The Hunt

Transcript of the Final Wish Foundation press conference regarding the fulfillment of Timothy Langford’s wish.

Dr. Wilson Davis, director of the Final Wish Foundation: Good afternoon. Thank you for coming. I know there are many questions so I will keep my remarks short and direct before allowing Susan Hancock to…

Unidentified audience member: Murderer!

[Indistinguishable audience disturbance]

Dr. Davis: Excuse me. I’d like to say a few words before allowing Ms. Hancock to make several remarks about the fulfillment of little Timothy Langford’s wish.

Doctors diagnosed Timothy with stage IV inoperable cancer in April. When visited by our representatives, Timothy expressed his deep and abiding desire not to die a slow, debilitating death. Instead, he asked to be felled by the hand of a worthy human adversary before the inevitable decline of his strength and mobility. Despite the unusual nature of Timothy’s plea, the Final Wish Foundation is committed to honoring the last requests of terminally ill children. Furthermore, the Langford family expressed their unconditional support of Timothy’s desire not to die in a hospital bed, but in a jungle, fighting against impossible odds.

After extensive internal debate and exhaustive legal consultations, the foundation concluded that, in pursuance of Timothy’s final wish, we would contract world renowned bowhunter Susan Hancock to track and kill Timothy on an unclaimed island in the South China Sea.

[Indistinguishable audience disturbance]

Dr. Davis: Please. Please. We will have time for your questions in just a moment. The Foundation assembled a panel of military experts and big game hunters to determine the particulars of how to best grant Timothy’s wish. Those of us on the board—admittedly with no experience taking life, either human or animal—initially argued in favor of arming a hunter with a bolt-action rifle, but our advisers countered that even an unskilled gamesman could easily create a pinch-point and funnel Timothy into an open clearing where he could be shot from afar. The lack of sportsmanship required under such conditions stood at odds with Timothy’s final wish.

As such, our panel of advisers suggested that the hunter be armed with a bow and a singular arrow. Meanwhile, we contracted the services of three ex-Green Berets to train Timothy how to avoid detection, set defensive traps and, finally, we armed him with a survival knife. Such a tool could be used to manufacture improvised protective measures or, in the event that the hunter misfired her only arrow, Timothy might hope to use it against her. It was, however, widely assumed that on account of his size and strength—both as a 12-year-old boy and a person with stage IV, terminal cancer—Timothy would lose in direct hand-to-hand combat, but not without first feeling the rush of life that grips one’s heart in a life-or-death struggle.

After four weeks of intensive training at Fort Bragg, retired Staff Sergeant Sam Parker and Timothy were flown to Manila and then helicoptered onto the island where they were given three days to fortify and otherwise prepare. On the third day, observers exfiltrated Staff Sergeant Parker and inserted Ms. Hancock by boat at approximately 3am local time.

Over the course of the ensuing three days, Ms. Hancock proceeded to stalk Timothy across the island. While she discovered and disabled the majority of his traps, she triggered three devices. One malfunctioned, while the remaining two succeeded in driving a sharpened stick through her left foot and propelling gravel into her face, puncturing her right eyeball, resulting in permanent loss of vision.

Unidentified audience member: Cut out her other eye!

[Indistinguishable audience disturbance]

Dr. Davis: Excuse me. At approximately 4:27pm local time on the third day, Timothy stopped inside a patch of dense foliage to consume a slice of marbled pound cake from his daily ration. From across a stream, Ms. Hancock sensed motion, which resulted in her spotting Timothy. She waited until he’d swallowed the last bite of cake, noting a look of contentment in the child’s eye, and then she fired her arrow directly through his heart. A team of medical doctors later determined that Timothy died instantaneously.

Despite the subsequent public response, we here at Final Wish consider this outcome the successful fulfillment of Timothy’s wish not to be killed by cancer. I’d now like to turn the microphone over to Ms. Hancock.

Unidentified audience members: Cut her throat! Cut her throat! Cut her throat!

