Father Doesn’t Realize His Mistake Just Cost His Son’s Life

I Still Remember Royal’s Birthday

I still remember the date because I remember the way the father said it. “September 17th.” He wasn’t giving me a birthday anymore. He was trying to hold on to something that was disappearing right in front of him. It was September 5th, 2023, in Marietta, Georgia, when we were sent to a third-floor apartment after a frantic 911 call. The report was unclear, but the urgency in the dispatcher’s voice told me this wasn’t going to be an ordinary call. When we reached the apartment, a man was there, overwhelmed and barely able to explain what had happened. Inside was a 23-month-old baby with a gunshot wound. His name was Royal Clark. And before I knew anything else, before I knew about the gun, the investigation, or the questions that would follow, I knew one thing: everyone in that apartment was about to remember that morning for the rest of their lives.

The father, Conrad Clark, told us he had been home alone with Royal while the boy’s mother was at work. He said he had been in the kitchen preparing breakfast when he heard a gunshot. He ran toward the sound and found his son on the floor. The details came out in fragments because Conrad was struggling to process what he was seeing. We kept asking questions, trying to establish the basic facts. Where was the gun? Who else had been in the apartment? When had it been handled? Conrad said the handgun was normally kept in the bedroom, near the side of the bed. Then someone asked about Royal’s age and birthday. “September 17th,” Conrad said. That sentence stayed with me because the child wasn’t even two years old yet. He was supposed to be celebrating another birthday in less than two weeks. Instead, his name and birthday were becoming evidence in an investigation.

At first, everyone was still looking for a way this could have been an accident. We weren't investigators with all the answers yet. We were first responders standing inside a home that only minutes earlier had been a normal place where somebody was making breakfast. There were toys around. Legos. Family photographs. Sonogram pictures. The kinds of things you see in a home with a young child and never expect to become part of a crime scene. But then we started looking at the weapon, the location, and the circumstances. One officer said what several of us were thinking: there was no way a child that young could have pulled that trigger. We kept examining the scene, looking for an explanation that made sense. The gunshot wound was devastating, and the longer we stayed inside that room, the harder it became to believe there was going to be a version of this story where everyone simply went home.

Outside, Conrad kept asking questions that seemed strangely small compared with what had just happened. Was he going to jail? What about the marijuana? Was he going to be charged for that? I remember the frustration in the room because his son had just been shot, and he was worried about weed. But grief does strange things to people. Fear does too. Sometimes the mind grabs the smallest problem because the real one is too enormous to understand. Conrad kept saying he didn't want to go to jail. He insisted he hadn't done anything. He said he hadn't known what happened. At that moment, I couldn't tell whether I was watching a man trying to avoid responsibility or a father whose brain simply couldn't accept what was happening. The only thing I knew for certain was that Royal was upstairs, and Conrad was the only adult who had been with him.

Then came the part that changed the entire investigation. We learned the loaded handgun had been accessible to the toddler while he was unsupervised. The question stopped being simply, “How did this happen?” It became, “How was a loaded firearm left where a child could reach it?” I have worked enough scenes to know that people sometimes imagine danger as something dramatic—a stranger breaking into a house, a violent confrontation, a weapon being deliberately fired. But some of the most devastating scenes begin with something much quieter. A gun left in the wrong place. A door left unlocked. A child wandering into a room for thirty seconds. A parent assuming there is enough distance between a dangerous object and a curious little hand. We don't always recognize the moment when an ordinary mistake becomes irreversible.

Royal was taken to Wellstar Kennestone Hospital, but the injuries were too severe. Shortly afterward, he was pronounced dead. I remember standing there thinking about that birthday again. September 17th. Twelve days away. Twelve days from turning another year older, twelve days from another cake, another photograph, another morning when his parents would have been able to say, “He’s almost two.” Instead, September 17th would become something else entirely—a date his family would carry differently for the rest of their lives. The investigation eventually concluded that the loaded handgun had been left accessible while Royal was unsupervised, resulting in the fatal shooting. Conrad was arrested and charged with involuntary manslaughter, reckless conduct, and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

But even after the handcuffs went on, I couldn't make the story simple in my head. It would have been easy to divide the people involved into neat categories: innocent, guilty, victim, suspect. Real life rarely cooperates like that. A child was dead. A father was facing serious charges. A mother had lost her son. Investigators still had questions that needed answers. And somewhere underneath all of it was a chain of decisions that could never be undone. I kept thinking about how many times we tell ourselves we will be more careful tomorrow. Tomorrow we will lock it away. Tomorrow we will fix the loose cabinet. Tomorrow we will pay attention. But sometimes tomorrow never arrives.

The case later moved into Cobb County Superior Court, where it was placed on the jury trial calendar in February 2025. The available court information in the source states that the charges remained pending, with no publicly reported verdict or plea agreement at the latest update. But for me, the legal process was never the part I remembered most. I remembered the apartment. I remembered the Legos. I remembered the officers trying to understand how a weapon ended up within a toddler's reach. And most of all, I remembered being asked for a birthday that should have been an ordinary question.

“September 17th.”

That was the answer.

I still remember Royal’s birthday. And whenever I think about that morning, I think about how close that date was. Not because a birthday could explain what happened, but because it reminds me that behind every police report, every charge, and every piece of evidence is a life that was supposed to continue. A little boy was supposed to grow older. His family was supposed to take more pictures. September 17th was supposed to come and go like any other birthday. Instead, it became a date that would forever mark the difference between the life Royal was expected to have and the life that ended before he ever reached his second birthday.