Since starting my job at The News-Herald in May, I have written many stories about topics ranging from murders to children planting trees at school. 

At least once a month, I wrote a big story (or at least big to me). This is my reflection on what I did month by month.

2011 has been an eventful year for me. I turned 21 in February. I graduated with my bachelor's degree in May (one year early might I add!) and I was also hired at The News-Herald in May.

Since then, here are what I consider my biggest story of each month (I linked to every story):

May:

My first big story was about bomb threats in Trenton. In April, a bomb threat phone call to the high school was made, a bomb-device was found in the teachers' parking lot and there was a minor explosion in a local store parking lot. Police, along with the ATF, arrested 41-year-old John Kennedy for all of the attempts. He is scheduled to appear in Federal court in late February.

June:

I worked a weekend at the annual Cruisin' Downriver event. I was still getting to know the Downriver communities. Our intern and another staff writer went as well as we teamed up to get videos and walk around the entire event. It was a huge eye-opener into what living Downriver is all about. I wrote a column about my experience.

July: 

Six years ago, a tour boat with 14 people from the Trenton Travelers group capsized in New York. Three Trenton residents died in the incident. Although it happened years ago, it opened up a lot of emotion from the community when it was published. It was also a story I had to work several days at because researching a database from six years ago isn't always convenient.

August:

The biggest story I have covered happened in August. Body parts were found in a suitcase along the Frank and Poet Drain in Gibraltar. The crimes I had previously covered had happened before I started working here. This one I was there for. I spent an entire day at the scene with the search teams, police and firefighters while they searched for the rest of the body parts and/or any evidence as to what happened. They ended up arresting 52-year-old James Bommer, who admitted to dismembering the woman's body. Bommer is due in County court in February.

I also got to have an amazing experience in with the ATF in August. They had a media day, where many of us were invited to learn about how they operate. We got to shoot Colt M4s, learn about bombs, go through simulated scenarios and other events. It was by fun the coolest thing I have ever done in my journalist career and I will never forget it.

September: 

I spent all day every day for two weeks working on a story reflecting on how The News-Herald Newspapers covered the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. We laid the bindings of the newspaper out on a table and I didn't even sit at my desk those two weeks because I was reading every single article. It was entrancing to see how many people from Downriver worked in the Twin Towers or knew someone who worked in the Twin Towers. It was my favorite story of September, easily.

October: 

A one-year follow up story I did in October had a ton of response from the community. Jennifer Petkov had taunted a young girl one year prior by posting pictures of her with a skull and crossbones, and of her mother hugging the Grim Reaper, on Facebook and admitted to it on camera. Petkov and the girl's grandmother live across the street from each other and have ongoing disputes. I did a followup about the taunting never halting and a timeline of what all has happened between the families since 2008.

November: 

Two men were arrested in Nov. in a murder that happened in Nov. 2010. Flat Rock police arrested the men in late October, the preliminary examinations were in November. Four witnesses testified, including the mother of one of the defendants' child, who is also the woman who found 24-year-old Jesus Cabrera's body in her apartment. He was killed by a single gunshot to the arm. The trial was bound over. The prelims got out of hand in the courtroom and emotions ran wild.

December:

On Christmas morning, two cousins from Detroit broke into a store in Trenton, stole over 200 packs of cigarettes, led police on a high-speed chase, crashed their car in Detroit and then assaulted an officer. I got this report last week and the details were insane. Both men (ages 20 and 22) were arraigned and will be in court Jan. 3 and Jan. 10, since they have felonies in multiple cities. It's been a crazy crime story for this month.

Happy New Year!

Last week I had to write a story about a man allegedly raping a young teenage girl. It was our most popular story on the website all weekend long.

I also had to write about a 24-year-old being murdered, a 32-year-old dying and being dismembered and a 5-year-old boy being mauled to death by a dog.

If you even for a second think that I wasn't upset by the time I left the office Friday evening, you're dead wrong.

But that's not the point of this post. I touched on the fact that journalists aren't heartless in my previous post.

This is about the negative stories.

We all hear all the time, "All the news is sad and depressing. No one writes good news stories." They go on, and on, and on.

Guess what? We do write good stories! We write stories about kids planting trees for their schools and council recognizing good citizens or employees. Want to know how many readers we get on those stories? Not nearly as many as we do with crime stories.

If we miss or are a few hours late on a crime story, our readers are upset. If we're missing a city in the police blotter section, we hear about it.

You don't have to be ashamed of being entranced by the crime stories. People are interested and want to know. It doesn't make you morbid or a bad person. Lying to say that you don't want to hear about it does makes you dishonest though.

Here's a look at our most popular stories as of 2 p.m. today. Rape, theft, toys, murdered children, car accident and another thief. 

I get so sick of being blamed for bad things happening. It's not my fault people commit crimes. When I hear about it, I research, fact-check, interview and write. That's it.

We weren't the ones clicking and reading these stories.


"The worst crime is faking it." - Kurt Cobain

Dismemberment. Murder.

  Court. Judge. Charges. 

These are the five most used words in my vocabulary at work this week. And they will continue to be for at least a week.


Dismemberment

Tomorrow I'll be back in court for the competency hearing of James Bommer, the man accused of dismembering 32-year-old Pamela Prpich in August.

Some of Prpich's body parts were found in a suitcase Aug. 18. I spent the next morning with search crews all day looking for the slightest bit of evidence. They eventually made an arrest and found the other body parts.

James Bommer at the prelim exam

Bommer is charged with dismembering and mutilating her body, but not murdering her. It's a grotesque case.

The quotes from the detectives on the case always get me.

One said, "What are the chances of finding half a body in a suitcase and (during an interrogation) finding out the other body parts are in the (suspect's) closet? I didn't see that coming. I had to stop for a minute."

It's flat out eerie to think about how shocking it would be for someone to tell you he had a woman's body parts in the closet in his apartment. His clean apartment. Police said there were no signs of anything suspicious. No decomposing smell or anything.

I did a full blog on this in September after the preliminary hearing was adjourned.

At this point, I could write this story with my eyes closed. I have studied it and the quotes, the scene and the emotions are burned into my brain. You can trust that I'll give you every detail I found out as it unfolds. This has been the most bizarre thing I've covered, ever.

I'll be live-tweeting in court #NHBommer. Follow me @EricaPerdue. I'll also update my Facebook.

Murder

I received a phone call a few weeks ago about two arrests that had been made. Two men, James Shepher and Christopher Henderson, were taken into custody for murdering a man in Nov. 2010.

Christopher Henderson

James Shepherd

I wasn't working at The News-Herald then, so I knew nothing about this case. As I researched, I became intrigued. One of the men had been arrested in Tennessee in Dec. 2010. The U.S. Secret Service assisted with the investigation.

So many facts that just don't fit.

I attended the preliminary exam a few weeks ago, which was adjourned because a witness deemed necessary by the prosecution refused to come to court.

Both men were resistant in court, refusing to respond to any questions the judge asked. At that point only one defendant wanted an attorney.

The preliminary exam for both men will now begin Monday, Nov. 28. People were crying in the courtroom the first day, so I'm sure it will be emotional and full of rage.

Keep checking back

All around the Thanksgiving holiday, I'll be updating both of these stories. A full story and time-line about the dismemberment story is online and in the Wednesday, Nov. 23 newspaper. Online this weekend and in the Sunday, Nov. 27 newspaper will be a full story about the dismemberment trial tomorrow and also a background story of the murder trials and what happened in the year since Jesus Cabrera was murdered in Flat Rock.

So, keep checking back!

"We journalists make it a point to know very little about an extremely wide variety of topics; this is how we stay objective." - Dave Barry