Dr. Davis: Please. Please. Allow Ms. Hancock to speak.

Susan Hancock, bowhunter: I want to thank Dr. Davis…

Dr. Davis: [Inaudible]

Ms. Hancock: I want to thank Dr. Davis, everyone at the Final Wish Foundation, and the members of the media for affording me the opportunity to speak. For as long as I can remember, I have been a hunter. When I was a baby, my father used to strap me to his back and hike into the wilderness to track deer. As soon as I was old enough to fire an arrow, I hunted alongside him. I can’t remember exactly when but from a very young age I came to believe that there’s an interconnectedness to all life. To hunt and kill a deer is to share in its life force, to taste the plants it ate, to drink the water that sustained those plants, to feel the sun that allowed them to grow, and to merge fully with the universe that gave life to our sun.

[Indistinguishable audience disturbance]

Ms. Hancock: Can I continue?

Dr. Davis: [Inaudible]

Ms. Hancock: Life is, by its very nature, cyclical. Whether we are taken by illness or eaten by a predator, we all must face an end. While no creature desires a premature termination, no being can deny its role within this cycle. I do not suppose to know whether it is right or wrong for humans to predetermine their own end but I do believe in my core that Timothy knew his place within this cycle and sought a natural death. Not the artificial one we humans manufacture in hospitals, unnaturally extending an ailing life beyond its allotted time.

[Indistinguishable audience disturbance]

Ms. Hancock: I’m sorry. I wanted to say that when I first received Dr. Davis’ offer, I was reluctant to accept. I understand that my views are not widely held. Even for those among us who support voluntary euthanasia, there exists a struggle with the idea of enacting it for a child with a bow and arrow. However, Timothy made a choice and I helped him realize it. My conservation work in Africa has taught me that …

Dr. Davis: Excuse me, Ms. Hancock. It seems to me that this is a good moment to take questions from members of the media. Before we start, I’d like to remind all of you of the ground rules to which you have already agreed: no questions for Mrs. Langford and no questions about the final moments of the hunt video. Okay. Yes, Matt. Let’s start with you.

Matt Dylan, The New York Times: Yes, thank you, Dr. Davis. Ms. Hancock, I am curious about your work in Africa. Surely, after the Theodore the Lion incident last year you must have been aware that the public was going to have a problem with you hunting not just a celebrity lion but an actual human boy?

Ms. Hancock: Actually, I …

Dr. Davis: Yes, Matt. If you must know, aside from her prowess as a hunter, Ms. Hancock’s role in the Etosha National Park incident you’ve mentioned is largely what drew her to our attention. A number of other hunters have given up the sport altogether after experiencing that kind of fallout, but Ms. Hancock persisted. Her ability to articulate the moral justification of such an action in the face of a fierce public outcry made us certain that she was the right person for this job.

Mr. Dylan: Activists burned down your house after you killed Theodore, is that right, Ms. Hancock?

Ms. Hancock: Yes. That’s correct. I, uh, I lost everything.

[Applause]

Ms. Hancock: I lost my house after that incident but I want to state unequivocally that legal trophy hunting in Africa is critical to providing the funds and resources required to protect lions and wildlife throughout the continent. This is not a simple, black and white issue. Countries that have banned it …

Unidentified audience member: Kill yourself!

[Indistinguishable audience disturbance]

Dr. Davis: Let’s take another question. Jane. Let’s go with you.

Jane Cass, The Washington Post: Thanks, Dr. Davis. Susan, tell me: How did hunting a human boy differ from hunting a game animal?

Ms. Hancock: It is my abiding belief that the experience of being hunted removes all barriers between humans and animals. During my tour of duty in Afghanistan, I served in the Army’s 720th Military Police Battalion. We were assigned to convoy security in Kandahar. I had the highest range scores of anyone in my platoon so my platoon sergeant made me his turret gunner whenever we went outside the wire. We protected supply convoys so we did not actively seek to engage the enemy. Our duty was to defend the convoy. All we could do was wait to get hit by a roadside bomb or drive into an ambush, so we were, in a way, hunted. We behaved like any other animal I’ve stalked in the wild. We left tracks, we made noises and, sometimes, fear pushed us to behave outside of reason. Had the enemy gotten close enough they would have smelled our fear pheromones.

