My son called me from Philadelphia today. It was lunchtime. He said, “Do you want to hear how fucked up some people are in this city?” He proceeded to tell me some very sad news.

Sabina Rose O’Donnell was 21 years old. She was a pretty girl who worked as a waitress in a restaurant my son frequents. Notice I said she “was” a pretty girl. Some asshole murdered her this past Tuesday night.

I take that back. Some ASSHOLE “destroyed” her in the middle of a hot, dark, Philadelphia night. He, mostly likely a “he,” didn’t just kill her. It was a “savage and brutal” affair. He forcefully dragged her to an empty lot behind her apartment. He smashed her face with a blunt object, her pretty happy face. Police say there was evidence that he raped her. He robbed her. Contents of her purse were found strewn about the lot near her naked lifeless body. Her purse was found on the curb at the intersection nearby. Her wallet was empty. The monster strangled her with a piece of her own clothing. Some beast of an asshole slaughtered this poor woman. He is still alive somewhere.

What in God’s name possesses people to do shit like this?? I don’t understand it. It was probably some crazed crack-head whose addiction-addled brain was beyond lunacy in his selfish quest for another fix. Sabina was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sabina herself became merely one more fix for this monster’s savage and unquenchable lust. It was more than just a crime. It was hideousness in its lowest form.

Why am I writing about this murder? One of how many dozens that take place in Philadelphia? My reason: Sabina’s murder happened just two blocks from where my son lives. I have been there. My feet have walked those streets and my eyes have seen the area in which Sabina lived and, sadly, died. On her last day, she shared drinks with friends at El Camino Real, a Tex-Mex restaurant where my son and I, along with his girlfriend and my youngest daughter, not long ago shared a meal of wonderful pulled pork BBQ sandwiches, sangria and margaritas. Sabina spent some of her last moments within those very walls, among friends. Then she died alone. Neither I, nor my son, nor Sabina’s friends were there to save her. She died in the clutches of a monstrous asshole in a dark empty lot. How many are the times I have driven in that two block area late at night after driving my son home! If only it had been on one of those nights that this savage attempted to attack her. I, the same as anyone of you reading my words, would have given my all to intervene so that she would still be smiling today. Rest in peace, Sabina. Rest in peace.

Further details on Sabina’s murder can be found here: Northern Liberties waitress, 21, found slain