Alexandra Luddy

A fifth-grader was killed the other day in an apparent murder-suicide. It appears that Alexandra Luddy, who attended Jeff Road Elementary School in Perinton, NY, and her grandfather were shot to death by the girl’s mother, who then proceeded to turn the gun on herself.

Her mother, Penelope Luddy, sent her husband out to check on an ill family member, and when he returned he was met by what most would see as any parent’s worst nightmare.

I think what gets to people most about this is just how, but lack of better terminology, “normal”, the woman was. Those who knew her remain in shock. Everyone’s been rattled, obviously. Mrs. Luddy seemed to be the perfect wife and mother; she was a room mom, a member of the PTSA, she helped out in the planning of school events whenever asked, she volunteered, and so on and so forth. So, as everyone seems to be thinking, what gave?

The local news service answered by saying plaintively, she was “distraught.”

So if she was, then, as the authorities so lightly put it, “distraught”, why didn’t anyone step in to do anything? There are only two explanations. Either no one noticed, suspected, say anything that could be tips toward her inner turmoil; or everyone knew and no one did a thing.

It’s happened in the past and it will happen again. Communities, parents, families, individuals don’t involve themselves, people look the other way, simply so that they don’t have to get involved. They don’t have to do anything. After all, there’s no self-interest in putting one’s self or family in danger just to help someone they may or may not even know all that well, right?

As may have been the mentality regarding this.

But that’s just a thought. It could have been, of course, that no one knew a thing. No one, absolutely no one, saw it coming. I don’t know whether I hope that’s the case or not. If it was, it goes to show just how little we know about each other as humans.

The nature of the crime suggests that it was premeditated. Mrs. Luddy asked her husband to leave the house, and then murdered her father, her daughter, and herself, which certainly would lead investigators to believe she was fully aware of what she was doing at the time.

But awareness does not imply clarity. I doubt there was any iota of clarity in her mind that morning.

“Maybe there were family problems…maybe it was self-loathing; she only killed from her own bloodline…maybe…perhaps…but it could’ve been…”

The point is, no one knows. People are terrified because they just don’t know. They don’t understand. And they’ll probably never understand, never get the opportunity to. I certainly don’t. I can only speculate.

My younger brother is in the sixth grade. He knows another boy who lives on Alexandra’s street. He was home that morning. He told my brother that he heard gunshots and a little girl screaming. My heart goes out to that boy, because chances are it’ll be years before he stops replaying those sounds in his head, if at all.

I hope his parents get him into trauma therapy or something. It would probably at least be good to look into.

I suppose that all in all, this whole thing just goes to show how very little we know about the human condition.