Student's murder hits home

By now, you've probably seen the news about University of North Carolina Student Body President Eve Carson, an amazing young lady who was murdered Wednesday. She was a friend of my nephew, who is a student at UNC, my alma mater, and where I have two other relatives currently attending. When the news first came across the semissourian.com Web site, I checked the story because of my connections to Chapel Hill. Such a tragedy.

For those of you who followed Peter Wylie's stories in the Southeast Missourian last summer, he, too was an acquaintance of Eve. They shared the same scholarship, which attracts some of the brightest students in the nation to UNC: The Morehead-Cain. This summer, we'll have another Morehead-Cain from Chapel Hill working at the Missourian. I have many friends at the Morehead Foundation, and they must be devastated.

There's not much I can say about Eve Carson, except that she seemed to be any parent's dream about what they would like to have in a daughter. Lately, such news seems so prevalent in our society. Whether it is murder in Cape Girardeau, Jackson, Scott City or Sikeston, there is too much death. Too much tragedy. In the past couple years, the number of murders on college campuses is particularly depressing. My wife is a teacher. We are a university community. It hits home.

I send prayers to Eve Carson's friends and family. To everyone who has faced tragedy and fear: prayers. God be with us.