February 2017 Real Life Stories About Greed, Corruption, and Murder by Juliana Aragon Fatula

My bestfriend is a journalist and a very good one. She writes about homicides and horrible things that people do to one another. I write fiction. She writes non-fiction. Sometimes we have tea and she tells me her real life horror stories about the bad things that go bump in the night. I don't know how she deals with all of the heartache and pain she hears from people she interviews who have experienced the loss of loved ones. It's easy for me to create a fantasy world and characters who kill each other in horrendous ways. She talks to coroners and detectives, witnesses, and survivors and tells the stories we read in our Sunday papers. She's tough. She has to be. She tells me the stories and I can see how they affect her; keep her up at night, depress and anger her.

I realized my stories are nothing compared to the real life drama she experiences with her job. She has been writing for 25 years. I wonder when she retires what she'll write about. She told me once, when you have to write for a living, it's not as much fun to write a novel. Something like that. I encourage her to write. To tell her story. But I understand why she doesn't. Her head is full of real life horror stories about murder, rape, stabbings, beatings, gun shots, drowning, hanging, suicide...

I never understood how difficult her job is until she started sharing with me her interviews with victims and their families. The survivors. She says they just want someone to listen to them and their frustration with the criminal justice system. She goes to court and sees the suspects go to trial. She hears the witnesses testify about the actual events that occurred in the crime. She does this over and over and over again. There is no end to the crime in our small community.

I admire and respect the work she does. It's not easy, but someone has to report the truth. She is diligent and professional and does a tremendous job. Sometimes, I don't know what to say to her to make her feel better. I tell her how proud I am of her and her dedication to investigating the stories to get the truth. She uncovers injustice. She tries to get her victims the closure they need to move on.

I've learned a great deal about crime from her. She deals with the corruption, the lies, the hate. We read the newspaper and learn about the crime from her writing, but she knows the details, that even we don't learn about because they are so terrible.

My homegirl, loves pugs, bostons, and whatever the hell Angel is, a chihuahua? Anyway, she is special; she is spectacular; she is big, blonde, and beautiful.

She's such a professional journalist that she has been on the Investigative Discovery Channel twice for interviews about the murder trials she's covered over the decades. For living in a small town, we have a tremendous amount of crime, drownings, and suicides at the Royal Gorge River in the canyon.

My hope for her is that someone watches her on TV and hires her to do investigative reporting for a news channel. She would be terrific. But she's too modest; she doesn't believe her own worth. She's priceless; she's the best friend a woman could ask for.

When I'm writing my murder mystery, I think about her and the difficult job she does everyday. I've never met anyone like her. She works at one of the hardest jobs that exist.

I've been watching CNN religiously since the election and I hear politicians talking about alternative facts and telling the media to keep their mouths shut. It angers me that the people elected to protect us are trying to sneak the wolf in the back door while we are looking the other way. I believe in the first amendment and freedom of speech.

My bestfriend never looks the other way or sneaks anyone in the backdoor; she investigates, interviews, documents, photographs, and writes the stories that reveal the dark side of mankind.

I appreciate her work ethic and stamina to tell the stories that are stranger than fiction. She is my s-hero because she stands up to the politicians, the lawyers, the police and represents the public's right to know the truth. Amen, sista'.