Category: Sample Columns

A long wait for justice

November 23, 2013November 23, 2013 Brody No Comments

The following column appeared in The Herald-Sun in November 2013:

Jesse McBane and Patricia Mann saw a future together.

In 1971, he was an N.C. State student and she attended nursing school at Watts Hospital – now part of the N.C. School of Science and Mathematics campus within blocks of my home. He was 19; she was 20. They planned to marry.

On Feb. 11, on a cold, misty night, they went to a Valentine’s Day dance. Then they drove a car Jesse shared with his brother Marty to Crosdaile Country Club and parked near a pond.

Nearly two weeks later, they were found strangled, bound to an oak in an unpaved cul-de-sac just a couple of miles away over the Orange County line. It appeared that the killer repeatedly tightened and loosened the ropes around their necks, taking them to the brink of unconsciousness and bringing them back. It’s not clear how long that went on.

The murder drew detectives from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, Durham County Sheriff’s Office, Durham Police Department and the State Bureau of Investigation. But in the past 42 years, none of those agencies has managed to crack the case.

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Journalism, Non-Fiction, Sample Columns

Waiting for the real work to start

November 20, 2013 Brody No Comments

The following column appeared in The Herald-Sun on Nov. 16, 2013:

My friend Colin – another adoptive parent – asked over lunch last week whether I felt like a dad now.

“Has it really sunk in?”

It’s been nearly six months since Catherine and I adopted John Michael in Asheville and brought him home to Durham.

The answer should’ve been an emphatic “Yes.” But as I thought about it, I grew less certain.

Journalism, Non-Fiction, Sample Columns

His middle name is “Go”

November 2, 2013November 20, 2013 Brody No Comments

This column appeared in The Herald-Sun in 2013:

Colleen Kilsheimer once thought her son Stephen, born with Down Syndrome, never would know how to spell his own last name or slide his arms into the sleeves of a coat to bundle himself up against the St. Louis winter.

But he surprised her.

He could spell his last name just fine.

And, at 4 years old, he spread his coat out on the floor before putting it on.

“I thought I would cry,” she said. “That was such a treat.”

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Journalism, Non-Fiction, Sample Columns

Scaling back the media buffet

November 2, 2013November 20, 2013 Brody No Comments

This column appeared in The Herald-Sun in 2013:

Click.

This week, we turned off most of our cable service. We’ve pared back to the basic broadcast network package and internet.

Part of it is simply a family cost-cutting measure – it should save our household about $1,000 during the next year to go without the full-fledged package that included the digital DVR and a few premium channels like HBO and Showtime.

But mostly it’s the result of recognizing that we simply don’t need hundreds of channels that we rarely watch.

Journalism, Non-Fiction, Sample Columns