She was a runner, and like so many of her kindred spirits Chelsea King found freedom, joy, and life-affirming wisdom in the gritty hold of her sport. The wisdom didn’t come easy, it had to be mined most days of the week.  Which is what 17 year-old Chelsea was doing when she was attacked and killed one benign afternoon near her home in Rancho Bernardo Community Park February 25th 2010.

The news, first of her disappearance, and later of the discovery of her body in a shallow grave on March 2nd spread virally, for this was not just another Missing White Woman, that modern-day media syndrome which separates the haves from the care-nots.

“If this was someone in National City or Oceanside, there wouldn’t have been the same reaction,” was one cynical reaction I heard.

Notwithstanding, Chelsea King’s innocence seemed to radiate from the picture of her competing in her Poway High School cross country team uniform. Never a threat, runners often delude themselves into thinking that neither are they a target. Yet fully half the running population is just that if they put themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time. (more…)