on being killed - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Strange Famous · 05-17-2008, 12:13 PM

I'll start off by saying I dont exactly know why I'm writing this, but a recent topic I posted in made me think of it. I dont know what any of this means.

I live in the UK, in a medium sized town called Ipswich. In the winter of 2006 5 women who earned their living through prostitution were murdered by a serial killer named Stephen Wright (who was sentenced to life, with a whole life tarrif earlier this year for the murders), one of the victims was a girl called Gemma Adams, who I knew, and went to school with.

She was a few years below me at school, but I knew her. She lived in the housing estate just behind my street, and her best friend was the younger sister of a kid I knew quite well. I used to walk to school and so did she, and so I remember seeing her quite a lot, talking to her occasionally.

After she died all the news was full of stories that growing up she was a good middle class girl and heroin fucked her up... but that wasnt my recollection. Even at 13/14 she hung around with the "bad boys" and was known to sleep around. I am not for a second saying anything she did meant she deserved in any sense to end up where she did - but she always hung out with the wrong people and was smoking cigarette's and weed at a young age, drinking at a young age with certain pricks from my year who used to hang round with younger girls because no one else would be impressed by the fact they had the ability to procure weed. I remember at 15 beating up the "leader" of the kind of gang she hung around with because he spat on a plastic ruler and then flicked a gob of phlegm onto my shirt in science class... apparentally he did it cos he thought my reaction would be "funny"

In no sense was I friends with her, and I couldnt even say I ever had a genuine conversation with her, she was a several years below me, and hung out with different people. I dont know what I feel, if I feel anything - about her death. Of course, I wish things hadnt worked out like they did, I wish she hadnt been killed - but only in the general sense I would feel the same about anyone in that situation or anyone who had such a bad end. From what I read in the papers she got a job in telesales, but drifted into heroin abuse and dropped out and ended up working as a prostitute cos of it. Its just so hard to connect... the image I have of her from school, walking from the walkway past my house on her way to school - to a corpse dumped in the words by some monster.

Obviously she made mistakes in her life, and obviously she ran across the wrong path. But there were so many other lives ahead of her... so many other paths she could have been pulled down. I dont know whether to think that she was just a random victim of a terrible force, or if destruction was more fixed in the path she took. You could blame life, her parents, the world, the drugs, the sick fuck that killed her: or all of the above. I've known people who have died through drugs, Ive known people who died cos they were sick from cancer, three of my grandparents died from being old, my sister died from being born sick, I went to school with a kid who died from getting in a car wreck when he was joy riding with another kid who was fucked up on E and booze... but sometimes I cant get my head round the girl who was murdered.

As I sit here typing all this I can litreally picture her in her school uniform, and I always picture her smiling, and I dont know what it means or what I mean by typing all this. By no means is this grief, she was someone I could barely remember and who I hadnt seen or thought of for 10 years. But what strikes me is that the nature of the crime is so awful, so foul... and the killer came over as so banal, in his trial he seemed nothing more than a complete prat, a pompous and clownish arse, a buffoon. How can such bad things be reconciled to a man like that?

Hain · 05-17-2008, 12:36 PM

This sounds like the world around you has been disturbed. We all understand that terrible things happen in the world, but for many, including myself, there can be this separation between what we know and what we expect to happen near us.

Her murder has upset the safety you might have felt before. Before, you did not expect something like this to happen.

This happened to me after two students from my college were mugged at gun point while walking to their car only 100-ft from the store they just left. Recently, I again experienced this same turmoil after a student was shot through his front door by a burglar. This student is one of international students in the exact same program that I am currently in. He survived by luck that the bullet lost enough energy through the door that it became caught in the zipper of his coat. Nothing like this has ever happened remotely near my campus. The campus was the safest in all the city until these events happened.

blahblah454 · 05-17-2008, 01:09 PM

I find that when you are closer to something like this it affects us much more. I can read about all the deaths I want and its just another death, it has no bearing on my actual life. But when it affects someone we know, or its near an area that we are it strikes so much closer to home.

