A New Hanover County grand jury declined -- for the second time since the 18-year-old was shot to death -- to hold former sheriff's Deputy Christopher Long criminally responsible for killing Strickland. Another grand jury refused in December to charge Long with second-degree murder.

No one outside the grand jury room will know for sure why 18 New Hanover County residents didn't think Strickland's slaying was a crime. New Hanover County Sheriff Sid Causey fired Long a week after the shooting.

Grand jury proceedings are secret. Even witnesses who testify before them must promise under oath to never speak of what happened inside that room.

In a rare move, Richmond County Superior Court Judge Michael Beale allowed Long to address the grand jury and explain his actions of Dec. 1.

The judge then allowed Strickland's father, Don Strickland, to testify before the grand jurors to "counter numerous inaccuracies contained" in a statement Long filed in court last week, said Patrick Murphy, a prosecutor from the N.C. Attorney General's Office. This, too, was an unusual step in grand jury proceedings.

Grand jurors typically only hear from the law enforcement officers who investigated the alleged crime. Grand juries are charged with determining whether there is sufficient evidence that a crime occurred and the person charged might be responsible.

Long's 11-page affidavit gives a taste of what he likely told jurors during more than two hours of testimony Monday and Tuesday.

Long's heavily equipped unit of the New Hanover County Sheriff's Office had been drafted by campus police at University of North Carolina-Wilmington to help search for a stolen PlayStation 3 video game machine and arrest the men they suspected stole it and assaulted the owner.

He describes the robbery and assault in severe terms, saying that the suspects "assaulted and battered the victim by beating him severely with a blunt object."

According to a UNC-Wilmington police report about the PlayStation robbery, Justin Raines, the victim, "did not have any visible injuries and Raines refused to call for EMS. Raines states that there were little bumps on his head and he was OK."

Raines is calm and casual in his call to 911 after the incident. Raines tells the dispatcher, "I'm fine. They hit me in the head quite a few times. I don't need an ambulance."