Mystery builds around school official Taft's assault

The News & Observer Publishing Co ^ | 03/09/2010 | THOMASI MCDONALD AND ANNE BLYTHE

[CodeJockey]

RALEIGH -- Three days after a state school board member was found injured in the West Raleigh home of a Raleigh lawyer, police still are combing the crime scene for evidence and remain uncharacteristically tight-lipped about the crime.

State Board of Education member Kathy A. Taft was found severely beaten inside a two-story home at 2710 Cartier Drive late Saturday morning.

[CodeJockey]

Police, who had said Kathy Taft died, have now sent a retraction, saying she "remains alive and hospitalized."

Something strange going on here?

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

The crime itself is definitely strange.

The fact that they said she died and later retracted. Strange as it may seem, this doesn’t seem all that weird to me.

Most probably she is probably neurologically devastated and being kept alive on “life support”. Family could have decided to terminate support and later changed their minds. Or their may be organ donation considerations. Or a hundred other reasonable explanations.

So I don’t think the retraction, in and of itself, is all *that* odd.

[MrPiper]

Something strange going on here?

Yes, if you interact with a lawyer in anyway, it will come back to bite you in the butt.

[OldEagle]

What about the homeowner? And what about her husband?

[NautiNurse]

Another report stated both the family and police reported her death, later retracted. Very strange. Could be they turned off the ventilator and she began breathing on her own, a la Karen Quinlan.

[CodeJockey]

Probably just hearsay at this point, but I heard on a radio report that she was house sitting while her boyfriend was in Florida.

Raleigh/Durham, I guess like most metro areas, has it’s share of violent crime. My daughter who is only ten now wants to go to culinary school up there when she is older. I’ll be concerned for her safety if she does. We live in such a rural area now, just about everyone knows each other.

We joke because our county paper runs once a week on Wednesday. By the time you read it, the news is already known.

[NautiNurse]

Latest reports indicate Taft has really, truly expired shortly after noon.

Apparently, she and her ex-husband were good friends with Algore and Tipper.

[CodeJockey]

It would seem that her injuries were so severe that her death was imminent. I'll say a random act of violence, but being that someone was in the home with her and did not hear anything only adds to the mystery.

Kathy Taft