I guess the last thing that really affected me like this is when a little kid died in a school bus crash on the way to school in the morning. I kept thinking about how her mother probably said goodbye to her like every other morning, but only this morning was the last time it would ever happen. I kept thinking about how that can happen to anyone, and how sad it must be for them. I thought about my friends son, and if that were to happen to him on the way to school. I guess it really shook me up, and I did not even know the people.

Strange Famous · 05-17-2008, 01:25 PM

I had the same feelings a few years ago, I was on a bus that hit and killed a woman pedastrian who was Christmas shopping (she walked into the road and wasnt looking)

I couldnt stop thinking of what would happen to all the gifts she had been buying that day, and if they would ever find their way to the intended recipient, and if so, how would they feel...

ngdawg · 05-17-2008, 03:10 PM

There used to be an anti-drug commercial on tv-a young black girl's arms are in the air ballet style and a kid's voice over says "I want to be a ballerina when I grow up". Camera pulls out and the girl isn't dancing, she's falling over in a heap. Man's voice over says, "No one ever says 'I want to be a drug addict when I grow up'. "
And I think this is why sometimes it's difficult to "wrap our heads around" what happens. The bad choices made ultimately led to her final choice which got her brutallly murdered. Then we remember the live person and the seemingly bad but innocuous choices made as a youngster and wonder why didn't she smarten up? What if I knew this would happen?
When I worked at the middle school, there was a kid I caught doing something really brainless. I stopped him, pulled him over to talk to him and said, "Repeat after me: You want fries with that?" His response, "That's cold, Mrs. R", to which I answered, "Keep it up and there's your future."
He never made it even that point. Ended up in jail while in high school.
The point is, even as a 13 or 14 year old, the choices that create our destiny are already being made-you saw that in this girl you knew, even though as things go, she was a stranger. But at the same time, those years can hold promise and that's the part we sometimes can't get past-there was promise and it wasn't reached.
Sometimes there is no "wrong place, wrong time." Just the wrong choice.

mixedmedia · 05-17-2008, 03:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Strange Famous

I'll start off by saying I dont exactly know why I'm writing this, but a recent topic I posted in made me think of it. I dont know what any of this means.

I live in the UK, in a medium sized town called Ipswich. In the winter of 2006 5 women who earned their living through prostitution were murdered by a serial killer named Stephen Wright (who was sentenced to life, with a whole life tarrif earlier this year for the murders), one of the victims was a girl called Gemma Adams, who I knew, and went to school with.

She was a few years below me at school, but I knew her. She lived in the housing estate just behind my street, and her best friend was the younger sister of a kid I knew quite well. I used to walk to school and so did she, and so I remember seeing her quite a lot, talking to her occasionally.

After she died all the news was full of stories that growing up she was a good middle class girl and heroin fucked her up... but that wasnt my recollection. Even at 13/14 she hung around with the "bad boys" and was known to sleep around. I am not for a second saying anything she did meant she deserved in any sense to end up where she did - but she always hung out with the wrong people and was smoking cigarette's and weed at a young age, drinking at a young age with certain pricks from my year who used to hang round with younger girls because no one else would be impressed by the fact they had the ability to procure weed. I remember at 15 beating up the "leader" of the kind of gang she hung around with because he spat on a plastic ruler and then flicked a gob of phlegm onto my shirt in science class... apparentally he did it cos he thought my reaction would be "funny"

In no sense was I friends with her, and I couldnt even say I ever had a genuine conversation with her, she was a several years below me, and hung out with different people. I dont know what I feel, if I feel anything - about her death. Of course, I wish things hadnt worked out like they did, I wish she hadnt been killed - but only in the general sense I would feel the same about anyone in that situation or anyone who had such a bad end. From what I read in the papers she got a job in telesales, but drifted into heroin abuse and dropped out and ended up working as a prostitute cos of it. Its just so hard to connect... the image I have of her from school, walking from the walkway past my house on her way to school - to a corpse dumped in the words by some monster.

