5/1/96
There was an article in the Tuesday's Tribune (4/30/96) about this Murdock fellow who got killed while trying to rob a guy at gun/knife point for making a deposit in an ATM. The gist of the article was that this guy was in a financial bind and just doing what any reasonable human being would do under similar circumstances. Yeah, well, okay, all right, he did have a previous charge against him for assaulting a police officer, and yeah, I guess he did burn down his business and okay, okay, he did commit insurance fraud when the occasion required. "But," the article said, "He didn't deserve to die."
Well, maybe not, but he made the choice that resulted in his death.
The paper omitted a lot of human interest stories that day. I didn't see any articles on the hundreds of thousands of Utahns who instead of assaulting people at ATMs were asleep that time of night so they could get up the next morning and lead productive lives. Any of those articles frankly would have been a better use of my time than reading about the one idiot who got killed while trying to harm someone else.
An article on the same page told about an eleven-year old boy with thyroid cancer who is involved in a make a wish foundation thing to grant his wish to die by the ocean. Talk about someone who doesn't deserve to die . . .
A lady in my neighborhood had a wonderful family and some little grand children who really enjoyed her company. She was active in church and civic activities and loved by everyone that knew her. She didn't deserve to die of cancer last year.
Seven year old Jessica whose dad and flight instructor didn't have enough sense to stay on the ground during a rainstorm didn't deserve to die.
Ryan White who got AIDS through a blood transfusion didn't deserve to die.
A lady who got run over by a psychopath after a minor traffic accident in Salt Lake didn't deserve to die.
Another lady who got shot on a freeway entrance ramp at 2:00 am didn't deserve to die.
A bunch of children in a Scotland grade school didn't deserve to be shot by a lunatic.
My mother who had a stroke before her fiftieth birthday didn't deserve to die.
And my dad didn't deserve to have diabetes take him away from his children and grand children before his youngest son turned twenty-one.
So if someone wants me to shed a tear for some dead loser who was willing to kill someone else for the day's movie receipts they'd better do better than "He didn't deserve to die."
Frank Leany
