Two houses down from where my mom lives (rural SE Kentucky) there was a similar situation about a year or so ago. It involved a family that had lived there as far back as I can remember. Their son had a serious drug problem, in and out of trouble with the law in recent years, etc. They thought they were making headway with him and allowed him to move back in with them. Of course, the drug use returned and the father once again laid down the law. Keep in mind that their son is in his mid-late 30's. He'd found out who was supplying his son the drugs, and confronted the guy and told him that if he came on their property again he would deal with the situation himself. A few months pass without issue.
Then one evening last summer around this time the parents came home from somewhere to find the drug dealer's vehicle parked out in the driveway. Larry (the father) raced inside and confronted both the drug dealer and his accomplice, and the son was in the middle trying to sort everything out. The dealer pulled out a gun and shot both the father and the son dead, and the mother heard the gunshots and raced inside the house. She too was shot to death. The accomplice fled, running down a creek behind the house. They found him dead a few miles down the road, floating in the creek. The dealer was apprehended several hours later and charged with four counts of first degree murder.
I knew Larry, Norma, and their son (Chad) my whole life. Larry worked in the coal mines for a long number of years, up until he became disabled and could no longer work. Norma was always checking me out my senior year of HS. I'd be out working in the yard, and she'd find a reason to come visit with my mom and flirt with me every chance she could when my mom wasn't home. She was very attractive, even as she'd gotten older. Perhaps her marriage had gotten stale, or maybe she was just being nice. But I could definitely feel some vibes coming from her suggesting that she'd more than welcome my company whenever I was bored. I just chuckled and thought little of it. I had a girlfriend that I was fairly serious about at the time. But it didn't stop me from daydreaming! lol
Chad had always been a hell raiser. He was always getting into trouble. Later on after I'd been married and had kids and moved away, I'd come home and my mom would tell me how Chad was getting into all sorts of trouble in high school. She even suggested maybe I go down to talk with him and see if perhaps I could convince him to join the army. I felt it best to just stay out of it, it wasn't my job to straighten the kid's life out.
But Larry and Norma were good people. I'd run into Larry just a few years earlier at a gas station in town while I was down visiting. He was fueling his bass boat up and getting ready to head to the lake that weekend. We talked for a bit, I asked about Norma and Chad. He didn't talk too much about Chad. I didn't prod, because I too was familiar with the heartache in dealing with a child who had a drug problem. It is a very hopeless feeling that no loving parent should ever have to go through.
It's everywhere. Just when you think "It'll never happen to me" or "that stuff doesn't go on in my neighborhood," you soon realize that it does.
It's a very sad, desperate situation.