The Bothell/Kenmore Reporter has produced 19 stories and counting on the Susann Smith murder case. All of those stories have appeared online as soon as they were ready to be published. Many had to be combined to run in print.

I have personally written 15 of those 19 stories and it never gets easier. Any case this horrific impacts all who write about it – and read about it.

While reporting in Kirkland, I had to cover many uncomfortable stories. Kirkland resident Leonid Milkin was in Iraq serving our country when his neighbor Conner Schierman killed Milkin’s wife, sister-in-law and two children and burned down their home to cover up the crime. Schierman is now sitting on Washington State’s death row. The details of the case were brutal. The fact that it involved two children was difficult for anyone to talk about. It is not something from which you can detach yourself.

I also covered a fatal DUI accident that has stayed with me. Kirkland resident Steve Lacey was killed and left a wife and two children behind. As a father and husband, it is difficult to imagine how that family has dealt with the aftermath. The accident was so horrific it helped to get Washington State DUI laws strengthened. Snohomish resident Patrick Rexroat is now serving time in a Washington State prison for the crime.

While the details of those two stories and the Susann Smith murder have some similarities, the aftermath affects every survivor in a different way.

Smith’s children are in the custody of Washington State Child Protective Services. They no longer have a mother and their father is accused of killing her. Their lives are the ones that are impacted the most other than Susann Smith in this case. Their futures are uncertain at best.

But the Bothell murder will have lasting effects on other family members, neighbors and police. Most will never be the same. It changes a community.

We have tried to cover this story from all angles. Neighbors have come to us wanting answers and help. We almost never quote individuals without attribution. But the circumstances dictated that we must get accurate information out to neighbors and the community as a whole without potentially endangering innocent people. We have taken some heat for publishing descriptions of people who gave interviews to police. We purposely did not print their names, despite the fact that the search warrant documents were public record and anyone could obtain them. But we felt it was important for the community to have the full and accurate story.

The details of this case have been shocking and hard to prepare for a community newspaper. The search warrant documents were detailed and gruesome at times. As the community paper of record for both Bothell and Kenmore we have tried to not over-hype or sensationalize the events and sanitize some of the information as much as possible.

But we also have the job of informing the community of what is happening, and minimizing the gruesome details can give the impression that the events weren’t so bad. We want residents to have the facts and not rumor or innuendo.

We will continue to follow this case as it moves forward. We know the community wants answers as to what happened on the weekend of Feb. 12, and whether the police and prosecutor are right about the events or Alan Smith.