http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008197495_webmandead23m.htmlFor more than 50 years, Kenneth Cross proudly drove "The White Knight" — his 1955 Chevy pickup — around his Spokane Valley neighborhood, waving at neighbors as he cruised by.
"He was always out on his lawnmower; he kept his yard looking really beautiful," a neighbor said Monday. "But that cute old antique truck, of course, was all perfect."
Cross, 80, was found dead in his bedroom closet Saturday evening, the apparent victim of a daytime burglary.
Cross and his 92-year-old Greenacres girlfriend called each other every morning and again at lunchtime. So when he failed to show up for his usual visit after calling about noon, she called neighbors to look for him in his home at the corner of Boone Avenue and Wilbur Road.
When they didn't find him, she went to the home and discovered his body half-hidden under a pile of clothing. Police arrived on the scene about 7:50 p.m. "He had a lot of medical problems so when I heard the firetrucks I thought his heart was just acting up again and he had called 911," said a 50-year neighbor, who declined to give his name.
Police said evidence shows the house had been ransacked. Cross' injuries were consistent with a fight, so police suspect he struggled with a burglar.
The investigation continues into a brutal crime that has rattled the quiet Opportunity neighborhood, where residents are friends and crime is rare.
"I just can't believe something would happen in this neighborhood but I guess it can," said another neighbor who, like others, declined to give her name out of safety concerns. "It's just terrible. We shouldn't have had a problem like this at all."
As is completely typical, they are in denial. The vast majority of Americans can not conceive of robbers having cars or possibly in this case bicycles.
Many of my neighbors are in denial as well. They often claim that the housing project nearby is "no longer" a crime problem, because they tore all the old houses down and put in new ones. Obviously, they feel that the old houses were responsible for all the car thefts, burglaries, and rapes.
Notice that although a witness said something about seeing suspicious young men on bicycles, the media has, as usual, declined to provide any description. That is absolutely typical.
