Real Crime in Wrangell

So I am officially covering my first murder case. I heard about it last night over the phone from a friend around midnight. He said someone was murdered. I didn’t quite believe it, mainly because I didn’t want to. I would still prefer not to handle that type of news. After all, murders are the stuff of big cities covered by news anchor people and front-page reporters – people who know a thing or two about investigating. Murders, the actual events and the news of them, are faraway and distant. They aren’t touchable; they are just pieces of news that one hears about.

Of course, I know that murders are also the stuff of really small towns where rumors are more believed than facts, where news gets around by word of mouth a lot faster than any news media could capture it. When murders happen in small towns, the crime is a lot closer than you’d ever want it to be. The places involved, the people involved are no longer anonymous. Crime is felt on a very local level and there’s no escape from that.

I heard about it this morning on the radio, which meant it was official news and I would definitely have to cover it in some capacity or another.

Tim Wade, age 51, was found dead by one gunshot in Panhandle Trailer Court #42. The gunshot was not self-inflicted. Wade was visiting Steve Cross who occupies trailer #42. The police were called around 4:30 pm Tuesday afternoon and whoever called in the report (I wasn’t given a name) was inside the trailer.

These are the few facts I know which I got from an interview with the police chief. It was a surreal experience to question a police chief about a real murder – someone has died and I’m reporting on it as if it’s just another story. I don’t think I was very good at the questioning. I haven’t ever been trained on how to do this – what questions should I ask concerning a murder, when should I be pushy?

Since I don’t have a car here, I had a co-worker drive me to the trailer park so I could get a picture of the crime scene. I expected it to be all taped off with yellow police tape or whatever color they use, especially since the Chief had said the crime scene was secured. But there was no flailing tape wrapped around doors or stairs – nothing.

We had to drive around a bit to find the right trailer, as the numbers on all of them do not follow any rhyme or reason. # 42 was located in the last part of the park we drove through. [It was also my first time in that trailer park, my first time in a trailer park in general that wasn’t used for camping or recreational reasons]. I got out of the car to take pictures and there was a woman outside the trailer across the street. The garbage truck was there and she was bringing hers out when she yelled over to me, “No one is home there. Someone was shot there.” I told her that I knew that, that I was from the paper taking pictures. It didn’t even occur to me to question her about anything she may have seen or heard. This is how much being a reporter isn’t ingrained in me at all. I didn’t seize a perfect opportunity to get some potentially good information. I might be hopeless.

When I first came into the office this morning, a couple of minutes after I walked in, the pharmacist, Steve, came in also. He said that the police might try to put a drug twist on the whole thing, and that if they do, I will need to probe further. Steve was apparently friendly with Tim Wade, had invited him over for Thanksgivings. He said he was going to turn in some paperwork to the police, paperwork that I guess that Tim had given Steve in case something did ever happen to Tim. Steve said something along the lines of having to put up good fight or something that Tim would be proud of, now that he’s gone.

Apparently Tim had been in the middle of multiple law suits that he had filed to get high up people fired, like the police chief or the mayor, something like that. Again, this is just stuff I’ve heard between last night and today. He had even approached the Sentinel a few times over the past couple of years with Letters to the Editor or a potential paid space to voice his opinions, but none of them ever actually ever made it in the paper for one reason or another. I wish they had so that I could read what he wanted others to know so badly. There is other stuff I’ve heard but don’t feel comfortable writing them down.

I wish I had asked the Chief how many people were in the trailer when they arrived. Since the Sentinel is a weekly – the newest issue comes out tomorrow – I have some days to come up with more information, but I am nervous about approaching this correctly, trying to figure out exactly what my role, as the only news reporter in a small town, is in all of this.