The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that Randy Scott, an employee at Euro Brokers, Inc. in the World Trade Center, was working on the 84th floor of the building when terrorists flew a United Airlines jet into the building. Because his office was near the point of impact, his family had always assumed that he had died on impact.
But that all changed last summer when his widow, Denise Scott, received a phone call from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of New York with news that they had identified something that belonged to Randy.
Dr. Barbara Butcher, chief of staff and director of forensic investigations at the office told her that they had found a note upon which Randy had scrawled five words: "84th floor - West Office - 12 people trapped"
That simple message, referred to by the family now as "the note", changed the entire narrative they had formed of his death - that it had been quick and painless. Now they knew that Randy had survived the initial impact and was holed up somewhere in the building with 11 other colleagues hoping to be rescued.
"I spent 10 years hoping that Randy wasn't trapped in that building," said Denise, 57, on Friday when she went public with the news. "You don't want them to suffer. They're trapped in a burning building. It's just an unspeakable horror. And then you get this 10 years later. It just changes everything."
During their conversation, Dr. Butcher retraced the note's path through the years, saying that it was found on the street outside the World Trade Centers on that fateful day and handed to a guard at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The bank kept the note safe and later turned it over to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. The museum worked with the medical examiner's office, which was able to trace it to Randy by analyzing a spot of blood on the paper.
"I'm speechless that they actually were able to identify it," Denise said. "This note was written on Sept. 11. It came out of a window. Somebody had it. People had their hands all over it."
She didn't need to see any proof that it was written by her husband. "The minute I saw it, I didn't need to see the DNA test," she said. "I saw the handwriting. It's Randy's handwriting."
Denise chose not to tell her three daughters about the note until this past January. When Rebecca, Alexandra and Jessica saw the note, they reacted the same way their mother did - with tears.
"I was bawling, because I recognized his handwriting," said Rebecca, 29.
The note not only changed their father's story, it also changed the narrative of the other 11 people who were with him.
"Everyone hoped that it was right on impact. That he didn't suffer," said Alexandra, 22. "Because, not only to know that he was trapped, but what he was going through? And we knew the guys in his office, too. And they had kids, and they had families, and to think that they were terrified."
The Scotts did what had to be done and shared the news with the relatives of Randy's co-workers so that they too might know the truth about the final moments of the lives of their loved ones.
Some families of 9/11 victims have opted not to be told if fragments of their loved ones are found, but Denise isn't one of them. "I can't do that," she repeated. "The last notification of remains I got was in 2008. And I can't do that. I can't leave him there. I cannot leave him there."
Better to know the truth, even when it brings new pain and sorrow.
"It tells people the story of the day," she said.
Denise has given the 9/11 museum permission to exhibit the letter which the chief curator, Jan Ramirez, says is "exceptionally rare."
She told the Chronicle: "There have been other pieces of paper that came out of the towers that day, to which we have been able to attach some powerful stories, but none have been quite as rare and unusual and inspiring and sad and touching as this particular one. It really is in a class by itself."
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