The Stigma of Homicide

For anyone who has lost someone to murder there is a stigma attached to it that others do not understand. I mean, people don’t kill other “good” people, right? The person killed had to have had some skeletons no one talks about.

This isn’t exactly the truth yet every time I say my brother was murdered, people begin to ask questions like, “what did he do to make the person want to kill him”? There must have been drugs involved. Did your brother ever do drugs? And much more.

I find when someone asks how my brother died and I say he was murdered I have to quickly follow up with he was an innocent victim who was actually trying to help people out of the building when the shooter came in. Tory was at work when he was killed. The place most of us feel safe. He was there in the office when the shooter entered. After he realized what was going on he got outside to safety only to think there are still others inside so he went back in to try to help them. That was his fatal flaw. It’s when he did that, the shooter zeroed in on him to kill him.

The stigma is real. Too many people think there is more. I hear it from others. I know what they are thinking.

6 Responses

  1. People freeze up with grief anyway sometimes. A sibling loss from homicide must be so hard in terms of uncensored reactions from people.

  2. My brother was murdered 2 years ago. He was trying to keep a girl’s (he went to school with back in the day) husband from killing her and her husband killed him. The sentence hearing was this passed Monday and to me all the man got was a slap on the hand. Bc 4 years in prison isn’t long enough for murdering someone so sweet and caring and humble and a gentle faint as my brother was and I feel as I’m dying inside everyday and most days I can barely breathe bc and I try to figure out how to keep living this life without him.

  3. I just lost my brother in the wee hours of April 22, 2021. A trucker found him on the feeder road to a major hwywith a knife wound in the chest. He was only 47. Jon had mental illness, bi-polar with schizophrenic episodes and our relationship was sometimes strained but he was my big brother, my protector when we were kids. I don’t know if we’ll ever get justice for him. It just doesn’t seem real that I’ll never hear his voice again.

  4. I lost my 49 year old son to murder this year,an altercation withsome one he knew, , whom my son tried to help at one time. All caught on video. Canada wide warranty,got him. Waiting the outcome,on either a trial,or guilty plea. My life has been shattered ,my husband had a massive heart attack, and now is in palliative care at home.I’m Heart broken, fragile, and scarred for life. My family torn in shreds. I miss him so much.