The Curse of Violent Crime

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Death in Detroit. Pretty, bright-eyed Keisha Jackson, who was 13 and black, swung her roller skates and laughed with a group of friends after a lively evening at Detroit's Wheels Disco Roller Center. A 16-year-old black boy watched the group go by and squeezed the trigger of his stolen .32-cal. handgun. Keisha fell to the sidewalk, a bullet in her brain, and died a few days later. The boy has not explained to the police why he shot at the happy party.

Fear in a Small Town. Strasburg, Va., is arguing with the U.S. Census Bureau that its official population count of 2,288 people is too low. But the Shenandoah Valley town has one resident it does not want: a ski-masked white man who has entered eight or more homes, usually just after the husband has left for work in the morning, and raped at least two women. Joann Orndorff, 33, white, was saved when her German shepherd-Labrador retriever, Tippy, attacked the rapist. Mrs. Orndorff, like a score of other Strasburg women, now owns a handgun.

A few nights after the attack, a man unknown to Mrs. Orndorff called her. "He asked me if I was scared and I said, 'Who are you?' " His reply: "You know me. Everyone knows me. I paid you a little visit the other night and I'm not done with you yet. No dog is gonna stop me the next time." Recalls Mrs. Orndorff, a mother of three: "That got me mad. I told him a .22 would stop him." She is sure there have been unreported rapes in Strasburg, explaining: "If I'd been raped, I wouldn't have told anyone. This is a small town and people run their mouths."

"Thrill Kills" in Pittsburgh. Michael Travaglia and John Lesko, both white and 22, have pleaded guilty to murder and face death sentences, but they show no remorse. In a five-day spree they kidnaped Peter Levato, 49, an unemployed security guard, in downtown Pittsburgh, attempted to drown him in the Loyalhanna creek, then shot him fatally. Next they abducted Marlene Sue Newcomer, 26, and shot her to death in their van; her body and the abandoned vehicle were found in a Pittsburgh parking garage.

Travaglia and Lesko met William C. Nicholls, 32, a church organist, at a downtown hotel. They commandeered his sports car and drove to Blue Spruce Lake outside Pittsburgh; they shot him, weighted him with rocks, and dropped him through a hole in the ice while he was still alive. Finally they sped past Patrolman Leonard Miller's squad car three times, until he gave chase and stopped them. They shot Miller dead at the side of the highway. After their conviction for his murder, Travaglia leaned over a courtroom rail and asked Prosecutor Tim Geary: "Are you happy? I'll be back to get you."

Terror in Birmingham. Ernest Nunnally, 80, a retired refrigeration mechanic, and his wife Perry, 76, both white, were sitting in their 57-year-old house in a blue-collar neighborhood of Birmingham when two young white men pounded on their door. "You come out here," one said to Nunnally. "We don't want the woman. We want you." Peering out, Nunnally thought he saw one of the men holding a rope or chain. As they pulled on the door, breaking its bolt, Nunnally grabbed a gun and fired through a curtained door window.

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