Ms. Cass: Did you kill anyone in Afghanistan?

Ms. Hancock: Yes, no. I can’t be certain. We did engage the enemy but it is impossible to say whether I personally shot and killed a combatant.

Ms. Cass: So Timothy was the first human you killed?

Ms. Hancock: I’m not sure but what I wanted to say is that when I was in Kandahar, I’d just stand up in the turret, everything above my waist sticking outside the vehicle, exposed to shrapnel, snipers, and anything else the enemy could hit us with. I’d often think about all the advantages we had over the Taliban. The sheer resources—air superiority, armored vehicles, millions of dollars worth of Army training. For fuck’s sake, sorry. Excuse me. But we were delivering ice cream to troops at tiny outposts in the middle of the desert. That is how well resourced we were. And yet, a bunch of insurgents armed with rifles from the Cold War could still find ways to kill us, to make us feel hunted every time we stepped outside the wire.

When I was on the island with Timothy, I remembered that feeling. I remembered the terror but also the exhilaration. The effort and discipline it took to stay focused under that level of stress. Although the Foundation took great pains to provide Timothy with military training, he was still not a professional soldier or a seasoned gamesman. But after my time in Afghanistan, I never for a second assumed he would be “easy” to hunt. Every hunt is its own form of asymmetrical warfare and anyone who has ever fought in such a conflict knows that it’s a supreme act of arrogance to think that it will be unchallenging to go up against an ill-trained, poorly-equipped adversary.

From the beginning, Timothy impressed me. He was always careful. He wore moccasins, never made a fire, and I almost never saw him leave an easily discernible trail. The snares he set for me were devastatingly effective, as evidenced by my eye and foot. Not even the Taliban hurt me like he did. I gained great respect for him as I tracked him across that island. Timothy and I forged a deep bond. I carry his spirit with me even now as I stand before you.

Ms. Cass: But as a mother, what was it like to kill a child?

Ms. Hancock: I’m sorry?

Ms. Cass: You have two children, one from each of your marriages, correct?

Ms. Hancock: Yes. I do have two children who I love more than anything. I afforded Timothy the same respect I would my own kids, were they ever in such a situation.

Ms. Cass: So you’re saying you’d bow hunt your own children?

[Indistinguishable audience disturbance]

Ms. Hancock: I just…

Dr. Davis: Let’s take another question. Paul. Please. Go ahead.

Paul Simpson, CNN: Yes, thank you. Dr. Davis, would the Foundation have addressed this issue without the tapes going public?

Dr. Davis: The Final Wish Foundation values the privacy of all our wish recipients. If a family consents, we often publish videos of children’s wish fulfillment. As I’m sure all of you know, many such videos have received viral attention. Last year, more than 43 million people viewed a video of Grace Trieb skydiving with a small colony of chinstrap penguins. The video of Larry Page reading a death row inmate his final rites received more than 76 million views. However, in these cases the families consented to the release of the footage.

For legal reasons, we employed a network of more than 237 cameras throughout the island to record the hunt. However, the Langford family requested that all surveillance content remain private. We have subsequently issued cease and desist letters to all the websites currently hosting it. I’d like to remind you of all people here today, Paul, that this includes CNN, which has shown the video on live television at least 17 times in the last 24 hours.

Mr. Simpson: The video is public domain at this point.

Martha Langford, Timothy’s mother: Shame on you for making a spectacle of my son!

[Indistinguishable disturbance]

Mr. Simpson: Mrs. Langford, tell us…

Dr. Davis: Please, Paul. You know the ground rules. The Langfords have requested not to field any questions.

