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Doug:

Weren't capital cases a matter of satire earlier this week?

Does your question have a point?

tragic. disturbing.

My prayers are with her family and friends.

Does it have a point, in my opinion yes. hardly the time to discuss it. Our prayers to this family. God help them in their time of need.

Doug:

A larger point would be the inconsistent treatment (by people generally) of human tragedies.

The Chapel Hill case is clearly tragic and horrible, but is it any more so than the dozen or so murders that have been committed in Greensboro so far this year, or the three dozen from last year?

This is just a guess, but the seven people murdered today at the Jerusalem seminary will probably get more column inches in the N&R and other papers than the 53 murdered today in Baghdad.

I suspect you're right. News decisions favor the more unusual, the unexpected.

Sadly, murder in general isn't unusual or unexpected in Greensboro. Sometimes there are exceptional circumstances.

My personal view is that every local homicide should be treated as an important news story.

I would say this crime is particularly newsworthy, because of 1. The victim, a bright, highly successful college student; and 2. The setting, near the campus of the state's highest-profile university.

I agree with the earlier posts -- my sympathy to the family during this tragic time.

If it involves a college campus, multiply column length x 3. One of the fundamental rules of news mass.

And Dave, I would say, yes, it's more horrible than most of the murders in Greensboro this year. If the average scenario is drug deal gone bad, gang rivalry, bar fight, etc., then there's a qualitative difference between that and a person jerked out of her car at random and shot. So locally, for example, the woman killed at the hat shot gets more attention than the dozen or so others that are variations on the themes above.

It's not simply a matter of being unusual; it's a matter of moral differentiation. Because they can see themselves inside a hat shop or driving a car minding their own business, such cases strike most people (who avoid drug deals, gangs, bar fights) as a matter of outrage.

There are those who feel they OUGHT to be equally outraged by all murders, but not many actually are.

Be it a drug-dealer or a drug user I'm never outraged by a killing which happens during a drug deal gone bad (what the heck is a drug deal gone good?) nor am I outraged by a death which occurs from an accidental overdose (what the heck is an accidental overdose of an illegal drug?) - Not only am I not outraged but I somehow think those kind of losers got what they earned. I am very much outraged by the murder of a young woman who had so much promise and I am very much outraged by the murder of an innocent older woman working alone in her place of business. What say we rent the football field at Chapel Hill, put a large razor-wire topped fence around it, fill it with a couple rival gangs and let them have at it for a weekend?

Good points, Brian. All crimes aren't equal. There's nothing wrong about feeling more strongly about one murder than another where the circumstances are different.

In this case -- and in the case of the hat shop owner -- both victims were simply minding their own business when they were attacked and killed. Those are much more sympathetic circumstances than a gang member getting killed in a shoot-out.