This week’s column comes in the form of a message to whomever has spent the past month kicking in doors and crawling through the windows of dozens of rural homes in the greater Bangor area while the owners are at work and school.

I’d like to introduce you guys to a couple of people.

First, meet Linda Hardesty.

I met Linda in 1996 shortly after she and her then-18-year-old son found her husband of 20 years, George Hardesty, on the floor of their Bradley home one autumn afternoon. He had been shot in the head after he interrupted a daytime burglary at the family’s home.

George worked at the Maine Air National Guard in Bangor. Normally he took a set of civilian clothes to work with him so that he could change out of his fatigues, which he didn’t like to wear while off duty.

On this day, George forgot his extra set of clothes and stopped off at his home after work to change before going to his son’s soccer game at Old Town High School.

He never made it to the game.

Linda and I spent an afternoon talking about the little things she missed most as she tried to adapt to her new life as a widow and single mom.

She missed having someone to sit on the couch and watch TV with. Someone to shout out the answers to “Jeopardy” to. She missed fishing with her husband and her son on summer evenings in the river behind their house.

I talked with her this week. She still misses those things nearly 10 years later.

Now let me introduce you guys to a heartbroken father. Meet Timothy Burr.

Mr. Burr’s 23-year-old son, Doug, was one of two men eventually convicted of George Hardesty’s murder.

During a sentencing hearing following his son’s conviction, Mr. Burr stood before the court and sobbed, “I have no explanation for my son’s actions.

“My emotions have been exhausted,” he told the judge. He said his son was not violent nor confrontational but easily misled.

“Please allow him someday to come home,” he cried.

Douglas Burr was sentenced to 59 years in prison. He will be 72 years old when he is released.

Now meet Charles Jones Jr., the other 23-year-old man who was convicted of Hardesty’s murder.

He stood before the judge that same day and said that people may look at the case and see the “rampage and the whooping it up and the drugs” and think there was a plan to the burglary spree.

“There was no evil intent,” he said, choked with emotion. “There was no plan. It was sheer stupidity.”

He was sentenced to 70 years in prison. He will be 82 when he is released.

Burr and Jones spent two months burglarizing homes in 20 towns and three counties before they encountered Hardesty that fateful afternoon.

They also were stealing electronic equipment and guns.

How long will it last for you guys?

One of last week’s burglaries was discovered by a teenage boy as he got off the bus from school in front of his home. He saw the front door open and thankfully had the foresight to head directly to a neighbor’s home.

Now meet Maine State Trooper Forrest Simpson. He is investigating this rash of burglaries that have occurred throughout Etna, Dixmont, Plymouth and Carmel.

He is taking it very seriously and pretty darned personally, since he and his family live in the area.

He is outright begging for people to be extra vigilant and to please write down license plate numbers of any cars that seem out of place.

“It takes us minutes to run a plate and check it out and rule someone out,” he stressed this week. “I’d rather run down hundreds of false alarms then miss the opportunity of getting the right one.”

Families also need to have a plan in place and parents should speak to their children about being observant and heading next door should anything at all seem amiss.

Linda Hardesty remembers reading about the rash of burglaries throughout rural Maine in 1996.

“Never for a minute did we think it would be our house,” she said. “We never thought something like this would touch our family.”

Perhaps whoever is breaking into these homes doesn’t read this column, but maybe someone does who knows them and knows what they are doing.

Every story has an ending. What’s this one going to be?

Contact Renee Ordway at rordway@bangordailynews.net