The other day, I was sitting in traffic, waiting for the
light to turn, when I noticed a bumper sticker on a pickup truck the next lane
over.
SOMEONE I LOVED WAS MURDERED!
Yep, that’s what it said, in big, bold red letters, on a
pollution-decayed white background. On the truck’s back window was one of those
personalized “In loving memory” decals you see with someone’s name and date of
death all stylized in a fancy script.
Michaela McClelland. 6-17-1998
Being the curious sort that I am, I Googled the case the
second I was back in front of a computer. On June 17, 1998, 11-year-old
Michaela was struck repeatedly with a hammer. Her 24-year-old baby sitter,
Richard Benedict, was arrested the next day and eventually went to jail for the
crime.
The whole thing sounds horrible—drug use, sexual advances
and theft also came into play—but it also doesn’t sound much different from
something we’d see in any number of our favorite mysteries and thrillers.
Which made me think about the man in the pickup truck.
I don’t know if he was Michaela’s father, brother, uncle,
grandfather, friend… he could’ve been any of those things (all I saw was a
hairy man arm hanging out the open driver’s side window). No matter who he was
in relation to her, he clearly loved Michaela and is still carrying a torch for
her, if his vehicle is any indication.
We write and read all the time about family members of
victims. They are sometimes minor characters, only mentioned in passing. Other
times, they can be a main character, out for the truth and vengeance. No
fictional reaction seems to be exactly the same, though there’s always some
form of grief, sadness, shock and anger in the mix.
But what happens when the murder isn’t confined to the pages
of a book? What if it’s real life and 16 years later, you’re still wearing the
pain of the ordeal on your sleeve, or the bumper of your pickup in rush hour
traffic?
When writing, do you think about the future and how your
story still sits on the survivors’ hearts?
