[Roderick Usher]

When I was growing up in Northern Virginia we had a neighbor named Nancy Kantarian who was a little unstable. She was a mother of three, married to a commercial real estate broker who made a good living, she had a housekeeper and she never held a paying job in her life.

She used to have my older sister come over and babysit - even when she was home. I was 12 or so and didn't understand the signs of true depression, but my oldest sister would come home and tell us how Nancy would just sit and stare at the tv or even just sit quietly in her bedroom for hours on end.

She was just the neighborhood nutcase, but her three little girls were awesome - real sweethearts. Anyway. They had a fire one night. The top floor burned off the house. Really exciting stuff fo the neighborhood.

So the Kantarians moved a couple of miles away and after a year, we didn't think about them very often.

Then it's on the news.

Seems without a support network she just snapped.

She murdered her three daughters in thier sleep and burned the house down.

She copped an insanity plea (deservedly) and was shuttled off to the nuthouse.

You tend to be able to shrug off the violence and cruelty in this world from time to time, but this one got to me and has stuck with me.