Expelled Tennessee Rep’s Friend Was Shot Dead—Then Set Ablaze

When measured by the way he brightened kids’ lives, Larry Thorn was a figure of vital importance at the A. Maceo Walker Middle School in Memphis, Tennessee.

“As a school secretary, Larry Thorn was often one of the first faces that greeted our students,” reads a statement by the Memphis-Shelby County Schools. “His radiant spirit welcomed everyone into the building with warmth.”

But Thorn was not at work when he was fatally shot, so his killing after leaving his home on the night of Jan. 9 received none of the attention that would have accompanied a school shooting. Even with the added horror of him then being set on fire outside an abandoned church, his still-unsolved killing was tallied as just more gun violence in a city with a murder rate 10 times that of New York.

Read more at The Daily Beast.