Lessons from a quadruple murder-suicide

I was assigned to cover my first multiple homicide / suicide Tuesday, and it was for lack of a better term – an eye-opening experience.

In the tragic episode Monday night, a 24-year-old father of two shot both of his children in the head, both no more than 2-years-old, while they lay in their cribs. After shooting the children’s 23-year-old mother, who was also his girlfriend, the shooter turned the gun on him.

It brought Stafford County’s death toll to five so far this year, with four of the deaths being children.

At the scene were reporters from the major Washington, D.C. and Richmond televisions stations, and dailies like The Washington Post.

By the time I had arrived all of the police had left the scene, leaving just us reporters to find someone, anyone else who wanted to talk about this tragedy.

I found one distraught lady who declined to talk to my video reporter who was working alongside me, but did agree to speak with me off camera.

As she began describing the horror that happened the night before, a reporter from Channel 7 in D.C. honed in on my interview and tried to again convince the woman to talk on-camera. She again declined, until the reporter tugged on her heart strings a bit and said she should talk “for the children’s sake”. The woman teared up and then went on camera.

This reminded me of a lesson that I learned a long time ago while working in TV news, and that is I am more than just a reporter of the facts, but also a persuader of people.

It takes a certain kind of finesse to get people to talk to you, and these are skills that I learned in previous jobs I held prior to taking this Stafford reporter job.

The manager of my newspaper, who comes from and works in advertising, says that “even reporters are sales people too, we just don’t know it.”

Where I’m not selling you the news when I write my stories, I do try to tell them in a manner that will make you want to read them. I hope that you will choose us when you want to know what is happening around the area.

But after covering this tragic story, I am reminded that the people I talk to don’t have to necessarily have to talk back to me.

I have to let them know how important their side of each story is, and why they should trust me with it.