Collegiate Times

In Friday's article, "Details emerge in GLC attack" (CT, Jan. 23), the authors provided an eye-catching yet gruesome image in the article's opening sentence.

While understanding that facts should be presented to their fullest, I feel the Collegiate Times may have taken a step too far by almost glorifying Xin Yang's death. An innocent victim should not be disrespected in such a blatant manner.

By simply reading this first sentence, readers across campus and Blacksburg likely felt horrified and heartbroken, but not relieved nor even justified to know a calloused killer is now under custody.

Further heartache and sorrow were probably felt by close friends and family of Yang at this description than if the CT had run a simple proposal of facts of the crime.

The facts provided were, however, not inclusive of Yang. While a few details and a picture were given, the majority of the article discussed the killer.

I believe this only adds to the ongoing problem of incidentally praising stone-cold murders such as Haiyang Zhu, Seung-Hui Cho and Steven Kazmierczak from NIU. Overpublicized details about their methods seem to merely encourage other potential murder candidates by news organizations reporting their actions more than necessary.

Should I make the connection between the publicized death of Heath Ledger during the filming of "The Dark Night" and the murder of a nurse and two infants by a knife-wielding man dressed in face make-up and dyed red hair?

As ludicrous murders arise across the nation on school campuses, reporters should detail the lives of the innocent victims and leave out the needless details of the murder and action leading up to the murder.

Let us celebrate the life of Yang and her great accomplishments while ignoring the cell phone conversations, knife collections and unmailed letters of Zhu.

Jonothan Wrenn
senior, biological sciences