In reading this morning's Courier-Journal story about an apparent murder-suicide in which police say a Fairdale mother killed her two young daughters and then herself yesterday, I was perplexed by a photo than ran alongside the article online.
The photo — showing the mother, Hope Orwick, alongside her husband, Chris, and one of their daughters — was taken by a C-J photographer in 2004, but there is no explanation as to why.
Curious to find out more about the photograph, I searched the C-J's archives and learned that on June 3, 2004, the newspaper printed a lengthy story about the Orwicks and their 3-year-old daughter, Lindsey, who was born with an extremely rare genetic defect called cri du chat syndrome. The story focused on the support the family received from the WHAS Crusade for Children, and how that helped their daughter achieve a relatively normal childhood.
About a year after the story was published, Chris Orwick died, although it's unclear how. One woman quoted in today's C-J article said she knew Hope Orwick from a church group and that, "I would just want people to know that she loved her children, but I think she missed her husband."
Metro Police responded to the family's Appomattox Road home last night and found Hope Orwick dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Her two daughters — Emily, 9, and Lindsey, now 8 — had been fatally stabbed.
I find it odd that The Courier-Journal would go out of its way to dig up this archived photo, yet fail to mention any details from its previous story on the family. (SK)
A story in today's Courier-Journal provides additional details, including a mention of the paper's 2004 article on the family.
4 comments:
I was very confused by this as well.
Considering that a simple search of the C-J's archives was all that was needed to find the source of the photo, I would hardly find it accurate to state that the paper had gone "out of its way to dig up this archived photo." I would consider this to be journalism, something you should be familiar with. Since you apparently are not really into this journalism thing, I do not find it surprising that you failed to investigate the death Chris Orwick any further. Fortunately for the curious, death records are kept and can be searched -- I know this because I searched them. Perhaps you should do the same so that you have better footing for your bashing of the C-J.
This blog post isn't exactly bashing The Courier-Journal. I simply point out an inexplicable oversight in a single story.
There was no context provided for the photo of a smiling Orwick family alongside the story about a murder-suicide, so I was curious.
But because the photo was from 2004, any article accompanying it at the time was not available via the C-J's online archives, requiring me to search Lexis-Nexis — that's where I found it.
Oh, knowing that you used Lexis-Nexis changes everything. Perhaps you can do some research on Mugatu while you're at it, Archie.
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