A garage fire two days after racist epithets were spray-painted on a biracial Tecumseh teenager's truck and home have left his family in a state of fear this week.
Sunday morning, Brandie Kratz returned home from a night shift at work to find the slurs in black paint on her 17-year-old son's pickup. The truck had also been egged and partially covered in mayonnaise.
She took pictures and cleaned it up.
The next morning, she came home to find racial slurs spray-painted on the front door of their home. Again, she cleaned it up.
Then came Tuesday. She and another son were still asleep when the 17-year-old, who had gone to a friend's house to play video games, saw smoke coming from near his home.
He found a storage garage on the property engulfed in flames.
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The garage has no electrical service, Kratz said, and after what happened the previous days, she worries it was arson.
"All three of my kids are afraid to stay at home because they don’t know what’s going to happen next," said Kratz, whose family has lived there for nearly a year.
In each of the incidents, she filed reports with the Johnson County Sheriff's Office, she said. Neither Sheriff Scott Walton nor the Nebraska Fire Marshal's Office returned messages seeking comment Friday.
Kratz's 17-year-old son, who will be a senior at Johnson County Central High School this fall, said he didn't know what he did that would make someone want to do this to him.
A friend of Kratz has set up seeking to raise $1,000 — reward money for information that leads to an arrest.
Kratz is hopeful investigators can get answers, but, above all, she just wants it to stop.
Her 17-year-old son just wants to move.
"Life is hard enough for a teenager anyway," Kratz said. "They shouldn't have to deal with these issues."