Mr. Simpson: Susan, what happened in the end of the video? Why did you…

[Indistinguishable audience disturbance]

Dr. Davis: Paul. The ground rules. Please. We’ll take another question. Louisa, go ahead.

Louisa Lordkipanidse, The Guardian: Yes. Thank you. Susan, did you, I’m wondering, did you deviate at all from Timothy’s request in the end?

Ms. Hancock: In all the time…

Dr. Davis: Excuse me, Louisa. The ground rules. Please, we will not be addressing the final moments of Timothy’s wish fulfillment.

Ms. Hancock: It’s okay. I’m comfortable speaking about it. I want a chance…

Dr. Davis: I appreciate your commitment to candor, Ms. Hancock but we cannot issue a public statement…

Mrs. Langford: Let her explain, Will.

Dr. Davis: Next question. Let’s go to you, Lars.

Lars Christenson, Aftonbladet Daily: The facts are widely available at this point in time. All of us have seen the video. Please, Dr. Davis, afford Ms. Hancock an opportunity to explain.

Dr. Davis: [Inaudible side conversation between Ms. Hancock, Mrs. Langford and members of the Final Wish Foundation legal team.] Fine. Ms. Hancock, go ahead.

Ms. Hancock: Void of context, I understand how the video must have appeared to many of you.

Unidentified audience member: Fucking cannibal!

[Indistinguishable audience disturbance]

Ms. Hancock: I’m so sorry about that. For me, hunting has never been about killing. It is about understanding our place within the universe. In Afghanistan, I never hated anyone who tried to kill me and upon whom I turned my weapon. I respected their decision to defend their homeland from people who they perceived as foreign occupiers.

[Indistinguishable audience disturbance]

Ms. Hancock: I apologize but every animal I’ve tracked and killed, whether an unnamed deer or Theodore the lion…

[Indistinguishable audience disturbance]

Ms. Hancock: Sorry but everything I hunt, I see as an extension of the self. I am grateful for the role they’ve played in the continuation of life on this earth. For the experience they’ve given me and how their death helps sustain life.

When I located Timothy inside a dense patch of rhododendron on the third day, I’d lost a significant amount of blood through my foot and eye wounds. Without sacrificing my concealment, I rested against a rock and observed him. Timothy was a beautiful child. I was surviving off the same type of rations as Timothy so I knew the marbled pound cake he was eating. It was quite similar to the ones we received in our MREs back in Afghanistan. It’s not that the marbled pound cake isn’t good but, in general if you’ve had marbled pound cake before, you know it can be better than this particular variety. But when you are hunted, food, it tastes different and as I watched Timothy savor those last bites, I understood his experience with that piece of marbled pound cake. It was my own. It tasted sweeter than anything he’d ever eaten. When he finished, I could feel how he felt. I could feel the life in his body. I knew this was the moment for us to become one so I dispatched him without hesitation.

Standing over his remains, I gave thanks for his life. My subsequent actions were not premeditated. They came as a reflex. I unsheathed my field knife, cut open his chest, and removed his heart. I felt its weight. Not just its physical weight but how it had kept this boy’s vessel alive. I knew immediately that I was to be a vehicle to carry on his energy, to let Timothy’s light shine through my own soul until whenever I shuffle off this mortal coil and pass on our combined light to something else.

[Indistinguishable audience disturbance]

Dr. Davis: That’s enough, Ms. Hancock. Thank you.

Mrs. Langford: May I say some brief words?

Dr. Davis: Yes, of course, please go ahead.

Mrs. Langford: Timothy was never what I would call a “typical” boy. Before he got… before his diagnosis, he used to watch online videos of a shaman in the Yukon territory. This shaman talked at length about the connection between all living beings. Although Timothy’s father and I are devout Christians, Timothy did not believe in God as we did. He’d found spirituality in nature. A year before he got… A year before all this started, we took the family fishing. When he and his father caught a 723-pound bluefin tuna, they hauled it on to the deck of the boat. It was thrashing and causing chaos. Both Timothy and his dad piled onto the tuna, stabbing it until it stopped moving. When it was still, they cut out its heart and ate it together. It was their way of concluding the hunt, of knowing they’d taken a life that would enable them to continue their own.

