Recent crime brings back cruel memories

Her name was Brandy. When I first met her, she was a seventh-grader trying out for my junior high select girls’ ensemble. I didn’t know much about her, except that she had really good melodic and harmonic retention, and her voice was angelic. So she made the group.

Early in the next school year, I discovered a lot more about Brandy. She was a 13-year-old smoker, among other things. And I suspected she did a lot more than that. So she became a “project.” I spent a lot of time encouraging her to focus her time on good behavior and good vocal health. I’d like to think I was successful, most of the time. But sometimes that delinquent streak she possessed would get the better of her, and she’d end up getting suspended. And when she came back I’d start again with the encouragement and direction.

Time went by, and she grew up. She always had that beautiful voice, and that constant temptation to color outside the lines. But she also learned to keep the worst behaviors in check. How much I had to do with that, I’ll never know. But I hoped I was a positive influence that helped guide her in a better direction.

She got married and had children. But at some point in her relationship with her husband, he became controlling and abusive. I don’t know many of the particulars, except that the abuse became so frequent and so bad that she finally left him and filed for divorce. She was through with him.

But he was not through with her.

One night when he learned that the children were not at home with her, he went to her house and shot her to death. He basically orphaned their children, and traumatized everyone associated with both families. He was arrested and, for some reason I’ll never understand, managed to make bail. He then fled to Canada, and allowed himself to be arrested there, knowing that in order to get him back, the prosecutors on the case had to promise the Canadian government that they would not seek the death penalty. So he returned, and ended up in prison, and life without possibility of parole.

I was reminded of Brandy a while back, when I read the news that a young mother in Oklahoma was shot to death by her domestic partner. Unlike Brandy’s killer, the guy who killed that young mother ended up committing suicide when sheriff’s deputies caught up with him. And those associated with two more families will be grieved for the rest of their lives because an abusive male just couldn’t let go.

I wish I could make sense of this, but there is no sense in this. The fact is, there are simply some people — men mostly — who cannot take a loss and walk away. And while many of us think that with enough social engineering or gun laws we can fix the problem, the truth is we can’t. And we can’t because the real problem lies in the basic nature of man. Whether we like it or not — whether we choose to accept it or not — there is a certain amount of evil that lies within each of us. And for some of us, the mechanisms for squelching that evil either don’t exist, or are ignored.

Sorry, folks. Feeling a little “dark” today. Sometimes reality is cold and cruel. I’ll riff a little more on this theme — and the ways we can deal with it — in the weeks to come.

Doug Chastain is a retired teacher and is currently a large vehicle transportation specialist for the Siloam Springs School District. (Okay, he drives a bus.) He is also a grass maintenance technician at Camp Siloam. (Yeah, he mows the lawn.) You can contact him at dougchastain@gmail.com . The opinions expressed are those of the author.