Crime Count

Yesterday, while running mom's chauffeur service (my name for ferrying kids around by car), we passed this place at the top of the street.  Then all of the crime tape was still up, not strewn over the yard.  We panicked a little and wondered what may have been being investigated.  Murder? Drugs? Weapons? On about the third trip by, we saw the posted notice, not too clear in this picture, saying the property was dangerous--i.e. condemned.  Oh.
We felt just a smidgen deflated, but also relieved.
On further investigation, we read that one of the apartments here (there are four) burned, so everything is thereby  damaged and unihabitable.
When I took this picture, a U-Haul was backed up to one of the units and people were moving out a mattress, so I only took a quick snap and moved on.

Years ago, there was a terrible real crime committed in the condominium on the left.  Notice the window and door on the left have security bars over them? (The one on the right shows the reflection of my bicycle tire!)  I know who put those bars on there and why.
A woman lived alone here and a man followed her home from the nearby train station.  He came into her apartment, raped her, slit her throat and left her for dead.  She managed to make enough noise after he left to attract a neighbor's attention and she got to the hospital and was saved.  She wrote about it for the paper.  It scared me to death!
I have often wondered if anyone else remembers her harrowing tale in the paper.  She hasn't lived there for years.  In fact, the place is for sale again now.

And while I'm on this crime count, in more recent news, at the other end of the street a man was found murdered in this house.  I was coming home from work and saw the television crew and thought they were doing another story on the anti-Walmart movement that's going on at the moment on the street.  A few days later, my neighbor told me that the man who lived here was shot and killed by someone he most likely knew as there were no signs of breaking and entering.  The Garden Lady attended his funeral and said he was obviously well loved and had many friends.

It's so shocking when something like this happens nearby!
The Garden Lady also said that our neighborhood is full of strangeness and stories, so much so that she could write a book! ;-)

I'm afraid this is a bleak little post.  I will leave on a happier note with this lovely picture from my neighborhood bee keeper's garden: