Murder kills more than just the victim

Reporters spend a lot of time in the courtroom. In fact, I've spent more time in courtrooms in the past year and a half than most people will in their lifetime. It's an interesting thing, though. Being so close to the lives that are broken and those that broke them. (Or are accused of breaking them)

Today I spent about eight hours in Knox County Juvenile Court. Sixteen-year-old Amanda Dawn McGhee was set for a transfer hearing in her double murder case to see if she can be tried as an adult. She's accused of working with her 21-year-old boyfriend to kill her father and stepmother last June. As I sat in the courtroom, there was one thing that kept coming to mind: One action has drastically changed the lives of so many people, and a lot of them were sitting right there in the room with me.

First, there is a teenage girl on trial for murder. The murder of her parents no less. There are the brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, grandparents, and cousins whose lives were shattered by the news, and continue to be shattered as testimony tells tales of marital infidelity, alcohol and drug abuse, and physical and sexual abuse. Truths (or not) that no one ever wants to hear about the ones they love, especially when they were the victims of murder and cannot stand to defend themselves.

Those are the ones who are most visible, but what really got me thinking was a teenage girl who took the stand to testify against the girl who used to be her best friend. She talked about hearing of the murderous scheme, and trying to convince Amanda not to go through with it. She didn't call police when she saw what would later prove to be the murder weapon, and two days later her best friend's parents were dead. She sat on the witness stand today, tears in her eyes, seeming to always be on the brink of collapse, and I couldn't help but wonder how this situation would play into her life a decade from now when she's 27? What will her friendships be like? Will she have trouble with trust? Fear? Love? Affection? Weapons? Can you live a normal life after something like this? Is a teenage mind prepared for the daunting task of confronting the fact that adolescent infatuations and baseless planning and plotting turned into something more real than most adults can handle, let alone a teenager? That weekend in June 2007, real life came rushing up, leaving blissful ignorance and childhood innocence in its dust.



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