I can’t say I knew Lina Waldrip, a homeless woman who died sometime during the cold, cold night that started as Christmas Eve. But she was my age and from my hometown of Marianna, so I went to look for her in my yearbook. I found a girl who was a year behind me in school who looked like a younger version of Lina but went by a different name. I tried to remember something – anything – about her, but I couldn’t. And I regretted that I couldn’t.
Lina struggled with alcohol abuse and officials say she got drunk and fell asleep near her tent in the woods of Fayetteville. She never woke up. Was it the bone-chilling cold or some other ailment? We might never know.
The tragedy of it all struck me and has stayed with me for several weeks. And recently something else hit me: It was a rough year for my old hometown.
In addition to Lina’s death, consider:
Maurice Clemmons, 37, born in Marianna was shot and killed in Seattle by police who suspected him in the killings of four police officers.
Curtis Lavelle Vance, 29, was convicted capital murder, rape, residential burglary and theft, in the 2008 death of Little Rock TV news anchor Anne Pressly.
Marianna Fire Chief Charles Boone was shot and killed Dec. 30, 2007, after he was found in bed with the estranged wife of Stephen Amos, a classmate of mine at Lee High School. Amos was acquitted of capital murder charges during a trial in 2009.
Finally, 1st Lt. Tyler E. Parten, 24, died Sept. 10 in Afghanistan. His mother, Lona, also was in my class at Lee High School and was a friend.
I don’t know what to make of all this. It seems an unusually high per-capita tragedy count. Some stems from the poverty of that area. Some is just “stuff” that happens. That’s the world we live in, at least for now. And it’s why we need redemption.
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