To be in Richmond, today

As the the initial news of the brutal murders of the Harvey family swept the city, I like so many here, was stunned, and deeply deeply hurt for the community that loved these people so very much. Over the next six days, as details emerged and the reality of what happened began to penetrate the part of people's minds that seeks order and logic, it seems an entire city and much of the country began to develop theories of what could have led to the awful crime scene in Woodland Heights (some general, some frighteningly specific, most, as the news of the apparent killers arrests reveals, wrong). Like many, I became an obsessive reader of the message boards at Courttv.com and other sites -- knowing even as it was happening that by any objective standard it wasn't healthy. Late into the night, with our doors chained, I would read peoples' take on whatever news was emerging that day. I would theorize to my husband and simultaneously try to prevent my own mental pictures from forming. The mind doesn't allow us such protection though; it was only a matter of days before I began having nightmares. As of today, no more board reading, no more theorizing. This really happened, this family is gone, and with every day that passes, it gets less comprehensible.

Theories, speculation -- I've read several writers' criticism of this mass drift into amateur detective work and I'm of a divided mind about it. Yes, it ultimately serves no outward purpose, can give rise to thoughtless, hurtful accusations and outright lies, and it's this inclination of group think that will keep me away from such sites from now on. But the need, in the face of the incomprehensible, to impose some sort of framework (even if it proves to be wrong) is nearly universal. It seems though, that speculation is a sort of comfort, or at least distraction, only for those most tangentially connected to the Harvey family and their friends (customers at WoM, old fans of House of Freaks, fearful residents of other neighborhoods). For those who knew them, this may well be a torment. Before the internet, under such circumtances, a grieving friend may have a dim knowledge that strangers were wondering, remarking, throwing out names as possible suspects. But now, in this age, they know; now it's right there after a second on a search engine: strangers, many with the best of intentions, are beginning to take the personal, visceral loss of a family and crafting it into a kind of fiction. This morning brought an unavoidable recognition of my own participation in this process, and I don't think I'll ever forget it.

How awful that these families, the Harveys and the Tuckers, are gone.

What terrible losses.