https://abcnews.go.com/US/idah...ls/story?id=93247819

Not sure if you’ve been following this (we lived here for 11 years, it’s a very small town that basically doubles in size when the students are in school). They have released very little information, they think the killings happened between 3 and 4 am, (early Sunday morning) but the bodies were not found til noon (I read somewhere that a friend found them) it must be someone they knew, but how on earth do you kill 4 young people with a knife like object without any of them getting away? Were they drugged? Really tragic. Hoping they will solve it, it’s got the whole town freaked out.

Knew nothing of this.
It is unusual. Will be watching for developments.

I've seen a little of the news from Idaho. Between this and UVA and seeing the faces of these students who, like mine, are only just barely adults... it's heartbreaking.

I saw this in the news and remembered you lived there.

They say it was a targeted attack. I am with the residents though. I would be sleeping with my .45 close by.

I saw the headline.

Yikes.

quote:

Originally posted by markj:
They say it was a targeted attack. I am with the residents though. I would be sleeping with my .45 close by.

That could be wise. The last news report I saw said the authorities did not rule out the possibility of further attacks.

Big Al

What a terrible, terrible thing.

I agree that it seems like it would be difficult to kill four people with a knife. However, when I lived in Gainesville, Florida, there were three cases where two students were killed by a non-gun-wielding assailant within a short period of time.

Two of those double-killings were committed by Danny Rolling, which you likely remember because it got national media attention. One of them occurred when he broke into a young woman's bedroom, bound her, and commenced doing terrible things until her roommate interrupted him and he killed her, too. The other happened when he broke into a young woman's bedroom and started trying to do the same terrible things, got interrupted by her (young, strong, male) roommate who attacked him, and still managed to kill them both and escape.

The less notorious case involved a carpet cleaner who attempted to rape a young woman who was at home when the apartment complex sent him to do the cleaning. Her roommate tried to intervene by jumping on his back and he strangled them both.

Wow. Just typing those stories gives me flashbacks to that time. I believe there was yet another case where a potential victim saved herself during an attack on a roommate by jumping off her apartment balcony, but I'm not sure about that.

Anyway, there's a lot of advantage gained by attacking someone in their sleep (obviously). And if the other three slept through the first attack or if they were jolted out of sleep, perhaps one by one, by an instant need to defend themselves and others, they would have been at a serious disadvantage.

There are monsters in the world.

I remember those two cases. I was just thinking about the first one.

Yikes, again.

quote:

Originally posted by Daniel:
I saw the headline.

Yikes.

What headline?

quote:

Originally posted by Mary Anna:
However, when I lived in Gainesville, Florida, there were three cases where two students were killed by a non-gun-wielding assailant within a short period of time.

Two of those double-killings were committed by Danny Rolling, which you likely remember because it got national media attention. One of them occurred when he broke into a young woman's bedroom, bound her, and commenced doing terrible things until her roommate interrupted him and he killed her, too. The other happened when he broke into a young woman's bedroom and started trying to do the same terrible things, got interrupted by her (young, strong, male) roommate who attacked him, and still managed to kill them both and escape.

My sister was both a student at UF at the time as well as a part time employee of the 911 call center for the sheriffs office (and dating a cop there). She heard some really gory details.

Summary of where things stand.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/room...th/story?id=93428236

quote:

Originally posted by jon-nyc:

quote:

Originally posted by Mary Anna:
However, when I lived in Gainesville, Florida, there were three cases where two students were killed by a non-gun-wielding assailant within a short period of time.

Two of those double-killings were committed by Danny Rolling, which you likely remember because it got national media attention. One of them occurred when he broke into a young woman's bedroom, bound her, and commenced doing terrible things until her roommate interrupted him and he killed her, too. The other happened when he broke into a young woman's bedroom and started trying to do the same terrible things, got interrupted by her (young, strong, male) roommate who attacked him, and still managed to kill them both and escape.

My sister was both a student at UF at the time as well as a part time employee of the 911 call center for the sheriffs office (and dating a cop there). She heard some really gory details.

Oh, no. There were lots of gory details in the paper, so I can only imagine what she heard. A friend of a friend worked for the crisis center and took phone calls from people in emotional crisis. It was a very dark time.

I was only a few years older than the people who died, I was living alone with two toddlers in the same neighborhood where Rolling was prowling, and I generally fit the profile of his victims--woman in her twenties with dark shoulder-length hair. I think the only reason my father didn't drive down there and camp out in my apartment with a gun was that I was engaged and was within months of remarrying. A man of his generation would have seen my fiance as having assumed the mantle of my male protector, which is funny in retrospect, as he was a Quaker. Guns and violence were not in his wheelhouse.

I was pretty sure that Rolling trolled the Publix near the women's homes ("my" Publix), looking for victims, because the whole thing started while students were moving in. And where do students go during that time? Publix and Walmart.

When the search warrants were eventually published, I saw that the police had obtained security videos from my Publix, so I was probably correct in thinking that Rolling prowled there. While he was still at large, I saw a long-haired brunette, heavily made up and wearing a tiny miniskirt, at that grocery store, and I thought, "What is she thinking???" Then I realized that she was probably an undercover cop.

Many people (myself included) don't think they're likely to be a victim of violent crime until something hits close to home. For me, it was the murder of my brother-in-law four years ago in the antisemitic attack on the synagogue in Pittsburgh.

I think people in some places live with that thought much more frequently.

Big Al

quote:

There are monsters in the world.

but true.