Clarify

So, after a long and painful interval after the publisher's rejection of Asha's book (albeit what I know was a difficult one for them), I am going back to her story. Two very important questions have come into my mind about the murder--none of which will change the case, of course, except for a set of details which have raised a terrible and important question: did someone other than Michael McClish know about her murder before she was found and failed to report it, for whatever reason? 

That question has arisen from three years of information-gathering about the case. Does it matter? Yes, absolutely, in my opinion. Could I be wrong? Yes, which is why I have only presented this as a theory, based on some ideas coming out of my research. 

Believe me, I didn't stumble on that one and get excited because I had found some "juicy" thing to write about. It made me sick, that anyone could be so heartless in that way. It is something I completely hope I am wrong about, that I am conjuring phantoms.

And as always, I have been struggling with the moral questions of writing about Asha. Even though I knew her, a little, and McClish a bit better, even though I live locally, even though my blog at the time was one of the only sources of news about the crime: does that somehow make it okay for me to write an entire book about her? Have I approached anyone who knew her in a wrong way? Have I done anything to cause further hurt, or pain?

I am hoping that the latter question means that I am NOT trying to exploit her death, and that I am constantly checking myself as I look deeper into the reasons I am writing this story. 

The truth is that when she was taken from our community, the world changed permanently and irrevocably here. No one from that time has forgotten her, or her child. Somehow she compels people to remember her: why is that? And why in the name of God was such a good and precious person taken away? 

And did someone else, someone other that Michael McClish, know what had happened to Asha after she disappeared and before she was found? Believe me, I hope that it's not true: but as I have learned over and over, one seriously never knows.