“High Noon Showdown With Midnight Hate”

By CAROLYN SZCZEPANSKI

Just before midnight on September 9, Thomas and Sylvia McFall were drifting off to sleep in their Missouri City home. They both had to get up early the next morning for their daily commute. Sylvia would head to her fifth-grade class in the Kansas City, Missouri, School District. Thomas works for an area corporation.

Then they heard a car stall near their driveway. A man started cursing loudly. Someone began banging on their front door.

“Nigger lover!” the man shouted. “I’m going to kill the nigger lover, your wife, your children and your girl.”

After living quietly in the small town for years, the McFalls never expected to be barraged with death threats in the middle of the night. They never expected the reaction they got from a 72-year-old cyclist in Liberty, either.