An Atlanta police lieutenant called the murder "gruesome."

The victim may have been alive when a fire was set in the trunk of a car in the 600 block of Cascade Avenue, said Lt. Keith Meadows.

Where was the follow-up story on this murder, a caller demanded to know this week?

In reality, there's no way the newspaper can write about every murder. There are just too many of them.

When we do write about them, we owe readers the victim's name at the very least. If we can't get it in the first day's report, we should follow up when we have it. That's a challenge for reporters who are often off to the next big story, resulting in some coverage falling through the cracks.

"That happens sometimes trying to cover numerous murders and other crimes in large urban areas like Atlanta," said DeKalb bureau chief Larry Conley. "We work hard to prevent it, but sometimes we do miss a story or fail to follow up."

In the case of the body found in the trunk, the victim hasn't been identified and the car's owner hasn't been located.

Last year, 125 people were murdered in the city of Atlanta, said Meadows. There were 116 murders in DeKalb last year, 50 in Gwinnett and 32 in Cobb, according to authorities.

Reporters generally look more closely at random killings or those involving unusual circumstances or well-known victims. When friends and family members are willing to be interviewed, more is written.

That concerns David Simpson, who covers public safety in DeKalb for the AJC. He sends letters to victims' families and tries to reach them by telephone, often running into a dead end, since many people only have cellphones.

In cases where victims are poor or come from troubled families, reporters typically don't learn as much about the victims.

Simpson keeps a file on every murder and follows the cases through the court system, where more information is often revealed.

"We are flooded with information if victims come from middle-class or affluent neighborhoods," said Simpson. "In other neighborhoods, they don't look to us to do anything."

Some of that reaction may be our own fault, says Conley. "The media sometimes tends to overemphasize some types of murders and underplays others, probably based on our own frame of reference —- whether we can identify with the victim, for example," he said. "It's our job, our professional responsibility, to move beyond that."

Yolanda Rodriguez, who covers public safety in Cobb, frequently gets out in person to learn more about victims. "Finding out about victims/suspects oftentimes means good old-fashioned reporting —- knocking on doors," she said.

Some metro police departments don't issue press releases on murders, so reporters rely on information from detectives and other sources.

In the majority of murders, victim and killer are known to each other. "A lot of our victims —- not all —- are involved in some sort of illicit activity that contributes to their deaths," Meadows said.

When police believe someone has been killed randomly, they typically release more information, he said.

Reporters pay special attention to incidents that have the potential to affect public safety as a whole, such as shootings involving officers or crimes involving a pattern.

In my view, the murder of any child or teenager should merit our scrutiny. Unfortunately, we allow some of those stories to fall through the cracks. In March, a 2-year-old child was killed at an extended-stay hotel in DeKalb and a 21-year-old man who was supposedly caring for the child was arrested on murder charges. Police were looking at the possibility of sexual abuse.

We ran a short item on the murder that did not include the child's name. The next day, reporters were working on the grand jury report involving police killings in DeKalb, so the horrific story about the death of an innocent toddler got little attention in these pages.

> Contact Angela Tuck by e-mail at insideajc@ajc.com, by phone at 404-526-5819, by fax at 404-526-5610 or by writing P.O. Box 4689, Atlanta, GA 30302.

READER OPEN HOUSE

Space is still available for the reader open house June 4 (2-6 p.m.). If you'd like to learn more about how the newsroom operates, e-mail Angela Tuck at insideajc@ajc.com or call 404-526-5819.