Two lives intersect, and nothing remains the same

Franklin Lee McGirt scanned the rows of tidy, working-class homes as he wandered down Nu Shell Street on the outskirts of Georgetown. A petty thief looking for his next target.

Around lunchtime on May 12, 2003, a woman doing yard work saw McGirt on her neighbor's porch and asked what he wanted. He said he was interested in mowing her neighbor's lawn. She noticed the lawn didn't need mowing and hollered for her husband. McGirt bolted, leaving behind the front door with its weather stripping half pulled away.

He showed up a few blocks away on Missroon Street, and checked out a new burglary mark: a tan double-wide with green shutters.

McGirt crept up to the back of the house through a patch of dense woods. He yanked a ceramic birdbath from the yard and used its steel support rod to pry open the back door. A yapping schnauzer met him inside. He threatened the dog, and it scampered outside.

Moving quickly through the house, McGirt threw open drawers and cabinets. He'd broken into enough homes to know where folks usually kept jewelry and valuables. He pulled a blue suitcase from beneath the bed in the master bedroom and began filling it with silverware.

A wooden cabinet in a corner of the master bedroom caught his eye. Opening it, his gaze fixed on a lever-action hunting rifle with a black telescope. He rummaged through some drawers, found boxes of cartridges and loaded the rifle. He carried the rifle at his side as he continued through the house.

Then he froze at the sound of jangling keys at the front door.

***

Doc Norris unlocked the front door of his tan double-wide and stepped inside. He worked as an electrician, and his wiring job that morning was nearby. So he drove home to eat lunch and let his dog out. But his schnauzer, Heidi, who always jumped and barked when Norris' keys clinked at the front door, didn't come running. Perhaps Norris' daughter, Beth, who lived next door, had already come over to let the dog out. She happened to be home that day doing spring cleaning.

Norris paused in his living room to pick up the cordless phone from the end table. Behind him, the glossy eyes in a mounted deer head kept watch.

He shot the deer on a hunting trip a few years back, sighting it in the crosshairs of a black telescope mounted on his lever-action .30-30 rifle.

Norris headed to the master bedroom to use the bathroom, passing a blue suitcase that lay open on the bed. Normally it was kept underneath.

He raised the phone to his ear to call his daughter as he walked back through the living room toward the kitchen, his mind on eating lunch.

***

McGirt eased toward the footsteps, the rifle clutched across his lanky body. He paused in the kitchen and aimed the rifle at the sound coming toward him.

McGirt had recently been let out of prison after serving time on a burglary conviction.

Prosecutors had cut him a break, and he was sentenced under a more lenient youthful offender law. He served a little more than a year and was back on the streets before his 19th birthday.

He wasted little time getting back to old habits. Police suspected him in a recent rash of break-ins, including one at a local church. He broke into one house so frequently that the homeowner set up a video camera and recorded McGirt making a bee-line for the change jar.

He told court officials that he drank heavily, smoked marijuana and dealt crack cocaine. He said that he grew up watching men physically abuse women. He boasted that he beat up girlfriends and killed litters of kittens with a shovel handle. "I still like killing stuff," he bragged.

McGirt's parents divorced when he was a toddler, and he grew into his teens bouncing between the homes of family and friends. Burglary outbreaks moved with him. The break-ins often occurred in blue-collar neighborhoods where most of the residents worked during the day. He didn't count on them coming home for lunch.

***

Norris walked out of the master bedroom and started dialing his daughter's number to see if she knew where his dog was.

As he neared the kitchen, he saw a man and the barrel of his hunting rifle pointed at him.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Norris demanded.

"What does it look like I'm doing?" McGirt replied.

They stared at each other for a moment, 6 feet apart. Norris offered the money in his pocket. He told McGirt to keep the rifle and to go, please.

"I'm not going to leave a witness," McGirt said.

An explosion and a blast of fire erupted. The bullet smashed into Norris' face.

McGirt sprinted with the rifle out the back door and into the woods.

Norris tumbled onto a chair and his limp body rolled onto the blue carpet. Blood gushed from a void where his chin and neck had been.

— CONTINUED ON MONDAY, DEC. 4, 2006—