In Cold Blood

I was skimming through the Associated Press wire Saturday, making some quick decisions about which stories to use - yes, no, maybe, cut it to a brief, run if there's good art, etc. I was simply grabbing potential stories that I would read and edit in full later, when I hit the preview for the file on the Carnation killings in Washington state.

This was the most complete account of what happened. It was so rare that so soon after a mass murder that the main suspects were caught and that the prosecutors were willing to lay out the full story of what happened. I was riveted and had to read the whole story in that tiny little preview panel.

Then I hit the paragraph that made my stomach turn, and was the reason why I told Amy the next morning, "Don't read Page 11A." If you don't want to read about a child being hurt, don't read any more of this post.

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The AP version is slightly different, but the account in the Seattle Post Intelligencer went like this:

McEnroe allowed Erica Anderson to huddle with her children before he killed her. He was designated to shoot the children because Michele wasn't up to it, although both wanted to leave no witnesses behind, court documents say.
McEnroe apologized to each child before shooting each in the head at close range. Nathan had picked up the phone batteries from the floor and looked up at McEnroe, who told police the child gave him "the look of complete comprehension ... as if he understood."

Nathan was the 3-year-old toddler, and in that description, I could see my own youngest son. He's at that age where he seems to know more than he lets on. His intelligence, wit and charm are just now emerging.

It broke my heart to read that. I've read so much violence as a wire editor, but so much comes at you from a distance, cold impersonal. That description just cut through me.

For a brief moment, I considered not putting the story in the paper. I couldn't take it.

Then, I realized I wouldn't be serving our readers, or anyone else, by not running it. Not running the story wouldn't make it any less real. Not running the story wouldn't mean the murders didn't happen. Not running the story wouldn't bring back the victims. Not running the story would only leave our readers ignorant of a terrible tragedy.

I couldn't let my personal feelings get in the way of my job. I couldn't ignore this murder any more than another generation would have avoided publishing the story of the Clutter family murders in Kansas. That case became the basis for Truman Capote's book, "In Cold Blood."

Someone once told me that journalists do what we do to illuminate for others what sort of world we live in, so that they can make sense of it and maybe make it a better world.

I hope that someone, somewhere, in reading about the Carnation murders, can make some sense of it. Maybe someone can gain small glimmer of insight to help the rest of us.