It Can Happen Anywhere......

It can happen anywhere.

I know it can happen anywhere. That is what I try to help other people understand. And then it happened to Amy Nose. And I caught my breath.

Amy Nose worked at Taylor University in Upland, Indiana. Taylor University is a small, Christian liberal arts college. It is a very tight-knit community. Upland is a tiny, tiny place.

Amy was a victim of domestic violence in a most final way on March 25 when her estranged husband killed her in her mother's home. He later died of a self-inflicted gun shot wound.

According to the Indianapolis Star,"Authorities said the domestic problems between the couple had been ongoing for several weeks, with Amy Nose spending some time in a women's shelter. She filed for divorce on Feb. 11; that case was still pending in Grant Superior Court at the time of her death. On Wednesday night, Amy Nose filed a police report that alleged some act of intimidation by her husband." http://www.indystar.com/article/20100325/NEWS02/3250494/Two-die-after-Grant-Co.-standoff

My heart and my prayers go out to the Nose family, and to the Taylor University family - to Amy's coworkers and to the students who knew her.

If you want to know a bit about Amy, here is a piece where she is sharing with students at a Family Chapel service at Taylor in September of 2007. http://www.taylor.edu/community/news/amy-nose.shtml

I know how it can be to know everyone so well at such a small university, and I can't imagine how it must be for students and faculty and administrators to wrestle with this and wonder if there is something they could have done to help Amy...and how they will be able to help Amy's two daughters now - one of whom is a student at Taylor.

If you are wondering why this is so personal to me, and why it caught my breath, it is because I went to Taylor University. It is the "last place" in the world I would guess that someone would die from a murder-suicide...or from domestic violence.

Except.....that it can happen anywhere. And heartbreakingly, it does.