The young woman wrote me an email on a Saturday morning in late January 2022.
She was 22 years old and in her final year of college. I had reported on her arrest four and a half years earlier, when she was 17 and still had a provisional driver’s license.
She was driving with a friend in Forsyth County, Georgia – where I was working at the time – when she turned left in front of another car. The impact forced the 18-year-old male driver into the oncoming lane. A third vehicle rammed the young man’s car, killing him.
At the time, I didn’t think twice about using the 17-year-old’s mug shot. It remained on the newspaper’s website for years.
Then I received her email.
“It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to go through in my life (and) I know his family feels the same way,” she wrote. “I have spoken to the boy’s family and apologized for the pain my mistake caused them. They said they meant no harm to me.”
She explained that she had served two years of probation and 250 hours of community service under the State of Georgia’s First Offender Act (neither drugs nor alcohol were factors in the accident). She then said she was concerned “that the mug shot you and a few other sources posted will prevent me from getting a job.”
She didn’t ask me to remove the story. She understood that I couldn’t remove her name.
“I’m just asking for a chance,” she wrote.
For decades, news organizations across the country have inflicted unnecessary harm through their coverage of crime. While all populations have been affected—this woman was white—minorities have been disproportionately targeted.
I don’t think that’s intentional — for me, it just wasn’t something I ever really talked about until I came to Delaware Online/The News Journal. But there’s a need to rethink crime reporting everywhere, as this newspaper has clearly done since I joined nearly five years ago.
The removal of the mug shots was only the beginning.
We rarely report on nonviolent crimes anymore (though we will cover a number of catalytic converter thefts in a larger article looking at the increase and causes). We usually don’t name people accused of minor offenses unless we think they’re dangerous. And when we do name people, it’s only after asking ourselves: Are we going to pursue this in court and report on the outcome?
Of course, there are exceptions: for example, last year we used a mug shot to search for Danelo Cavalcante after he escaped from prison.
First and foremost, however, we try to adhere to the guidelines that encourage “do no harm” – while also making sure our readers understand why bad things happen.
I think the Rafael Murillo case shows what our thoughtful crime reporting should look like.
I wrote an initial article about his arrest for attempted murder and mentioned his name, but we did not publish his mug shot because he was no longer a threat to the community.
Then I pulled out the court records and realized that it was worth digging deeper: Murillo had been violent during psychotic episodes and his mother had long been asking him for help in dealing with it. Something in the system was broken.
Of course, it’s impossible to produce a month-long three-part series on every crime we’ve covered and will continue to cover, but I believe that’s what our reporting should look like whenever possible.
As for the woman in Georgia, my former employer took down the mugshot. Other newspapers still have it online, just as many other newspapers in Delaware and Philadelphia still report on almost every press release the police send out. There’s nothing we can do about that (and I’m not saying this newspaper is perfect).
But we must always work on improvements.
Isabel is an investigative reporter covering breaking news and public safety, keeping an eye on some of Delaware’s most vulnerable: children, people with addictions, and the mentally ill. She can be reached at [email protected] or via X at @izzihughes_
