By S. Montfort
On December 11, 2012 blocks away from Fordham University School of Law Brandon Lincoln Woodward was murdered execution style in broad daylight. Brandon a 2003 graduate from Loyola Marymount University, a law student at Whittier Law School, and a father to his four years old daughter was a Los Angles man who booked a one-way ticket from California to New York. Police still have no idea what Brandon was doing in the city. Brandon has somewhat of questionable past because of his numerous run-ins with the law. Brandon had at least 20 arrests in the last 8 years on charges including cocaine possession, armed robbery, and grand theft.
In this mob-style murder, the killer waited for Brandon for about 30 minutes before he checked out of his hotel. Once Brandon arrived he checked his phone and walked around as if he was looking for an address. Brandon walked by the killer and instinctively turned around, but he continued to walk forward without paying the killer any mind. The killer then walked behind Brandon releasing one shot into the back of his head before fleeing in his get away car. The police believed he was lured to that location, but they have yet to find any suspects or reasons for this mob-style murder.
It is easy to look at this fellow law student and think that he may have provoked this horrific crime, but not knowing his back-story it is hard to come to that determination. I would like to know all the sequence of events in his life that led him to be sentenced to death by this unknown gunman. What were the events that led an individual or individuals to decide that Brandon no longer deserved to live amongst us? Was it emotional complexity, the lack of understanding of a potential idiosyncrasy that Brandon may have possessed, which led to murder? At this point no one knows. Nonetheless, whether or not he fits into our societal norms of being “good” or “bad,” in order to receive closure, his family deserves to know who killed him and why.
