Shortly before midnight that spring evening, the room in which we had gathered grew eerily quiet. Cameras stopped clicking. Reporters stopped asking questions and stopped taking notes. Interviewees stopped talking. We looked at our watches and at one another, lost in introspective thoughts.

A few minutes later we got the word: James Hutchins was dead.

At Central Prison in Raleigh, N.C., the 54-year-old textile worker had been executed by lethal injection. His execution March 16, 1984, was the first for North Carolina since reinstatement of the state's death penalty in 1977.

His execution had generated national attention, meriting a minute on the network news shows. It was a far different time from today.

I had covered the case from May 31, 1979, when Hutchins shot two deputies and a highway patrol trooper dead; to the all-night manhunt through the rural woods; to the capture; to taking photographs as he was taken to jail; to his trial; to his death.

This was before the Internet allowed instant communication across the world. CNN didn't exist when the shootings occurred. During the manhunt, a network reporter and I hid behind cars to avoid Hutchins and the armed civilians looking for him. The most technical piece of gear we had was his tape recorder. No one had cellphones.

There was no gavel-to-gavel TV coverage of Hutchins' trial. Not even still cameras were allowed in the courtroom.

The Hutchins case was a major news story in the community where it occurred, somewhat so in the state, and only minimally from a national viewpoint.

Today we have not only instant news coverage of local crimes, but a constant stream of details, analysis, speculation and, often, public verdicts of guilt or innocence long before the trials even take place.

Such was the case with the death of 2-year-old Caylee Anthony and the trial of her mother, Casey. The mother had been judged guilty by media pundits who conveyed that quite clearly to the public when a jury in Orlando returned a not-guilty verdict.

Now, Casey Anthony is free, but in hiding, because much of the world that watched the case unfold 24/7 believes she killed her daughter.

What made this case a media sensation capturing the world's attention? What made it so special when, experts say, a mother kills her child about every three days in the United States? Did polling suggest public interest in the Anthony case would help sell advertising? Were focus groups called in for discussions on how much coverage was justified, how eager the public was to know all it could about what may have happened?

I don't intend to claim this was not an interesting case or that media coverage was excessive. But I still wonder why some cases stand out so much more than others, why a local tragedy can suddenly gain national or international attention.

During the past week, international attention has focused on a crime in Port St. Lucie in which 17-year-old Tyler Hadley allegedly bludgeoned to death his parents, Mary Jo and Blake. The killing of parents by their child is gripping. But there are other factors in this case that put it into a much different, more horrific category. The killing allegedly was done with a hammer, an incredibly brutal and personal method of attack. And, police say, the teenager threw a party for a large group of his friends at his home with the bodies of his parents locked in a bedroom of the home.

The crime as it has been reported is almost impossible to fathom. And that may make for gripping television.

Whether this case gets the same kind of attention that the Casey Anthony case received will be up to the news and entertainment executives who make such decisions. But this is, at its foundation, an unspeakable tragedy for a family and a heartbreaking tragedy for the community, friends and co-workers of Mary Jo and Blake Hadley.

It will be troubling if their deaths become little more than an invitation for the circling of vultures. The victims' legacies deserve better.

http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2011/jul/...cie-aboutcncp/