Obviously she made mistakes in her life, and obviously she ran across the wrong path. But there were so many other lives ahead of her... so many other paths she could have been pulled down. I dont know whether to think that she was just a random victim of a terrible force, or if destruction was more fixed in the path she took. You could blame life, her parents, the world, the drugs, the sick fuck that killed her: or all of the above. I've known people who have died through drugs, Ive known people who died cos they were sick from cancer, three of my grandparents died from being old, my sister died from being born sick, I went to school with a kid who died from getting in a car wreck when he was joy riding with another kid who was fucked up on E and booze... but sometimes I cant get my head round the girl who was murdered.

As I sit here typing all this I can litreally picture her in her school uniform, and I always picture her smiling, and I dont know what it means or what I mean by typing all this. By no means is this grief, she was someone I could barely remember and who I hadnt seen or thought of for 10 years. But what strikes me is that the nature of the crime is so awful, so foul... and the killer came over as so banal, in his trial he seemed nothing more than a complete prat, a pompous and clownish arse, a buffoon. How can such bad things be reconciled to a man like that?

Because there are people in this world who just don't care. They just don't care. And you will never be able to explain it with your own observations about their behavior and how, therefore, what you believe they should be capable of.

There are so many things about this girl that you will never know. It's impossible to gauge whether her choices led directly to her murder. What's more, it's senseless...kind of like her death itself. Disrespectful of that spark that was snuffed out. You do not know what path she had walked until her death, nor where it would have led her.

Life is very often senseless...as much as we would like to make it so.

05-17-2008, 12:13 PM	#1 (permalink)
Strange Famous follower of the child's crusade?	on being killed I'll start off by saying I dont exactly know why I'm writing this, but a recent topic I posted in made me think of it. I dont know what any of this means. I live in the UK, in a medium sized town called Ipswich. In the winter of 2006 5 women who earned their living through prostitution were murdered by a serial killer named Stephen Wright (who was sentenced to life, with a whole life tarrif earlier this year for the murders), one of the victims was a girl called Gemma Adams, who I knew, and went to school with. She was a few years below me at school, but I knew her. She lived in the housing estate just behind my street, and her best friend was the younger sister of a kid I knew quite well. I used to walk to school and so did she, and so I remember seeing her quite a lot, talking to her occasionally. After she died all the news was full of stories that growing up she was a good middle class girl and heroin fucked her up... but that wasnt my recollection. Even at 13/14 she hung around with the "bad boys" and was known to sleep around. I am not for a second saying anything she did meant she deserved in any sense to end up where she did - but she always hung out with the wrong people and was smoking cigarette's and weed at a young age, drinking at a young age with certain pricks from my year who used to hang round with younger girls because no one else would be impressed by the fact they had the ability to procure weed. I remember at 15 beating up the "leader" of the kind of gang she hung around with because he spat on a plastic ruler and then flicked a gob of phlegm onto my shirt in science class... apparentally he did it cos he thought my reaction would be "funny" In no sense was I friends with her, and I couldnt even say I ever had a genuine conversation with her, she was a several years below me, and hung out with different people. I dont know what I feel, if I feel anything - about her death. Of course, I wish things hadnt worked out like they did, I wish she hadnt been killed - but only in the general sense I would feel the same about anyone in that situation or anyone who had such a bad end. From what I read in the papers she got a job in telesales, but drifted into heroin abuse and dropped out and ended up working as a prostitute cos of it. Its just so hard to connect... the image I have of her from school, walking from the walkway past my house on her way to school - to a corpse dumped in the words by some monster. Obviously she made mistakes in her life, and obviously she ran across the wrong path. But there were so many other lives ahead of her... so many other paths she could have been pulled down. I dont know whether to think that she was just a random victim of a terrible force, or if destruction was more fixed in the path she took. You could blame life, her parents, the world, the drugs, the sick fuck that killed her: or all of the above. I've known people who have died through drugs, Ive known people who died cos they were sick from cancer, three of my grandparents died from being old, my sister died from being born sick, I went to school with a kid who died from getting in a car wreck when he was joy riding with another kid who was fucked up on E and booze... but sometimes I cant get my head round the girl who was murdered. As I sit here typing all this I can litreally picture her in her school uniform, and I always picture her smiling, and I dont know what it means or what I mean by typing all this. By no means is this grief, she was someone I could barely remember and who I hadnt seen or thought of for 10 years. But what strikes me is that the nature of the crime is so awful, so foul... and the killer came over as so banal, in his trial he seemed nothing more than a complete prat, a pompous and clownish arse, a buffoon. How can such bad things be reconciled to a man like that? __________________ "Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate, for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain without being uncovered." The Gospel of Thomas

