Just So Sad

There are days I just don't want to write about crime, but there are times you just have to. This photo, from KSHB, is of murder victim Helen Ragan and her husband Corey Jones. Ms. Ragan, 38, was killed by a seemingly random bullet fired into her south Kansas City town home Monday evening. Police later found 10 bullets in the home, and two more in the neighbor's home. It was 2200 or so, when most everyone in the neighborhood was getting ready to settle in for the night. Ms. Ragan and her husband had just settled their 3 school age kids into bedtime.

Mr. Jones came on TV, and, well, he just touched my heart. With tears running down both cheeks, he talked about what he saw, that his wife went down, and it was immediately obvious that she would be dead. He rushed to her, and held her close to him.

Dominique Chambers is Ms. Ragan's eldest son. He was home too. He rushed into the room where his mother and stepfather were after he heard the sounds of the shots. He talked to the media too. With tears running down his smooth cheeks, he sobbed, "I wish I could have done more to protect them." as he thought of how his young siblings saw their mother dying.

Ms. Ragan drove a school bus for her work. Her co-workers looked completely shocked at her murder. One said she was the best coworker. "Her kids love her. It takes a special person to be a bus driver and she was a special person."

I was so taken with the grief of this family, and the care of her coworkers, that I just knew that this lady was special in her life. These random bullets--yes, you could say that many shots speaks of intent, but so far we have not heard of any good reason to target this family--took this lady away from her family, her coworkers, her friends, her neighbors, her "customers" (the kids that ride her school bus), and left holes to fill. Holes in schedules, holes in plans and most painfully holes in hearts.

My prayers are with this family, that they somehow, will catch their balance and figure out how to limp forward. My prayers are also with the police, that they will catch the person or people that did this. Whether it was truly random, the home picked arbitrarily, or intended for someone in the home, or intended for some other address, the responsibles need to be taken off the street. To shoot hot, fast, deadly lead blindly into a building speaks of a lack of respect for human life, and a person with that much casualness about the value of human life needs to be locked up and away from society.

Links: KSHB: Man pleads for justice in wife's death.

Link: KSHB: Police plea for tips in south KC murder.

Link: KCTV: Fellow Bus Drivers Remember Woman Killed This Week

Link: KMBC: Family, neighbors, react to shooting death

Link: Perspective from Midtown Miscreant: If pain had a sound... "The only voice that matters in the murder of Helen Ragan, is that of Corey Jones."