• by August 31, 2006

WE MADE THE POST, FOX NEWS TOO -- Things were getting better in our town since the tragic murder of two beloved merchants nearly two years ago cast our bucolic burb into tabloid central for the better part of a week. The Community is no longer for sale - the local movie theater, that is. It now shows inexpensive second-runs of popular current releases and has become Saturday night Mecca for families, teens and young couples alike. The main street corner that was the home of Donnelly Jewelry store - whose proprietors, Kim and Tim Donnelly, were gunned down in a random act of drug-crazed larceny - now sports a trendy fashion emporium. New restaurants are popping up all over the place, and we've even got an outpost of New Haven's famed Pepe's pizzeria, which means we finally have pies that are nearly as good as New York's.

All in all, we'd have to say the quality of life has been getting better in our community. So much better, in fact, that we were just named one of America's top nine "Best Places To Live, according to Money magazine. And we assure you, it wasn't because of the cost of living. It was, Money said, for the overall quality of life including its highly regarded schools, great beaches, its proximity to New York, and it's top score: public safety.

Don't get us wrong. It's not Shangri-La. There are scuffles in the high school. Neighbors shout over the yelps of barking dogs. And there are escalating spats of road rage fueled by suburban sprawl, an increasingly finite supply of parking spots and an increasing number of SUVs. And don't even ask us about the commute to Media Town via Metro North.

But all things considered, there isn't any place we'd rather call home. So when news of neighbor-on-neighbor homicide spread through town as it did late Tuesday afternoon, it brought back some tragic memories. It brought back the news trucks too.

We understand why this is a sensational story. And it's not just because of the startling nature of the crime, but because it is something we can all relate to, and most probably sympathize with. At least, as far as the facts stand as of this moment. A young father, with a straight-and-narrow background, is told by a trusted family member that his two-year-old daughter has been molested by a middle-age neighbor. He hurls himself through the neighbor's bedroom window and stabs him lethally in the chest. He is apprehended moments later in his own kitchen, awash in his neighbor's blood, a kitchen knife laying on the counter beside him in silent testimony. It is the stuff that tabloids are made of. We just don't expect it to be living next-door to us.

But as we vicariously watch this story unfold in the mass media, we can't help wondering if it isn't some ironic twist on Koszinski's "Being There." We are watching it in the media as if it is real life, only it is real life, and we are the there.

In the past 48-hours we've gone the full spectrum of media emotions. We went from the cool, detached news blotter report about a 29-year-old local who inexplicably murdered his 59-year-old neighbor, which had us initially sympathizing the older victim, to more detailed coverage in the following days papers revealing that the 29-year-old was a suburban patent attorney who had just been told about his daughter's molestation. Our sympathies shifted. It's not that we condone vigilantism, but we can understand this crime of passion. And as we sit here on a commuter train heading back home, staring at a New York Post headline blaring, "Frenzied dad slays neighbor in tot molest," and the hapless image of Jonathon Edington staring right back at us, we can't help wondering if there, but for the grace of God, go we.