innocence lost
An attractive young woman went missing in the early morning hours of October 7th. This is something that happens with unfortunate frequency but because of the location this story caught my attention.
Michelle Gardner-Quinn, 21, of Arlington VA was a student at University of Vermont in Burlington, VT. In the grand scheme of things, if you live near Washington DC and go to school in northern Vermont you'd certainly expect bad things to happen near home in DC, not at school in Vermont. Vermont is a land of dairy farms and quaint bed & breakfast inns. You expect to see cows and Ben & Jerry ice cream not a sex criminal.
I grew up in upstate NY and Burlington was the closest city--if you can call a place with under 40,000 people a city--with an airport and college so there were often reasons to undertake the two hour drive to visit. I would go there to pick up relatives that flew in to visit, I took my GREs at UVM, at one time after school I was hoping to get a job there. It is a very nice town and school so to hear that it was the location of Gardner-Quinn's disappearance was a shock to me.
Less than a week later it was reported that Gardner-Quinn's body had been found in Huntington Gorge, approximately 14 miles east of Burlington, near the small town of Richmond VT. This disturbed me even more because just a week before I'd mentioned Richmond on my blog.
The picture to the left is of Huntington Gorge. I took it in January of 2002. At that time the road in there was unpaved for much of its length and didn't have many houses on it. I doubt much has changed in the past 5 years. It's a quiet area.
It's no stranger to police and rescue units though. There's a plaque up at the head of the gorge for the swimmers that have lost their lives there over the years. But despite both leaving someone dead, murder is a far cry from an accidental drowning .
It's been two weeks now and I still can't reconcile murderous violence with the pastoral backdrop of rural Vermont. It bothers me in a way that murders in Atlanta and NYC--two other places I've lived--don't. You expect life to occasionally be snuffed out early in cities. It's regrettable but expected.
This picture is just past Huntington Gorge looking back up at the road from down on the rocks next to the stream. Less than a half mile downstream the river widens quite a bit and slows down. While it looks quiet in the pictures above, that's because so much water is locked up in the form of snow and ice. In warmer weather this can be a fast and dangerous river but it was never meant as a dumping place. Lost innocence.
Michelle Gardner-Quinn, 21, of Arlington VA was a student at University of Vermont in Burlington, VT. In the grand scheme of things, if you live near Washington DC and go to school in northern Vermont you'd certainly expect bad things to happen near home in DC, not at school in Vermont. Vermont is a land of dairy farms and quaint bed & breakfast inns. You expect to see cows and Ben & Jerry ice cream not a sex criminal.
I grew up in upstate NY and Burlington was the closest city--if you can call a place with under 40,000 people a city--with an airport and college so there were often reasons to undertake the two hour drive to visit. I would go there to pick up relatives that flew in to visit, I took my GREs at UVM, at one time after school I was hoping to get a job there. It is a very nice town and school so to hear that it was the location of Gardner-Quinn's disappearance was a shock to me.
Less than a week later it was reported that Gardner-Quinn's body had been found in Huntington Gorge, approximately 14 miles east of Burlington, near the small town of Richmond VT. This disturbed me even more because just a week before I'd mentioned Richmond on my blog.The picture to the left is of Huntington Gorge. I took it in January of 2002. At that time the road in there was unpaved for much of its length and didn't have many houses on it. I doubt much has changed in the past 5 years. It's a quiet area.
It's no stranger to police and rescue units though. There's a plaque up at the head of the gorge for the swimmers that have lost their lives there over the years. But despite both leaving someone dead, murder is a far cry from an accidental drowning .
It's been two weeks now and I still can't reconcile murderous violence with the pastoral backdrop of rural Vermont. It bothers me in a way that murders in Atlanta and NYC--two other places I've lived--don't. You expect life to occasionally be snuffed out early in cities. It's regrettable but expected.This picture is just past Huntington Gorge looking back up at the road from down on the rocks next to the stream. Less than a half mile downstream the river widens quite a bit and slows down. While it looks quiet in the pictures above, that's because so much water is locked up in the form of snow and ice. In warmer weather this can be a fast and dangerous river but it was never meant as a dumping place. Lost innocence.
Comments
I never jumped from the Gorge, but all my cousins did. It is a very dangerous place.
Lovely lovely pictures....
unrelatedly,
Did you ever do the novel writing month yourself.
This stuns me. I wrote something about violence coming close to home. I'll post it to my blog, because now's the right time to share it.