A Different Approach to a Murder Trial

On Sept. 23, 2002, 18-year-old Rachel Rose Burkheimer was murdered by a group of men and buried in a field in the foothills of the Cascade mountains, east of Everett, Wash.

In the months since, the grisly details of the murder have been covered extensively in area newspapers. Reporter Scott North, of The (Everett) Herald, figures he's written about 85 stories about Rachel Burkheimer's murder, following the case from the investigation to the trials of the accused.

The third, and final, trial began last week (three suspects in the case are being tried seperately). After covering the first two trials as a "straight" story, North said, The Herald is taking a different approach to coverage of this trial. Instead of focusing on courtroom events, Herald reporters will focus almost exclusively on Rachel Burkheimer's family — accounts of courtroom proceedings will be relegated to a sidebar.

"We're going to write about the things you usually don't get to write about in a trial," North told the Dart Center. They plan to write about how people prepare for the trial, about the relationships between the people involved in the trial, and about the emotional and spiritual processes of the family members. "It's a different approach," North said. "I don't know if it's going to work."

Reporting for the story that appeared in today's Herald, North accompanied Rachel Burkheimer's mother, Denise Webber, to church last Sunday in order to get a glimpse of how she prepares herself for the trial. "Her faith is a big part of how she's processed this situation," North said. In the story (see below), North writes: "... she feels the comfort of God's love, in spite of the horror of Rachel's death."

How did North manage to build a relationship strong enough that he was able to accompany Webber to church? "I've just basically made myself part of the scenery," he said, describing his approach during the first two trials and before. "I approached them as a human and shared my sorrow with them over the death of Rachel, and they saw that that was genuine."

On the dozens of occasions he has seen them since Rachel Burkheimer's murder, he said, "I make a point of asking them, 'What do you think of what I'm writing?' "

On one of those occasions, Denise Webber told him that reading her daughter described as a "woman" troubling — she still thought of Rachel as a girl. Even though Burkheimer was 18 when she was killed — which means that, at least according to AP style, she was a "woman" — North, in subsequent stories, carefully avoided using the word "woman." Though it seems like an insignificant detail, North said, he thought Webber appreciated it. "It meant a lot to her," he said.

In recent months, he has checked in with the family regularly, asking them "What's happening?" or "How're you getting through this?"

For his June 3 story, "Trials take toll on Burkheimer's mother" (see below), North met with Webber about a week before the first court date. "I spent an afternoon with her," he said, "talking about what's important in her life."

North is sharing coverage of this trial, rotating with two other Herald reporters (Jim Haley and Diana Hefley). This schedule allows each reporter to take breaks from the story, which North says has been a difficult one. Rotating with the other reporters, he said, makes it somewhat easier. "It really works," he said. "It's a hard case to cover, ... but I'm not burned out."