A late Friday night is usually a good indication that it was a good Friday night, and that was the case this past weekend. Early that following morning, I awoke to the sound of my phone and my friend Jill’s voice.

“Hey, I just heard there was a shooting in Sherburne and someone was murdered.” 

I couldn’t believe it at first and thought maybe that there might be some other way to explain the incident.

“I know some members of the family and they called me this morning and told me.”

In my last year and a half at The Evening Sun, I’ve covered three homicides, one shooting death, two attempted murders and two appealed murder cases, not counting this one. My predecessors Jude Seymour and Jeff Morse covered the same beat for about four years without a single murder.

I got myself ready in about 20 minutes. I left for Sherburne knowing only that there was a homicide. I’d figure out everything else on the fly. I stopped at the office and made several calls and spoke with a few answering machines. I eventually got hold of someone who told me the scene was along Classic Street in Sherburne. It had been about 40 minutes since I awoke.

I arrived in Sherburne without an exact address, but if you’ve ever been to a serious crime scene you know that they tend to stick out. Police cars lined the Sherburne Meadow Apartments and yellow tape wrapped around the entire complex. In the driveway stood Sherburne Police Chief James Fox and a few other officers. I parked and headed up the driveway and was scared half to death by Lt. James E. Lloyd, who shouted out to me from a parked vehicle. I walked right past him without noticing he was there. I was the only reporter on the scene, but had passed the Channel 10 news van on the way up.