I don't think anyone ever said the news business was easy. This past news cycle reinforced to me why.
A teenager's murder is truly a tragedy. My job this week was to tell that story. I covered both the crime angle and the human loss angle of the story.
Through court documents and interviews with a couple of teenage eyewitnesses, I got the story of what happened. Through interviews with friends and family of the victim, I got to share who the victim was.
It's heavy stuff to sit in a living room and talk to foster parents and a sister about the boy they lost so suddenly. It's also frightening to hear teens compare the murder to the scene from a video game.
Friday afternoon I was looking for a break in such hard coverage, so I called the woman who'd spent much of the night in her flooded car in the midst of a swollen creek. I thought her side of a heroic story would be a nice way to go home.
So much for that.
The woman, who had spent nine hours in water to her waist, was ... interesting. In addition to understandable fears of things like dying, she also feared some pretty wacky things. My heart went out to her as she shared these things with me. And then she got into talk of marital troubles, and I found myself reassuring her that her husband cared for her. After all, it was he who called the law enforcement twice when she didn't come home that night. Once they found her in town, waiting out the rain. The second time they found her in the creek, revealed only when daylight started to break the horizon.
I came out of it with a strong story, but the woman's state didn't give me the pick-me-up I expected.
What a week!
Related: (links likely good this week only)
Water rescue
Murder story
Reaction story