A blood-curdling howl shattered the silence in a Laurium neighborhood as the midnight hour approached on July 23 when the body of Kimberly Bess was found by her husband.

Police said Bess was shot to death by her brother, Christian Kitti, as she mowed the lawn at her parents’ residence on the 100 block of Florida Street.

The howl was heard throughout the neighborhood, a sound wave of grief so heart-wrenching that two neighbors ran to scene in the darkness, unaware of what they would encounter.

What they saw is better left undescribed. It’s sufficient to state Bess was wounded four times at point-blank range and leave it at that.

Even though police made an arrest quickly, and the murder appears to be solved, the neighbors continue to struggle with the trauma and fear that haunts these residents.

“We’re all really creeped out,” one resident said. “We want to feel safe again.

“We are a traumatized neighborhood.”

This could have happened to any neighborhood in the Copper Country. Trauma reaches everywhere.

Even so, some areas are better than others in coping and dealing with mental health issues like post-traumatic stress, because public and private mental health services are available. Not so in the mostly rural Upper Peninsula, which has a shortage of those services.

We don’t know if adequate behavioral health services were available, the shooting could have been prevented, but it’s possible. Several witnesses said Kitti was acting strange and troubled in isolation at his parents’ residence in the days and weeks leading up to the crime.

One neighbor described him as “mentally ill.” Another said he would sit in his parked car, just listening to loud music until the battery went dead.

“He would sit all alone in there with his thoughts,” the neighbor said. “It was probably not good for someone in his position.”

Florida Street residents reacted in their own way to the homicide. Some want more gun control. Some are getting guns.

They all have a common need – they need to cope with what happened in their neighborhood on July 23, to learn to let go of the fear that haunts people with post-traumatic stress.

Our hearts, thoughts and prayers go out to the families involved and the folks in the neighborhood.

A Daily Mining Gazette editorial