I first read the story in the morning San Francisco Chronicle. While eating breakfast, I glanced at the single column on the front page. It was a story about a woman killing her two daughters, then her husband, and then herself. "Such a tragedy", I thought, "and not far from here - in Santa Clara". I read the name of the deceased mother - Tae Young Schiefer. "Oh, no. Could this possibly be a Korean woman?" I sighed to myself, "No, it's probably a Chinese name". I finished reading the rest of the paper, forgot about this story and headed off for work. On the way back to the house, I picked up the mail. On the front page of the Korea Times, I saw news of the suicide murders. She must have been Korean, I concluded. I gave the newspaper to my wife who read the news, making a "Tck-tck-tck" sound with her tongue. She explained some of the details provided by the Korea Times.

There are three levels of personal introduction: first you are introduced to the name, then to the photograph, then finally to the person in the flesh. On the next morning I passed from level one to level two. I was greeted by the Schiefer family photo on page two of the Chronicle. I blinked back tears. The formal family photo was so typical of the genre. A husband posed on the left, two children to the right, and a mother in the center. Why is it that the only time that when a family photo of this sort appears in a newspaper, it's in regard to some great tragedy? I looked up from the family photo in the newspaper and glanced across the room. I saw my own family photo. It was surprisingly similar: an Asian woman in the center, a Western man, on the left and two children of mixed-race standing behind. As I reflected, the thought occurred to me that if my family photo ever appeared in the Chronicle, it would have to be under similar circumstances. I shuttered at the thought and looked back to the picture in the paper. How could such an untypical tragedy happen to such a typical looking family?

In the afternoon Korean Times, I was the same family photo, but this time larger. I watched my wife as she read more details. I could see that she was disturbed. But she looked up and said to me "you better watch out. See what we Korean woman can do to our husbands". It was a bad joke, but humor has a way of dispelling tension. In the following days, more details emerged about his recently deceased family of four. The husband was German, the daughters were bright, and the mother experienced extremes mood swings. I read a family news letter written by the husband, discussing typical family events, so oblivious to the tragic road ahead.

I have no answers, but only questions. Could someone have intervened to prevent this loss? Did she have to kill her daughters? Who is to blame for these four deaths? I remember the story of scorned Medea; how this wife and mother was so consumed with hatred toward her husband that she robbed from him of the thing that he most valued - their two sons. Her hatred was greater to her husband than her love for her own child. Is this a local example of this ancient Greek story? I think that there is a beast I all of us. I think that moral training, human compassion, and will power can keep the beast at bay most of the time. When hatred, combines with mental and emotional instability, and combines again with easy access to handguns, this is when a family