05-17-2008, 12:36 PM	#2 (permalink)
Hain has a plan Location: middle of Whywouldanyonebethere	This sounds like the world around you has been disturbed. We all understand that terrible things happen in the world, but for many, including myself, there can be this separation between what we know and what we expect to happen near us. Her murder has upset the safety you might have felt before. Before, you did not expect something like this to happen. This happened to me after two students from my college were mugged at gun point while walking to their car only 100-ft from the store they just left. Recently, I again experienced this same turmoil after a student was shot through his front door by a burglar. This student is one of international students in the exact same program that I am currently in. He survived by luck that the bullet lost enough energy through the door that it became caught in the zipper of his coat. Nothing like this has ever happened remotely near my campus. The campus was the safest in all the city until these events happened. __________________ ////\\// IRONSKY.NET \\//\\\\

05-17-2008, 01:25 PM	#4 (permalink)
Strange Famous follower of the child's crusade?	I had the same feelings a few years ago, I was on a bus that hit and killed a woman pedastrian who was Christmas shopping (she walked into the road and wasnt looking) I couldnt stop thinking of what would happen to all the gifts she had been buying that day, and if they would ever find their way to the intended recipient, and if so, how would they feel... __________________ "Do not tell lies, and do not do what you hate, for all things are plain in the sight of Heaven. For nothing hidden will not become manifest, and nothing covered will remain without being uncovered." The Gospel of Thomas

05-17-2008, 01:09 PM	#3 (permalink)
blahblah454 Let's put a smile on that face Location: On the road...	I find that when you are closer to something like this it affects us much more. I can read about all the deaths I want and its just another death, it has no bearing on my actual life. But when it affects someone we know, or its near an area that we are it strikes so much closer to home. I guess the last thing that really affected me like this is when a little kid died in a school bus crash on the way to school in the morning. I kept thinking about how her mother probably said goodbye to her like every other morning, but only this morning was the last time it would ever happen. I kept thinking about how that can happen to anyone, and how sad it must be for them. I thought about my friends son, and if that were to happen to him on the way to school. I guess it really shook me up, and I did not even know the people.

05-17-2008, 03:10 PM	#5 (permalink)
ngdawg peekaboo Location: on the back, bitch	There used to be an anti-drug commercial on tv-a young black girl's arms are in the air ballet style and a kid's voice over says "I want to be a ballerina when I grow up". Camera pulls out and the girl isn't dancing, she's falling over in a heap. Man's voice over says, "No one ever says 'I want to be a drug addict when I grow up'. " And I think this is why sometimes it's difficult to "wrap our heads around" what happens. The bad choices made ultimately led to her final choice which got her brutallly murdered. Then we remember the live person and the seemingly bad but innocuous choices made as a youngster and wonder why didn't she smarten up? What if I knew this would happen? When I worked at the middle school, there was a kid I caught doing something really brainless. I stopped him, pulled him over to talk to him and said, "Repeat after me: You want fries with that?" His response, "That's cold, Mrs. R", to which I answered, "Keep it up and there's your future." He never made it even that point. Ended up in jail while in high school. The point is, even as a 13 or 14 year old, the choices that create our destiny are already being made-you saw that in this girl you knew, even though as things go, she was a stranger. But at the same time, those years can hold promise and that's the part we sometimes can't get past-there was promise and it wasn't reached. Sometimes there is no "wrong place, wrong time." Just the wrong choice.