Destry’s Story: Business teacher Lucas Allen and his father Bart Allen remember their late brother and son, Destry Allen, through shared memories and Bart’s commemorative book: “A Pristine Suicide”

A pristine suicide. That’s what the Salina, Kansas police called the death of Destry Allen, business teacher Lucas Allen’s older brother.

There was no question to this case — Destry had killed himself at 17. The police didn’t investigate the death further; they thought it was clearly a suicide.

There was one detail, however, that stuck out to the Allen family. A trail of blood on a kitchen table above Destry’s body. Underneath a photo of Destry and his girlfriend. 

And a .22 caliber pistol stacked on top.

“You have to ask yourself, ‘how would your gun get on top of the picture?’” Destry’s father, Bart Allen said. “You have to bleed as you fall to the floor. So how did [Destry] manage to get the picture on top of the blood trail and then get the gun laying on top of the picture if [he’d] already fallen to the floor?”

This sequence of items on the kitchen table would become the basis of Bart’s belief that his son didn’t commit suicide. 

The Allens — Bart, Theresa, Lucas and Ransom — still don’t have a definite answer into Destry’s death 11 years later. However, Bart and Lucas each cope with the loss of Destry in their own ways — Bart’s book, “A Pristine Suicide,” and Lucas’s students.

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In Lucas’s classroom there’s a gray metal shelf in the corner. Nestled between textbooks and papers is “A Pristine Suicide.” Lucas asks Bart for five copies at the beginning of each school year to keep at school and by May all the books have been lent out to students. 

“I don’t know [the students’] story, but it’s clear that something has happened in their life and that they feel some connection towards the story,” Lucas said. “It could be a million different things. It doesn’t necessarily have to be the death of a loved one, but it can build a bridge for those students who might not speak up usually.”

Sophomore Hank Dodridge had Lucas for Financial Literacy last semester, and he learned about Destry’s story as Lucas shared the details of the case during his beginning of the year “About Us” presentations.

“I looked into it, I think that what happened to his brother is really tragic, and it’s amazing that he’s turned out to be such a great dude despite all that,” Dodridge said.

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“A Pristine Suicide” walks readers through Bart’s perspective of Destry’s death, starting on June 10, 2004 — the day he found his son in the family cabin. 

The last time Bart talked to Destry was at midnight, right before Destry drove behind his girlfriend’s car to make sure she got home safely. He trusted Destry would return home and go to bed before work the next day.

So when Bart opened Destry’s bedroom door the next morning and discovered he wasn’t there, he was startled. 

Destry hadn’t returned home, the lights he had turned on before leaving were still on in his room. Destry’s medication was still laid out.

Bart called Destry. When he didn’t pick up multiple times, Bart drove to his work, a local festival. But he wasn’t there. Bart started to worry. He racked his brain for where Destry could have gone. Finally, the Depot occurred to him: a small 200-year-old cabin located in a 600-acre plot of land the Allen family had used for weekend trips in the country.

When Bart arrived he found the front door knocked down and in splinters and his 17-year-old son lying in blood underneath the kitchen table.

Bart called the police, then went home to tell his wife.

“I really just went on and kind of survived for the next week or so,” Bart said. “You just kind of take what comes at you, it was just a shock.”

The police deemed the case a suicide. Bart called it a murder.

Bart asked police to investigate the case further, but they refused. Frustrated with their treatment of the investigation, Bart decided to write “A Pristine Suicide” — a story of his perspective of his son’s alleged suicide.

Bart didn’t want the case to be forever remembered as a suicide. He wanted his side to be known. The story was Bart’s way of ensuring Destry’s story would never be lost, complete with real photos from the Depot and memories of his childhood and personality. 

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Lucas remembers Destry building and racing radio-controlled cars along with taking care of his green Eddie Bauer edition Ford Explorer.

When 10-year-old Lucas was covered in mud and grass stains from a rainy football practice, he made a beeline for Destry’s SUV. When he opened the door, Lucas found the normal cream leather seat covered with a lattice of intricately taped plastic trash bags. 

“I still remember opening the door and going, ‘holy smokes,’” Lucas said. “He was like, ‘don’t get any mud on the seat.’ I’m like, ‘alright, sounds good.’” 

Bart remembers spending early mornings fishing with Destry.

The golden-brown sun was just beginning to peek over the oak trees and cattails at a farm pond as Bart and Destry sat fishing by idyllic glass-like water. They hadn’t caught anything yet.

Holding out a lure from the 1950s, Bart suggested that Destry try out the seemingly ancient bait — why not? Moments later Destry pulled out a five-pound bass, the biggest he’d ever caught.

“Destry caught it, and I said ‘come on, hold it out’ and he had a big smile on his face,” Bart said. “It was priceless.”

The Allen family plans to return to the fishing pond this summer to spread Destry’s ashes in the place he connected with his father.

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“A Pristine Suicide” was finished and published in 2011 and is available in the Salina Public Library, on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Bart and Lucas encourage questions over the case. They want people to get involved — to keep Destry’s story alive.

“I always hear so many people talk about justice and there’s no justice,” Bart said. “Nobody’s going to ever do anything about this, and this is as close to any justice he’s ever gonna have is for people to tell the story.”