Murders Near Home

On Sunday morning some neighbors (in this rural area, anyone within a 5 mile radius is considered a neighbor) were murdered in their front yard. A guy who was on a crime spree and pumped up on meth went there probably to rob them, as he did not know them, and shot them on their front lawn.

While driving home from church I noticed a police cruiser on our road, and I figured someone had smashed a mailbox as that is the biggest crime we’ve ever faced in our quiet, bucolic area. Then in the early afternoon I got a call from a neighbor/friend/fellow tree-hugger, B; she said that a couple was murdered nearby, and some friends of my parents who live even closer had had their car stolen before that. And the killer was still on the loose!

I told B that perhaps I should get my dad’s rifle out of the shed, but having never used a gun (and hating them) I would be more likely to shoot myself in the leg or something, and she said she’d probably end up shooting the wrong person. Would an attack dog be better? The problem there is, I’d be just as afraid of a big dangerous dog as a killer; my last dog was a sweet, floppy-eared basset hound named Angel, and for my next one I would want a gentle maltese or poodle.

As it was, we locked the house down and I picked out a spot in the basement to hide with the boys if it came to that. However as late afternoon arrived, I let them out to play in the frog pool. The day itself was a beautiful day, not eerie at all, except for the tall corn rustling and the otherwise total quiet. (You can see how tall the corn is now in the pic.) That night, my mom and I went around and locked all the windows tight in every room and pulled all the blinds and put the chains on the doors.

The next morning as I was driving to work, I still didn’t know who had been killed, but in my mind flashed a picture of a woman I used to work for at my first job out of college, when I moved back here from Boston in the mid-90s. Very strange, as I had not thought of her since then. When I got to my desk, I read that they identified the victims, and it was she and her husband. I cried a couple of times since then. She was so sarcastic and fun to work with; she and her husband had just moved out to the country when I worked with her, and she’d waited her whole life to do so, she really loved and appreciated being out here. And she gave me a great reference which helped me get my first “real” job after graduating.

Then her picture came out and I thought maybe it wasn’t her after all, because her hair is so different and she’s older, but unfortunately it is her.

They caught the guy finally, the next morning, and I thought of my grandma, who told many times the story of when Starkweather was on the loose. She and my grandfather had their guns ready at the door and lived in fear for a solid week. One of Starkweather’s victims was a childhood friend of hers who had introduced her to my grandfather at a barn dance years earlier.

One thing I’ve wondered is, would this couple have moved to the country if they could foresee what would happen before? (Even though your chances of getting shot in town are probably 200% higher.) I would honestly think, yes. I know I would rather be shot on my front yard at the age of 60 than live until 90 somewhere that I didn’t like to live. So I’ll continue to take my walks at night by myself on long stretches of deserted country roads and leave the doors unlocked most of the time. People like to think they have control over the big things, but in the end, we don’t.