We never agreed for Ms. Hancock to… for her to handle Timothy’s remains like that, like he did with the tuna, but I know that Timothy would have understood, that this would have been his final wish: to be hunted by someone who understood life and death as he did.

Unidentified audience member: Fuck you, hippie bitch!

[Indistinguishable audience disturbance]

Dr. Davis: Are you okay, Martha? [Inaudible] Fine. Okay. Do we have any more questions? Yes. Todd.

Todd Barkey, Daily News Online: Thanks, Will. We’ve been hearing rumors that Child Protective Services will take custody of the two remaining Langford children. Can you confirm this?

Mrs. Langford: Shame on you!

Dr. Davis: Authorities have raised questions about the mental fitness of the Langford parents but it’s not our place to comment on their intentions. Dan, let’s go to…

Mr. Barkey: One more question, please.

Dr. Davis: Fine. Go ahead.

Mr. Barkey: Ms. Hancock, is it true that you currently live at 2212 Orchard Lane, Newport Beach, California?

Ms. Hancock: No! No! [Indistinguishable sobbing]

Dr. Davis: Please. This is not the place for this behavior! Bob, strike that from the record. [Inaudible] What do you mean you can’t? [Inaudible] Live-streamed? Isn’t there a three-second delay? [Inaudible] Only for the television broadcast? [Inaudible] Not online?

Ms. Hancock: You said this wouldn’t happen, Will! My kids are home! Let me get to my children!

Mr. Barkey: 949-263-0772!

[Indistinguishable audience disturbance]

Dr. Davis: Remove him, Bob!

Mr. Barkey: Smash your phone and run but we’ll find you, you murdering cunt!

[Indistinguishable audience disturbance]

Dr. Davis: Excuse me. Once all of you quiet down, I would like to tell you about another wish fulfillment recipient, little Jonathan Fletcher. When doctors gave Jonathan six months to live, he contacted us to relay his final wish: revenge for Theodore the lion.

[Indistinguishable audience disturbance]

Yes. Excuse me. The Foundation does not take a side on political issues, such as the relationship between legal trophy hunting and conservation. Our sole focus remains the fulfillment of dying children’s wishes. As such, we worked with our legal team to fulfill Jonathan Fletcher’s wish, revealing Mrs. Hancock’s personal information, thereby exposing her to the wrath of militant environmental and/or children’s rights activists.

Through the exceptional work of our attorneys, we created terms that allowed for the storage of the Timothy Langford hunt video on a cloud server with well-known security flaws. Once hackers leaked the footage, we found an activist citizen journalist with a proven history of doxxing—Todd Barkey of the Daily News Online. We immediately issued him press credentials and invited him to the conference, trusting he would fulfill his purpose.

Now, if you’ll all please turn your attention to the monitors. The Fletcher family has generously consented to broadcasting the fulfillment of little Jonathan’s wish. On the screen to my right, you can see a mob descending upon Ms. Hancock’s home. It appears that her children are unable to exit due to the child safety locks installed by Ms. Hancock herself. On the monitor to the left, you can see Jonathan watching the video feed of Ms. Hancock’s house from his hospital bed. Bob, can we get the audio from Jonathan’s feed, please?

Jonathan Fletcher [on the monitor]: Can the kids get out?

Unidentified speaker [on the monitor]: No, Jonathan. They’re trapped inside.

Jonathan [on the monitor]: Good. Will Susan see them burn?

Unidentified speaker [on the monitor]: At the speed at which she’s driving, she’ll arrive in roughly ten minutes. That leaves plenty of time for her to see them incinerated but not enough time for her to save them.

Dr. Davis: Look at little Jonathan’s smile! We’ll let this video play out before we open up the floor for questions.