No matter the details, a cold, callous murder leaves its imprint on a community.
Such is the case with last week’s execution-style slaying of David Casto, a security guard working at a local Ingles store.
Law enforcement officials say four teenagers were responsible for the chain of events that culminated in the death of Casto, two of them residents of Forsyth County.
And all any of us can do is shake our heads and wonder, “Why?”
It is a long way from arrest to conviction, and at this point the teens alleged to have committed the crime are suspects and nothing more.
But the narrative of events detailed by those in law enforcement is chilling, as the teens are thought to have been involved in a spree of robberies that culminated with a shooting death inside a store cooler.
It’s not as though the county has never had a murder before. Certainly it has, but few that seem to have been so casually committed.
Investigators say the victim in this case was bound and helpless when he was shot and killed, no threat to the teens as they worked toward escape.
This was murder cold and simple.
The rational, moral, civil mind cannot process such a series of events and produce a reason for such an inhumane action.
Nor does the average vocabulary have words that adequately capture the essence of what was done to one man by another. Oft used cliches like “tragic” and “senseless” are simply inadequate. “Evil” is perhaps a closer fit.
Not to be lost amid the sad unfolding of this criminal tale is the age of the alleged perpetrators, suburban teens ages 16 to 19, one still a minor, the others barely adults.
What does it say about the world in which we live that the concept of taking a human life could be so trivial to men so young?
What happened here a week ago is nothing new in the history of man. From the beginning of time there have been those to whom the lives of others meant nothing. Calculated murders have taken place in this county before, and will again.
As a community, we can do little more than offer condolences to the family of David Casto, provide what help we may to those in law enforcement as they prepare for prosecution of those arrested at some distant time — and ask ourselves, time and again, those eternally exasperating questions that always seem to begin with “how” and “why.”
Such is the case with last week’s execution-style slaying of David Casto, a security guard working at a local Ingles store.
Law enforcement officials say four teenagers were responsible for the chain of events that culminated in the death of Casto, two of them residents of Forsyth County.
And all any of us can do is shake our heads and wonder, “Why?”
It is a long way from arrest to conviction, and at this point the teens alleged to have committed the crime are suspects and nothing more.
But the narrative of events detailed by those in law enforcement is chilling, as the teens are thought to have been involved in a spree of robberies that culminated with a shooting death inside a store cooler.
It’s not as though the county has never had a murder before. Certainly it has, but few that seem to have been so casually committed.
Investigators say the victim in this case was bound and helpless when he was shot and killed, no threat to the teens as they worked toward escape.
This was murder cold and simple.
The rational, moral, civil mind cannot process such a series of events and produce a reason for such an inhumane action.
Nor does the average vocabulary have words that adequately capture the essence of what was done to one man by another. Oft used cliches like “tragic” and “senseless” are simply inadequate. “Evil” is perhaps a closer fit.
Not to be lost amid the sad unfolding of this criminal tale is the age of the alleged perpetrators, suburban teens ages 16 to 19, one still a minor, the others barely adults.
What does it say about the world in which we live that the concept of taking a human life could be so trivial to men so young?
What happened here a week ago is nothing new in the history of man. From the beginning of time there have been those to whom the lives of others meant nothing. Calculated murders have taken place in this county before, and will again.
As a community, we can do little more than offer condolences to the family of David Casto, provide what help we may to those in law enforcement as they prepare for prosecution of those arrested at some distant time — and ask ourselves, time and again, those eternally exasperating questions that always seem to begin with “how” and “why.”