Auburn University student shot & killed yesterday

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kayrharris · #26 Post by **kayrharris** » Fri Mar 07, 2008 10:01 am

Sorry, I hate arguments and sure didn't mean to start one. I had an incredibly busy afternoon and evening and couldn't get back here to say anything.

I'm not one to live my life in fear and continuously looking over my shoulder, but I do keep my doors locked at home and take necessary precautions if I'm out by myself or coming in late at night.

When I was in Louisville last week I had a mission to change the locks on all the doors in my mother's house. She has a caregiver who stays with her at night. Laura is scared of everything. They had a storm door and the main door on both entrances to the house that had dead bolt locks that required a key to lock and unlock both doors. In case of a fire, they would have surely burned to death. It required two different keys to unlock the doors!

I got a locksmith to come and change the locks to a thumb lock so it could at least be opened from the inside without the need of a key and I had all the doors re-keyed so they could be unlocked with one key.

I had a terrible time convincing Laura that she and Mother had a much greater chance of burning up in the house than they did of someone breaking in and hurting them. I even had the locksmith give her the lecture. She wasn't happy with what I did, but I feel much better about it.
I would hate to have to live my life in fear the way Laura does.

I'd like to think my kids don't associate with "bad" people. In fact, if you asked me, I'd tell you they don't. That doesn't mean something bad won't happen to them, but it certainly lowers the possibility. I'm sure the parents of the girl killed here as well as the young lady in Chapel Hill would tell you same thing.

ghostjmf · #27 Post by **ghostjmf** » Fri Mar 07, 2008 10:04 am

Appa23 says:

I don't know if this was ghost's point, but I really do not think that you can say that Kay's friends or Kay's daugther's friends definitely, 100%, are people who would never do bad things. Everyday, people who appear like the "All-American" guy or girl-next-door do terribl, horrendous things. In another thread, someone remarked on the fact that your average sex offender does not look like your vision of "the average sex offender".

It definitely was a big point of my original getting completely ticked off at the "oh, you don't have to worry, you only know good quality people" words of Ritterskoop's post. Then, of course, I responded to silvercam's post with the typical "don't walk in scary places late at night & expect to remain unscathed" remark, which of course everyone knows not to do anyway, & I know it. I was being facetious there.

But back to the original: I get so tired of hearing & reading about abuse, usually sexual but in some cases "just" non-sexual physical, from family members & "friends" of the family, people from religious institutions, schools, etc. "Good people you can trust", supposedly. It is not true that "you don't know the kind of people who would do that", whoever you are. You just don't know that you know them. I hope; if you did know you knew them, you'd be the victim, meeting "so & so couldn't have possibly done that" remarks. (Or, logically, you'd be the perp, but if so you wouldn't even bother to read this stuff except as light entertainment.)

And to the original discussion: If it turns out that the victim was done in by an acquaintance, then at least the community can breathe easy once they're caught. However, unless & until that happens, & until the killer is caught whomever they are, everybody should be worried. Its only common sense, at this point. Effectively, their nice community has been turned into "a scary place in the dead of night".

ghostjmf · #28 Post by **ghostjmf** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 3:48 pm

which I'm deliberately not tacking this on to, & see if you still think that the student who was killed "brought it on herself" by "knowing bad people".

Sometimes, a crime spree really is, well, a crime spree. A killing by a complete stranger is exactly that. Along with "innocent until proven guilty", I happen to believe in not tarnishing the reputation of a victim with "they must know bad people" at least until you find out if they did, for pity's sake. In this case, the victim was the unlucky anonymous available target, & the neighborhood was right to have been very very scared, locked doors & all.

macrae1234 · #29 Post by **macrae1234** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 4:14 pm

They have a suspect in custody

http://www.hoinews.com/news/news_story.aspx?id=106250

kayrharris · #30 Post by **kayrharris** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 4:32 pm

There's another thread I posted last night about this creep's crime spree. AU is reevaluating the security on campus and they are continuing their transit system that normally ends at 7PM to run 24 hours a day.

It takes an unfortunate incident like this to make everyone stop and look at how careful they have been and how complacent we tend to get in the "safety" of our surroundings.

macrae1234 · #31 Post by **macrae1234** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 4:47 pm

Sorry I guess the thread would have been clearer if it had continued with something like Auburn student killer captured I missed it under the title

kayrharris · #32 Post by **kayrharris** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 5:19 pm

My mistake, not yours. I was just so angered by the senseless crimes that had been committed that I wasn't thinking clearly and didn't go back to bring this thread to life. Sorry.

Ritterskoop · #33 Post by **Ritterskoop** » Tue Mar 11, 2008 7:14 pm

ghostjmf wrote:which I'm deliberately not tacking this on to, & see if you still think that the student who was killed "brought it on herself" by "knowing bad people".

I did not mean to imply this. I am certain I never said she brought it on by herself.

I meant to reassure Kay. Sometimes it is hard to express empathy without it coming out in a misleading way. Sometimes I don't post in sympathy threads because I know I will say it wrong and make it worse.

ghostjmf wrote:Sometimes, a crime spree really is, well, a crime spree. A killing by a complete stranger is exactly that. Along with "innocent until proven guilty", I happen to believe in not tarnishing the reputation of a victim with "they must know bad people" at least until you find out if they did, for pity's sake. In this case, the victim was the unlucky anonymous available target, & the neighborhood was right to have been very very scared, locked doors & all.

I am very sure I did not mean to say this victim was a bad person because I thought she might have known a bad person. I meant to say, I thought because she was wrapped in a blanket, I thought that Meant Something, that a random killer would not have done that. It looks like I was wrong about that assumption, but my counsel to Kay not to worry about herself or her daughters stands. I think life is too short to stay inside the house once he is caught, is all. Yes, there will be another one, but we can't predict it, so I won't worry about it.

I have been learning in class that most victims of violent crime know their attackers. The myth is the stranger in the bushes. That's the one that gets attention, and drama, and is often portrayed as black attacker in the bushes-white victim. This combination is actually very small. It gets attention but there are thousands of victims of color who do not get media attention.

I regret that anyone thought I was endorsing the "bad things happen to bad people" idea. I do not think that. I think some shit is random, and there is little point in worrying about that part.

I was trying to tell Kay that since most (around 85%) victims know their attackers, and since I have met many of her friends, I am not worried for her safety.

themanintheseersuckersuit · #34 Post by **themanintheseersuckersuit** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 3:53 pm

There has been an arrest in the recent UNC murder

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,337293,00.html

silvercamaro · #35 Post by **silvercamaro** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 3:57 pm

themanintheseersuckersuit wrote:There has been an arrest in the recent UNC murder

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,337293,00.html

And they know the identity of the second one, the driver in the ATM photos.

kayrharris · #36 Post by **kayrharris** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 3:58 pm

Thank goodness! They had such a clear photo of the guy, I didn't see how he could go much longer without being caught.

silvercamaro · #37 Post by **silvercamaro** » Wed Mar 12, 2008 4:09 pm

The second guy now is in custody. He was captured by Durham police during the night.

silvercamaro · #38 Post by **silvercamaro** » Thu Mar 13, 2008 4:37 am

silvercamaro wrote:The second guy now is in custody. He was captured by Durham police during the night.

I meant to add that as a post, but inadvertently edited my previous post instead. Since the edit didn't change the time stamp, I'm back to clarify that the second suspect was arrested in the wee hours of the morning today, Thursday, March 13.

WWTBAM Bored

Auburn University student shot & killed yesterday

Ritterskoop et al: OK, read Kay's post of 3/10/08

Re: Ritterskoop et al: OK, read Kay's post of 3/10/08