Deep sadness

Two ladies from Gowensville were selling vegetables from their garden at the crossroads nearly two years ago, one September evening. Jim Cockman was there, meeting folks who had called about his white SUV, an old truck which he had parked there with a For Sale sign in the window. As he always did, Cockman sought to make new friends. He chatted with the produce sales ladies, and bought some okra.

A Tennessee man named David Edens had the truck out for a test drive. Edens’ common law wife, Jennifer Holloway, told Cockman she was taking her child in their car to Landrum for a hamburger. For awhile that evening, the two would-be murderers were both gone from the scene, with the truck they had come to steal.

Why not take it then? Why return the next day to abduct and murder a gentle man, such an outstanding man?

It is the absurd, unexplainable meanness and stupidity of this horrible crime which sticks in the throat. Holloway and Edens barely mounted a defense this past week. There were no real questions as to the facts. They very likely will pay with their lives. The jury began considering their life stories Sunday and, of course, Jim’s life story.

Jim’s widow, Cathy Cockman, told of her life with Jim, his children, his many civic and business involvements. She recalled last seeing him on the morning of his murder. He was washing some floor mats he had taken out of his pick-up, planning to throw them in with the SUV as a gesture of kindness to the poisonous couple who had given their names as Charlotte and Greg Hemlock. The cruelty which he met in return that morning defies understanding.

What can we take awayfrom this tragedy other than deep sadness that such cruelty exists, and anger at such mindless, seven-minded, or mind-numbing stupidity?
Nothing can be done. That two wasted lives may also now end abruptly is no consolation. — JB