Have you ever known a murder victim?

I realize your example is not humorous, but the use of the term 'lover' always strikes me as funny.

 

I found out on Facebook a few weeks ago that a kid I grew up with had been shot and killed in a dumb fight during the spring. Another kid I went to high school with was killed a few years ago in a fire (someone plead guilty to negligent homicide in that case). Sad stories.

 

And that option didn't make the cut for Paul Simon's 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover.
Take the Bus Gus.

 

Just shoot her in the head, Fred.

 

Drop her in the grave, Dave.

 

Someone on this thread knows Kevin Bacon.

 

Like Dick said in OP, I covered two guys who were decent RB's at one of the big area schools. They were shot. I didn't know the first that well. I interviewed him a couple of times. He was shot in his junior year while trying to break up an argument. The second was murdered a few years ago and was a couple of years out of high school. I knew him better. He was a stud as a freshman and had a good career.

Family-wise, an aunt's husband was murdered in Alaska before I was born. I believe the case has not been solved.

 

A guy in my fraternity pledge class went on to become a sheriffs deputy, got lured to a house on a call one day and was shot with a high powered rifle in an ambush as he walked into the backyard to check things out. Of the 20 or so people in my class he was definitely the one I knew the least, just a real quiet kid, but I still knew him fairly well.


Then there was this one:


One high school kid killed another in front of my house a few years after I had graduated so I knew them, though neither was exactly a friend. (Small rural town, about 350 total in the high school.)

One was the typical jock cool kid, the other the typical nerd who always got picked on. The jock and a few friends were out and about and decided to stop at the nerd's house and piss on his family's mail box. The nerd's family saw and father, son (nerd) and daughter jumped in the truck and chased them. At some point they decided to take a different road and head them off, which is exactly what happened, right in front of our house, two nights before Christmas (so I was home from college.) The nerdy kid got out of the truck and "tried to shoot a warning shot."

I honestly believe he didn't try to kill the kid, and maybe that he didn't even aim at the other kid's car, but whether he aimed on purpose or there was some kind of ricochet, he hit him in the head. He fell on his buddy's lap and said, "I'm going to die."

The nerds dad told him to go home but he came up our driveway instead and told us to call the police. He ended up in some juvy detention center for a few years I think. His dad was put on trial and got off.

It divided the town to some degree. The kid who died was popular but often a dick and he'd tormented this kid basically since kindergarten. Of course that didn't mean he deserved to die but it was just a fucked up deal all the way around.

 

Well, at least he died doing what he loved.

 

Ricochet? The bullet hit off the car or something, then went through his head?

 

Goddamnit, people need to learn how to aim better. If you plan to fire a warning shot, how the fuck do you hit? Not buying it. That was shoot to kill. Warning shots should be fired into the ground and not off something that could ricochet. Folks need to learn good gun control.

 

I went back and read some of the coverage of the event because it's been awhile and honestly, there are a few things about that night I should remember but I just don't. My brother swears we walked out to the scene but I don't for the life of me remember doing that. I struggle a bit to separate what I actually saw with what I saw on the news from that night. It's kind of weird, I'll admit.

Anyway: The family blocked the road with their truck and the kid who was killed was turning around (he had three others in the car.) The shooter jumped out of the truck (with, I think, a .22 rifle he grabbed as they were running out of the house... the big mistake) and went chasing after them and fired several shots. He claimed he was trying to shoot out the tires. The ricochet supposedly came off the road.

He ended up spending nearly two years in a youth detention facility.

I'm not sure why I believe him. It was dark and snowy, so he really couldn't have stared the kid down and pulled the trigger or anything. The tires thing, while stupid, just fits the area a little better. It's not an "I'm going to kill that asshole" place. It's a "I can shoot that guy's tires, like in a movie, since I'm a good shot" kind of place. I think the only bullet that hit the car was the fatal one. But it makes far more sense that he got caught up in the moment and indeed tried to shoot into the cabin.

One weird part of it I do remember: When the kid knocked on our door, the first thing he said was, "Call an ambulance. Bub (the other kid's nickname) got hurt... He was messing with our mailbox."

The day before someone had destroyed our mailbox, actually, so my mom started trying to quiz him about who the mailbox vandals were, and where they were, not realizing what he was trying to tell us.