Disturbing Discovery

While perusing the web site of the newspaper for a town in which I lived a long while ago I came across this item about someone with whom I worked.

Suspect in slaying of IPTV producer faces trial this month

Everyone agrees that there were two people in the Ford Bronco when it pulled away from Patrick McRae's house and into the darkness in October 1999.

Everyone agrees that 43-year-old McRae, bleeding from at least a half-dozen stab wounds to his neck, was dying as he lay on the enclosed porch of his Lincoln Avenue home.

But the question that a Polk County jury ultimately will be asked to answer is this: Which one of the Bronco's occupants wielded the knife?

I was shocked to read that Patrick McRae had been murdered nearly six years ago. We weren't good friends, just two people working for the same company for a time. I moved on to another career, Patrick eventually moved on to a different employer. I hadn't kept in touch with him or even thought about him.

Why, then, do I find the story of his death so disturbing? Perhaps because of the violence involved. Perhaps because this is the first person I actually knew personally to have been murdered. Not died. Murdered.

I grew up in a small farming community. Crime just wasn't something that happened often, other than burglaries, maybe an arson, speeding. It was huge news when someone robbed aa paper carrier at knife-point. That, of course, changed as time marched on.

As part of my news photographer duties I saw murder victims and murderers. I wrote copy about the effect on victims' families and friends. As a doctoral student I helped produce training materials for sensitively covering victims of violent crimes.

Now, I think I have an even better understanding. I did not know Patrick all that well. But I had worked with him, drank with him, and laughed with him. I knew him well enough to mind that someone cut his life short at an early age, and did so very violently. I knew him well enough to feel anger and sorrow, even six years later.

And now I must go hug my wife and my dog.