MEMPHIS, Tenn. — In tonight’s Ransom Note: the senseless killing of Juanita Washington.
I wanted to say more about life, because her death is now part of a murder rate that, unfortunately, puts Memphis in a class all its own.
Usually, when someone not from Memphis asks me about our high number of homicides, I repeat what the police tell us.
They say that a vast majority of murder victims know their killer, and while no one deserves to be killed, the victim is usually doing something they shouldn’t.
But then comes stories like Juanita’s, killed at one o’clock in the afternoon, just sitting in her car at her Parkway Village Walgreens.
She made it to age 60 as a typical Memphian, whose heart of gold gave back all the time. Only to have her life taken by gunfire, devastating the dance academy where she worked.
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