Monday, 30 December 2002

It's a small and frightening world. From about July 2000 to June 2001, I reported to a man named J. P. Lisowski, an expat like myself who had been promoted from our Korea office. JP, as everyone called him, was sent to Australia to be my boss—my new project expanded our technical support business in the region to the point where we needed a director to come in and manage it all.

JP and his boss (yet another expat) didn't get along very well, and at the same time the telecom industry went through a world-wide meltdown, so in a very short period we shrank to a size where we didn't need a director solely dedicated to tech support any more, and JP was sent home—for the first time in many years, as it turned out; JP had spent a long time in Korea, and in fact had met his wife and had two children there.

So, JP and his family went back to the Chicago suburbs, and that—literally, as it turns out—was the last time I saw him. We traded e-mails a few times, but we weren't working on the same project any more, and we hadn't really become close on a personal level.

On Christmas morning JP was shot and killed, apparently by his wife. She also shot both their daughters and then tried to kill herself, according to police reports, but she and the daughters survived. She will be arraigned on one count of murder and two counts of attempted murder on February 3rd.

I read about the shooting in the papers on the 26th, but didn't actually make the connection until today's paper said that the victim had formerly been an expat in Australia. The newspaper reports all mentioned the wife's name and "her husband John," which wasn't enough for me to trigger the association with JP's name.

It's a small world, and I'm a bit player in someone else's tragedy. My condolences and prayers to out to the Lisowski children.

- Posted by Scott Forbes at 5:21 am. comments.