Someone I graduated with was murdered

[doctorsun]

He was killed when he was trying to buy pot from two guys who apparently had set him up and intended to rob him. It happened a year and a half ago and I'm just now finding out, actually, which just proves how disconnected from the world I've been since graduating high school, but that's another issue.

I'm really freaked out by this. We were the same age. Exactly. We had the same birthday. A couple of kids from different graduating classes in my high school have been killed in Iraq, but he's the first person (that I know of...) from my graduating class to die and it's just a very strange feeling. We weren't friends or anything, but still...it's weird when mortality hits you like this.

Has anyone else had a similar experience? I really felt the need to get this out. Thanks for reading.

 

[pixie77]

How tragic, life is so fragile. You have feelings and care, God bless you!

 

[sabot3ur]

at least 5 people I know from around my graduating class died in 2009, mostly from drugs. 2009 sucked.

 

[doctorsun]

I worked with a guy who was murdered. After work he went to buy drugs from some unsavory characters and was stabbed in the heart. A drug deal gone bad. It was very sad. He was 22 at the time.

Christ I can't understand why the Hell anyone would get wrapped up in that shit~!

I know...it's ridiculous. It's such a tragic waste to die at the age of 23 over something as stupid as marijuana. Josh was a nice guy and his life was ended because he made a stupid decision. There's just no point.

I should add that his killers were sentenced to life in prison and won't be eligible for parole for 43 years. At least he got justice.

 

[polobro25]

at least 5 people I know from around my graduating class died in 2009, mostly from drugs. 2009 sucked.

that's awful, sorry to hear. when did you graduate?

 

[NedNickerson]

It's happened to me several times and it's never easy to deal with. When I was 15 years old (back in the early 70's), there was a dark-haired boy who sat in front of me in Latin class. He used to help me with my Latin homework. He was killed one weekend when he was riding in a car with his grandmother. She had an accident on a highway in Arkansas somewhere, and he was thrown from the car and killed instantly. His obituary used his yearbook photo. I cut it out and kept it.

Several months ago, I found the clipping and managed to find out online where the cemetery is. I plan to go visit his grave someday, if I can muster up the nerve. It will be strange for me. We were both the same age. Now I'm 52 years old - and he's still 15.

About a year after that, another schoolmate was killed during summer vacation. The family was camping and the tent caught fire somehow and he was burned to death. That has always puzzled me - how can someone get caught in a burning tent? Why not just run out? The only thing I can think of is perhaps he was in a separate tent and became overcome with smoke inhalation, and died while the rest of the family slept unaware of it.

When I was in the 12th grade, a girl in my creative writing class was killed on her prom night. She was the passenger in a car driven by another senior from my school. They were on their way home, when a car driven by two teenagers who had been drinking, came speeding over the hill just as they made a turn through an intersection. The car hit on her side. It hit with such force that the car buckled and collapsed down on top of her, crushing her. I went to her funeral, but didn't view the body. The church was filled to overflowing with students from our school. Incredibly, the family had an open casket. Several students who viewed her told me that she was so "made up" that it didn't even look like her anymore. Several years ago, I went to the cemetery in Memphis where she's buried. Though I walked and walked all over the area with a map given to me by the custodian there, I never was able to find her gravesite.

A few years ago, I found out that a girl from my first year of college was killed in a car wreck in California. I'd not seen her since she was 19 years old. She was in her early 40's when she was killed.

I also read an obituary of another college classmate who died alone in his apartment. He was found several weeks after he died.

===========================

As for your friend, if you're able to, it might help to visit him at his gravesite in order to pay your respects and to say goodbye to him and to give yourself some closure.

 

[xXblatinoXx]

Life is too short, and definitely crazy nowadays. Too many childhood/high school friends/acquaintances of mine have been murdered over the years. I get at least one phone call a year telling me that someone I know is dead.

 

[seven_sins]

I was fairly close to a female friend in high school. Her husband died of a heart attack not many years after she finished college. I was planning on getting in touch with her when I found out that she had died of smoke inhalation in a house fire. Rumor was that she had been drinking and dropped a lit cigarette into the chair she was sitting in.

I was on the internet recently trying to locate an email address for a close friend I had in the Air Force. I stumbled on his obituary exactly one year from the day that he died of cancer.

 

[TickTockMan]

A guy I had a lot of classes with went missing for a few years after HS. A couple of years ago he was found stuffed in a barrel out on a farm. It was reported that the police thought it was a meth deal gone bad.

I didn’t have much of an emotional response to it, but it was weird to hear about.

 

[CorporalAris]

What the hell is wrong with these drug dealers? All of my deals have happened very casually. In the Mall of America. HA!/

 

[VaseFace808]

A guy year a below me was shot to death about a year or two ago trying to buy drugs.

About 3 years ago (Freshmen year of college) a girl I had tons of classes with in HS was hit by a car not long after the school year started.

And this passed summer, another girl I graduated with was in a car accident and died. Wasn't particularly close with her, but we had known each other since Elementary school to High School.

I haven't lost any "close" friends from HS but it is a weird feeling and we'd all be about 21-22 now if they were still alive

 

[doctorsun]

My time in high school was pretty tragic. While we were in school, there were five kids who died at separate times. Two of them were suicides and the rest were car accidents. Then, after I graduated as I said, two guys who were a year ahead of be and a year behind me were killed in Iraq. Now, I'm just finding out about Josh being murdered. Like I said, he was the first one from MY graduating class to die. We were never friends, but we knew each other from school since we were seven. He was always a nice guy. He was the only person in school who had the same birthday that I have. I'm feeling better today, but yesterday when I first found out, I was overcome with such a feeling of guilt and I couldn't explain why. Mortality sucks.

 

[willsboy84]

One of my best friends growing up--and probably my first "real" Boy Crush was murdered a few years ago. Stabbed in a fight outside of a bar. We weren't friends anymore at the time--we'd went our seperate ways in Jr. High, but it still upset me alot.

We HATED each other at 1st sight. He was always cutting through my backyard to get to a playground behind my house, and we were constantly getting into "fist fights" over it. Eventually I kinda realized how petty it was, and we ended up almost inseperable over the next couple years. We started drifting apart as we got older. Once I really started to understand that I was gay, I started withdrawing from everyone and everything, while he drifted into the "popular" cliques. By the time highschool rolled around, I doubt he'd even admit that he knew me. It hurt, but I couldn't really put the all the blame on him, considering I was the one to actively cut myself off from everyone.

To be honest though, I'd pretty much put him out of my mind, until one day I happened to notice an article in the local paper detailing the incident that took his life. It was kind of weird, because we hadn't spoken in about a decade, so I was torn over how I was supposed to feel. I almost felt like I didn't have the "right" to mourn for him, as we'd been out of touch for so long, but it still hit me hard. Being that I'm back living on the street we both grew up on, I find myself thinking about him alot lately.