Shaking The Devil Off

I received a comment today on an old post about the murder of Carmen Reese, a message from a friend of the dead young woman letting me know that her murderer was sentenced this week. If you do not recall, Carmen was a troubled young woman who came to New Orleans, fell into stripping and the life of the French Quarter and died violently of it

I know it is merely the internal machinations of the Internet, the hidden web of links and searches and emails that ties the world together in strange new ways that led her friend back to me to share this news but I always have this feeling that somehow the dead have reached out and replied to my many posts about the victims of The Flood and our slow motion war of murder.

I can’t complain, as I have certainly invited the unquiet spirits by the many posts on Wet Bank Guide such as this, and my listing here on Toulouse Street of the murder victims each year, a sad holiday task I have set for myself, and must soon get busy on.

I could not find anything on the sentencing, but discovered this story on his conviction. Look soon for the list of victims of 2009. What is remembered lives.

It’s Odd that this should come up now, just as my wife is finishing Shake The Devil Off and found the book and it’s tale entirely too creepy. It seems she didn’t know quite how many people die here (and how easy to just tune it out of one chooses), and she says she now sees Zack and Addie in every street kid on the streets downtown. I may never get her out at night into the Quarter again.

For me, every comment on one of my electronic murder ballads is another step in the second line to shake the devil off.

Update 12-29-09: If you just dropped in from the link on NOLA.Com and didn’t click the link above, you can read more details about Carmen’s murder by clicking here.

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