Wasted Lives, Wasted Potential

I haven’t written in a couple of days because my mind has been reeling. Long story short: I went to middle school with a kid who later ended up shot-gunning to death a guy with whom I attended high school. This happened in 1995. I’ve thought off and on about the incident for years, and I finally decided to explore the idea of writing a story about the whole sordid account. I've done a little research, conducted a few interviews, and dug up a few articles about it from microfilm. Through connections in the criminal justice system, I was able to track down the guy with whom I went to middle school—who is in prison now. I wrote him a letter.

Well, he replied to my letter, and his letter has blown me away—no pun intended. I didn’t know what to expect in his reply—or even if he would reply—but suffice to say, the letter I received reveled a young man who is highly intelligent, articulate and deeply thoughtful. It makes everything even more complicated. This guy will NEVER get out of prison until the day he takes his last breath. He's a lifer—no chance for parole. It’s all such a sad, tragic thing... It makes me feel compelled to do this story, to understand *why* this happened. Perhaps I’ll blog more about this in the future. Suffice to say, I've even been laying awake at night thinking about it, thinking about the killers (there were three killers: two had pistols; the guy I knew from my youth had a sawed-off shotgun. His job was to "finish them off."), and about the victims (one was completely innocent, in the wrong place at the wrong time. The guy I knew from high school was the intended target.).

... This wasn’t supposed to happen among people that I rubbed elbows with in my youth! Most of us have gone on to live normal lives—even successful lives—but for a few of us, something went terribly, horribly wrong.

Why?!

That's what I want to learn.