True stories with a twist!

Posts tagged ‘murder’

TRAGEDY WITH THE GIFTS

It was a Monday. I was at the Short Hills Mall, looking forward to my computer class at the Apple Store. The Apple Store is located inside the mall, somewhere between Papyrus Paper and Macy’s. My class was about using the iPhone’s camera. Just in time for the holidays; one of the rare times everyone would be together in one place at the same time. I was not going to miss the photo opportunity I expected to have.

As I walked through the mall I had an uncomfortable feeling: the memory of a horrific crime that took place right here in December, 2013: close to this time of year.

‘Stay with me!’: New Jersey widow recalls husband’s murder amid Short Hills mall carjacking

BY NANCY DILLON New York Daily News New York

It was a strange feeling to walk the same steps that the victim and his wife walked that day. Every person who drove a car to the mall that day had to have parked their cars in the same parking lot as the victim did. That tragedy could have happened to any of us! The couple was unsuspecting, as I was today, as everyone there was. There was no warning about what was about to happen.

How accustomed we once were to feel safe in public places; how lucky to feel confident enough to make that assumption. When I think of all the times I’ve heard people say,” I never though such a thing could happen here. Not in this neighborhood,” I realize that now such a statement sounds foolish.

There is no place and no neighborhood impervious to crime.

People living in gated communities may feel safe and think they actually are. But do they ever consider the number of maintenance workers with access to those communities? Are the workers all screened? Does anybody know who they are? There is no lack of people who commit crimes. And no shortage of easily purchased guns.

Too many killings have taken place recently. Gun violence is no longer a new concept, or a concept that existed only back in the days of the Wild West. The world has become a frightening place to navigate.

I offer no brilliant solutions to the many problems our society faces. But I can hope that you and everyone you love and care about have safe comings and goings this holiday season and forever after.

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COMMITTING MURDER

Now I know what it’s like to be accused of committing a murder or committing some sort of hideous crime for which there is no acceptable explanation. I understand how it feels when a group of people, perhaps members of a jury, agree that you did what they say you did. Nothing you can say will change their minds, and all because of their perceptions.

Nobody committed murder. Nobody did anything illegal. It just feels that way. Here’s what happened: It is about my last blog, “Rare Birdies on a Plant.”

I wrote about an experience in my back yard on a beautiful summer afternoon. As I was relaxing in a zero gravity reclining chair, I looked across the yard and saw what looked like two tiny green birds alighting on a tomato plant branch. “How weightless they must be to be supported by such a narrow branch,” I said to my husband. “I’ve got to take a picture of this or nobody will believe me.”

“I never heard of small green finches,” he said. We assumed they were finches because of all the goldfinches and red headed finches that lived on our property and enjoyed the thistle seeds we provide for them.

So I did. I took a picture from as close a vantage point as I could get without frightening them away. This success emboldened me and I stepped closer to get a clearer photo. That’s when I realized that Mother Nature was playing her clever tricks on me: the green forms I saw were not birds at all, but leaves from the tomato plant sticking straight up in the air. How foolish I felt! So I wrote the story and posted the pictures.

When I read the comments on my blog I was surprised that every single one accused me of being a “rascal,” of fooling my followers, and of “pulling one over on everyone.” Even though I wrote that Mother Nature was playing her tricks on me, they blamed me for playing the trick on them.

And that’s when I understood what it must be like to be wrongfully accused. It is a hopeless feeling, and one about which I could give no acceptable explanations. The gang believed I was wrong. Every writer thought I was wrong. I thought I saw an optical illusion that was foisted upon me.