Often, all too often, the really riveting stories; the ones that get people talking and keeps people talking are the ones that ultimately involve a tragedy or hardship of some kind for someone. Whether it’s a fatal accident, a significant fire, or a murder, it titillates and amazes.
Like the proverbial bad car accident, even with the best intentions, it rivets us. We can’t look away.
We have talked about what makes news news in this space before. News is news precisely because it is unusual. Houses are not supposed to burn down and most of them don’t. The ones that do are the ones we talk about.
Lost in the public fascination is behind every riveting story, there is a victim. The victim will be a victim long after the next story comes along to capture our imagination.
We think of victims this week because the murderers of Rachel Grindal learned their legal fate.
It is tempting, and on a certain level gratifying to see the hammer of justice come down on Buddy Bieler and Corina Durkee in Lincoln County Superior Court. In a very real sense, they got what they deserved even though friends of the victims might argue they still got off lightly.
Bieler will be an old, old man before he gets out of prison, if he ever gets out. Durkee will be 62 if she serves her full 15 years.
In a very real sense, regardless of the punishment handed down, it does little for the victims. There is a two-year-old boy who will never see his mother again. Madelynn Wiggins has lost her wife. The Grindals have lost their daughter. Tracy Neild is going to live the rest of her with the memory of her life’s blood spurting out of her slashed neck. Soon she will make an irrevocable decision between speaking and breathing normally.
Grindal may have had her flaws and she may have struggled with her issues, but she was 27. She could have and should have had the opportunity to turn her life around.
The Bieler and Durkee families, who have done nothing to deserve this, have lost their loved ones.
For the rest of us, the observers, the system worked. The police did their job, the lawyers did their job, and the court did its job. We feel no sympathy for the convicted, but, as observers, we are still left with a palatable sadness.
