This reminded me about a neighbor, David H. Hetzel, who I lived next door to for 7 years. Ten years after I’d moved a mile away, he beat and stabbed his wife to death, lit several fires in his historic Victorian house, and did himself in with a chef’s knife. The house burned to the ground. The whole thing was carefully planned. I’d actually run into him along with his wife and adorable redheaded grandson at a riverside park, buying raspberries from a vendor a few days before it happened.

I’d never had any issue with the guy but my ex husband, who had lived in that house with me the first two years, couldn’t stand him and thought he was a snake. I dismissed that because my ex was a tool who trusted no one, but in this case maybe he had a point.

Hetzel had owned a great little cafe with one of his young adult daughters. I don’t know if it was the cafe going under, expenses from his new catering business, home improvement loans or a combo of all that but he was deep underwater with the mortgage and the house was in foreclosure. Maybe the arson was a big FU to his bank. But I’ll never understand how he could leave his twin daughters with that heartbreak. They were only in their 20s.