Reeling from a senseless act of violence

Why? We're forced to ask, "Why?"

In court papers and interviews, police and prosecutors haven't locked themselves into a precise theory about why David Laffer robbed Haven Drugs in Medford, stuffing 10,000 hydrocodone pills in his knapsack and taking four innocent lives. But the investigators' uncontradicted implications point mostly to the couple's desperation and their shared thirst for drugs.

Who knows? That could certainly be a part of the truth -- but probably only part of it. Crimes this brutal are seldom easily explained.

Melinda Brady wasn't in the drugstore when the shots were fired. No one is claiming that. But she is accused of driving her 33-year-old husband to and from the massacre scene. And she seems to accept her role as a major part of his motivation. He "did all of this," she said at the Fourth Precinct. "He was doing it because he lost his job and because I was sick."

But how could anyone kill four people so coldly? Was the plan, as the Army vet's wife has said, to rob but not to kill? Couldn't Laffer have gotten the drugs with far less brutality? Would the results have been less bloody without that licensed .45? And how much does their drug use explain? Cops say they were both high when they were arrested. Is the Medford massacre yet another failure in America's failed war on drugs?

It'll take months or years to answer all those questions, if they are ever answered fully. Even if police are correct in their early working assumptions, all we really know is this: The drugs were calling. Someone had a gun. And four innocent people are dead.

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COLUMBO, R.I.P.

"Oh, sir. Just one more thing."

"You try to contrive a perfect alibi, and it's your perfect alibi that's gonna hang ya."

"Well, it's better than a gallstone. Did ya ever have a gallstone, ma'am?"

"I gotta take off this coat. I can't think in this coat."

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