So this is why I ran screaming from journalism after exactly two days of it, in the immediate wake of four years of veddy expensive preparation to do this for the rest of my life.
Imagine that your daughter, your sister, your best friend was murdered, and the weapon of choice just happened to be a bikini top. And all of a sudden, your daughter, your sister, your best friend… this full, complete, frustrating-wonderful person, was suddenly reduced worldwide to: “The Bikini Top Murder Mystery."
That’s what happened to Tiffany Souers.
That’s her name, Tiffany Souers. She wasn't some Hooters whore who passed her days wandering the street in a bathing suit. Her parents are Jim and Bren. Jim is a business associate of my father’s. Tiffany grew up in a Midwest Catholic suburb, just like me. She was an engineering student at Clemson. And she was smart and kind and did a lot of volunteer work. And then a stranger strangled her in her apartment. And the smart and kind person was chipped away and chipped away by assult layers of zoomy graphics and ten-second story updates until she was just… a bikini top.
Especially adept at this was Headline News’ Nancy Grace, who spent a half hour every single night on the case with a gigantic banner at the bottom of the screen, so huge that it obliterated her demonstration of the opening of a rape kit (don’t ask.) There was a delightful carousel of banners accenting
“Susigbasdh?” she muttered at him after he detailed other murders in the Clemson area.
“Excuse me?” he said faintly.
“WAS. THE. CASE. SOLVED?!?!?!?” Her disgust was dripping all down her leather jacket and onto the rape kit. Idiot! Infidel! Talking when she wasn’t!
I hear that
I was going to link to Nancy’s website, to show you the poll her webmaster posted last night about whether or not her murderer should get the death penalty.
But there are no mentions of Tiffany. Anywhere. Instead, there's a poll asking if... the killer of a Lubbock teenager named Joanna Rogers should get the death penalty.