DEALING DEATH

Sheriff, Addict Two More Victims of Drug Trade

Two news stories this week illustrate how destructive drugs and the
violence they spawn can be to individuals and entire communities.

The last of the conspirators in the 2002 murder of Pulaski County Sheriff
Sam Catron was sentenced Thursday to life in prison with no chance of parole.

Drug dealer Kenneth White was convicted of planning the assassination with
former sheriff's deputy Jeff Morris and trigger man Danny Shelley. Morris
and Shelley were each sentenced to life without parole for 25 years.

The very brazenness of the crime, committed while Catron was leaving a
community fish fry, reinforces the need for the more aggressive prosecution
of drug dealers that Attorney General-elect Greg Stumbo has promised.

The coldblooded murder of a law enforcer has to be unnerving to anyone
living on a drug dealer's turf. And that can be anywhere.

The other news story was about the stabbing death of Michele Moore, the
former Lee County homecoming queen who could not free herself from the
downward spiral into drug addiction.

The mother of two told her story of multiple drug use and repeated efforts
at recovery as part of the Herald-Leader's series about prescription drug
abuse in Eastern Kentucky. Her openness helped put a face on the potential
lost when getting the next high becomes priority.

Catron's murder reminds us that drug dealing and decency cannot coexist.

Moore made it tragically clear that drug-addicted is no way to live.