I'm an author who writes about various topics, which always include romance, mystery, murder, crime, cover-ups, and more. I know where the lines are, and though I use a broad stroke with a fictional flair to it, I know the difference between actual violence and using words to describe a scene or scenario in one of my novels. I am forever grateful for the Second Amendment and the protective measures we have in our country to assist in deterring violent crimes; I believe in the right to self-defense.
Why am I writing about this? Why am I suddenly sounding all serious and even a little macabre at the moment? Well, there's an answer. I'll tell you what I found out today, and you'll have to agree that I should at least address it, because I am now aware of it, and it did actually happen in real life to someone I know - two people, actually. One of the people was someone I talked to on a weekly basis, though we never met. The other was my student in 2005, and not just my student, he was my favorite student. I had to call him that when we met periodically, for years. He would call me "Dr. Stringfellow," and I would respond with "Yes, (insert name), my all-time favorite student". That's just how it was.
When my friend Randall Goya died in 2016 at the hand of a homeless man he had given refuge to, I was stunned. I was shocked beyond words when I found out who it was that killed someone who had only been good. Randall was my dog's webmaster and had been for over a decade. He called me one day out of the blue, asking if he could create and run Faith the Dog's website. He designed it, modified it, ran it, and maintained it. I told him he could monetize it if he felt he needed to, but he never did. He kept it simple and gave Faith all the love he could through his digital wisdom and extreme creativity. He will be missed for many more years to come.
Today, completely by accident, I found out that my favorite student, someone I hadn't heard from in a few years, had been murdered about a week or so after he last spoke to me. You don't think at the time, something like that happens, that you're never going to speak to them again. I just assumed he had gotten on with his work, his life, his friends, and that he had just simply fallen out of touch. That's not the case; it was murder. He was taken from us. He was murdered by a brutal, vicious, hateful man who had been let out of prison for virtually the same crime! The system failed again. You don't have to guess what side of the aisle I lean to when it comes to keeping violent people locked up for life.
I watched a show online about a gay man being murdered for no reason other than the fact that he was gay - how stupid is that? Well, it got me thinking about my student because he had a few "bad dates" and he had told me about them when we last spoke. Again, I assumed he was just busy with his life, but it turns out that one of the people he met on a dating app did, in fact, murder him, and even tried to cover up the evidence by setting my student's apartment on fire with his body in it. Not only would he have succeeded in destroying the apartment rented by my friend, but there were others living in units above and beside the one he set ablaze!
I was truly hurt when I did a simple Google search to find my friend and realized he hadn't called or texted because he had been murdered. I read all I could about it, and found that the police had caught his killer pretty quickly after the event. That made me feel good - and the fact that his trial was fast and decisive also made me happy. The man literally said he killed my friend, my all-time favorite student, because "I do what I want to do", and then said "He asked too many questions", as if when they met on the dating app, all my friend was supposed to do was have fun and shut up; no questions!
Murder is a dirty thing; a terrible, horrible thing that ruins lives and forever changes nearly everyone touched by the callous act. I write about it, but I never really go too deeply into the effects and the affects it will have on the people who loved or knew the victim of the act. I think I'll do that in an upcoming book, and in that book, I'll add the two stories of my friends to make a point about how even outsiders can mourn for people who aren't too close, but close enough to know, love, and appreciate. We just never know, do we? We just have no idea what can happen in a split second.
At first, I was upset with myself for not checking in on my student more often, but he was a grown man by then. He wasn't the 14-year-old kid I knew, who, yes, asked a lot of questions, but loved to smile, dance, surprise, and entertain me and the entire class. When he was given a good grade, he had to take a bow, and we loved it. Drama was in his blood, but sadly, the school didn't have a troupe! He would have been the star if it did. After sharing the news of his passing with a few people I know, I asked them if they had also not heard from someone in a while, and if maybe they wanted to check in on those who hadn't written or called. Maybe it's something we need to do, but when do we know when it's time to do that if we're not really close?
Please know that when an author or actor is involved in sharing a story about murder, crime, or violence, that it is make-believe. It's not real. But when true crime happens, or real people are hurt, it's time to listen, time to open one's heart, and be a friend when they really need one. The 3rd week of April used to be the week reserved to reflect on and remember the victims of violence in our country; however, September 25th is the day of remembrance for those who were murdered. I try to remember to pray for and think about those who have been affected - and now I have more names to add to my prayers, not for him, but for those he loved and left.
(I don't want to say my student's name. He was a rather private man.)
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