I know when it started ...

the seeming obsession I have with true-crime stories.

It was 1982, the year my class graduated high school. I found a book somewhere, in the house probably, called, "The Stranger Beside Me". I was not yet, or just turned 18. My birthday is in the middle of the month so I know it was around that time. I was fascinated how a serial murderer as bad as Ted Bundy could mix so well in society without anyone who knew him having any clue as to what he really liked to do. Around that same time there also unfolded an event that appalled and frightened me. A girl from the town I lived in was seemingly abducted from in front of the place where she worked, in town, just a mile or so from the high school I'd attended. I remember the news reports said her purse contents had been scattered near her car, which was still at the scene, but no one had any idea where the girl was. Her name was Laurie, and she was the older sister of a classmate of mine. I knew the younger sister, Margie. She was a nice girl, and we only had the "hi" in the halls kind of relationship, but I knew who she was and I remembered seeing her sister in the halls at high school as well. Somehow in high school you just seem to learn who people are, even if you've never officially met them.

It seemed every day there was something about Laurie in the news. It was scary to think of a young woman, only 2 years older than myself, just being plucked out of a parking lot like that, at one of the busiest intersections in town, during rush hour on a weekday morning.

My high school sweetheart, Chuck, and I had remained friends even though we were no longer dating, and it turned out he lived across the street from Margie, Laurie, and their family. In fact, his mom was best friends with Laurie's mom. I remember Margie's family decided to go ahead and still host a small graduation party for Margie, even though Laurie was still missing. They had hope she'd be found alive and well, but I'm sure it was a maddening time for them. Chuck asked me if I wanted to go with him to Margie's graduation party and I said, "Sure." I don't recall much except for how quiet it was - no blaring music or anything like that, just a small backyard affair, people talking about Laurie, and one little girl commenting on the blue mascara I wore. She thought it was weird.

I don't remember if it was a few days or weeks, but it wasn't long after that that Laurie's body was found. I remember I was hanging out at Chuck's one day just a couple of days after they found Laurie, and he was telling me some of the details - non-reported details, of what had happened to her. He stopped when he saw I was about to throw up. The news had alluded to "satanic ritual killing" or something like that, but it was horrific, however you want to define it. A young lady was murdered, mutilated, and I really understood for the first time that these aren't "other" people that things like this happen to. They are our friends, neighbors, co-workers, classmates. You, me, us. No one is exempt from being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that's frightening. Sometimes it's strangers who hurt us, sometimes it's people we know and trust, which leads me to this weekend.

Sometimes it seems like right around my birthday is a high profile crime time, or just around Father's Day. The day after my birthday this year, 2 cases made the news which touched me more than others. The cases involving children always do. In the first, a mom and her 3 children were found shot to death in their SUV. The dad had sustained a gunshot wound, and implied that the mom had freaked out and shot him, and the kids, before killing herself.

I pondered this, as I always do. Namely, what would cause a woman excited about a trip to the spot where she honeymooned, a woman opposed to guns of any sort, even water pistols, a woman known to be a devoted and involved mother, a woman who'd just gotten her degree, to freak out and kill her children and then take her own life? A husband's confession of an affair? That's what the dad claimed. I thought about that, and just couldn't wrap my brain around it. I could see a woman killing her husband upon hearing that sort of thing, but her kids and herself, giving her cheating spouse a free ride, unhindered by alimony and child support payments, with his new love? Uh, I don't think so. I didn't buy it, and became convinced in my own mind that the dad had killed his family. But the cops weren't naming him a suspect, and he was free to leave the state to attend the wake for his family. I figured the cops were "strategizing" somehow, hoping he wouldn't think he was a suspect either and therefore incriminate himself somehow while they waited for other forensic results to come in. Apparently that occurred Friday night, because Saturday morning when the dad arrived at the funeral home, the cops arrested him.

And God help me because I can't help it myself, I imagine things, things that happened during that family's last moments. How do you look at your wife and children, and point a gun at them and pull the trigger? How do you look at your husband and father, knowing he's going to kill you? This man who was supposed to cherish and protect you from guys like ... him. It boggles the mind and sometimes I can't help but shed a tear. I pray he drugged them, to spare them that last horror at least.

The second case involves a young mom who was pregnant with her 2nd baby, a girl. She had the name all picked out, her suitcase packed for the trip to the hospital. She had a 2 year old boy. I have a 2 year old (one month from today!) girl. She, the mommy, had been having a relationship with a married (but apparently separated) cop, who was the father of both her children. Mommy had talked to her mom on Wednesday, telling her the little boy's dad was going to drop him off Thursday morning after a visitation. So on Thursday, Grandma called to check up on her - people do that with pregnant ladies who are due in 2-3 weeks. Anything could happen at any time so you want to check in, make sure all's well. Only mommy didn't answer the phone ... all day. Grandma got worried, and drove all night to check on her daughter, arriving Friday morning to find a little boy alone in the house, still wearing a dirty diaper. Her daughter's purse contents scattered all over the floor, the bedroom in a shambles, bleach all over the floor. The little boy said, "Mommy's crying, Mommy's in the rug." If that doesn't break your heart, nothing will. How does a little boy still in diapers find words to describe a scene so terrible no eyes should behold it, let alone a child's? And who would do such a thing to a pregnant woman, in front of her child? Sadly, horribly, the number one cause of death for expectant moms is homicide, usually at the hands of the unborn child's father.

So, naturally, I suspected the baby's father in this case too. But he's a cop! And it's not like this is their first child together and he's freaked out about it. The police said he wasn't a suspect either. But but but, he IS a cop and probably thinks he has a better chance to get away with it if he DID kill her. The odds are simply in his "favor" so to speak. He denied it, said he was all torn up about her missing, joined in the search for her body ... the usual stuff. HE was arrested this Saturday too.

That's all I could think about yesterday, devouring as much news on both cases as I could. Why do these things seem to happen around Father's Day? Nicole Brown Simpson was murdered just days before Father's Day too. Is there any statistical evidence that bears this out, one way or another?

And why do I always seem to obsess about these things? I always feel like I have to prepare somehow, and that scares me. I feel like someone I know is going to be a victim, or even myself. I do believe that I nearly was a victim several years ago when I was going through a divorce.

In any case, it's my quirk. I read about, and watch true-crime stories all the time. I don't understand the mindset that can commit such atrocities, and I hope I never do. But I can pray for those who are victims of it, and I do. May God have mercy on all of us.

In other news, my beloved husband has left today on yet another business trip. By land this time, and not by air. I don't know if that relieves me more or scares me more. Statistically planes are a safer mode of travel, but he will be closer - only about 4 hours away. But the last time he and I made a similar trip along nearly the same route, we were in an accident that totaled our car and would have left me wearing a windshield necklace if not for the airbag. (I learned my lesson and always wear my seatbelt now) He's not doing the driving either, someone else is, so my husband's life is in their hands and naturally I worry. I pray for a safe and productive trip for both of them, and that my love returns to me hale and hearty.

I miss you Beloved.