Definitely a different world. In the last five years or so, I'm met four people that are now, or soon will be in prison. In the previous 60 years, I knew no one (at least that I know of). Two for vehicular homicide DUIs and two for murder. The last one has me completely stunned although the veterinary (who I took my dog to) who killed his pregnant girlfriend was pretty sick (he was married).
One of the fellows that played poker with us in Saturdays stabbed a co-worker to death on Wednesday, then stabbed himself and cut at his throat in an attempt to commit suicide. There's a community of Sudanese that settled in the area and a number of them play poker. He wasn't a regular but played frequently enough that I got to know him fairly well. The typical quiet, nice guy you hear about from neighbors when this type thing happens sometimes.
From a note he wrote he definitely planned to kill the guy. The day before, the victim pulled the chair he was going to sit on out from under him and he threatened that he'd get him. Wrote the note, apparently the night before talking about how the victim was destroying his life with his family and friends. The last line was, "A life for a life". Sounds like the extreme response to some major harassment. Such a shame.
