He complied by playing football
with neighborhood friends. “Anywhere we go, if
there’s kids, they want to be with us. David would
go outside and the kids would run [to him], ‘Hey,
there’s David!’” his mother said. He planned to try
out for the high-school team, anticipating a need
to balance his schedule between participating in
and marching for the football team.
David collected baseball caps that demonstrated
his support for the Cleveland Browns. He always
joked about eventually joining the roster, his
mother said, “to make them a better team.”
David and his 18-year-old sister, Ashley Carpenter,
were fatally shot during an apparent home invasion
on Dec. 31, 2013 in Barberton. Their father later
died from gunshot wounds, and his girlfriend
suffered non-life threatening injuries from the
incident. Police arrested two men in connection to
the murders.
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