Just after 7:30 on Monday morning, November 29, Shennel McKendall's husband shot her with a handgun as she walked to the door of an office building where she worked for UNC Hospitals. He killed her, and then he killed himself.
Shennel had done all the right things to protect herself. She had moved out of the house, gone to court for a protection order, asked for help. But none of this would save her. Maybe no one can ever be truly safe from the kind of violence that begins at home.
That Monday in November, Cherry Crayton had just put the finishing touches on her cover story about family violence. All of us who had watched Cherry's story develop knew that cases like Shennel's are all too common. Cherry had talked with researchers who study the lasting imprint of violence on body and mind. She had talked with doctors who care for the injured. She had watched damaged children arrive in the clinic. And she had spent time with victims of abuse, listening. A good reporter, Cherry immersed herself in subject matter so disturbing that we could feel the weight of her material crowd into our lives. So when news about Shennel spread through the office, it was all too vividly familiar, and all too real.
Another death has touched us, here at Endeavors. Angell Beza, a valued colleague in the Odum Institute for Research in Social Science, died last August tenth, just a few weeks before the institute celebrated its eightieth anniversary. For more than half of those eighty years, Angell served the needs of social science here at UNC-Chapel Hill, beginning as a research assistant in 1959 and finishing his career as the institute's senior associate director. Angell was a friend of Endeavors, and we often went to him for advice. We will miss him, especially when we need the reassuring presence of someone gentle and wise. 
