I usually read the newspaper on the day it arrives, but I had missed the June 27 edition for whatever reason and decided today to read it. It is tragic enough that the family of the [homicide] victim, Michael Demmons, has to experience the loss of a loved one, but to have to witness the police and state medical examiners take his body from the home and put it in the back of a pick-up truck is disgusting.

I don’t know who I should be more disgusted with: the photographer from the Bangor Daily News for taking the picture, the editors for putting it in or the state of Maine for not having a dignified vehicle in which to transport the deceased to the medical examiner’s office.

We as a society have become hardened to witnessing these types of things because the media put it in our faces all the time. I am angry that you feel we need to see his body being removed. Why? And a pickup truck. Why again?

If that were me in the back of that truck and my family was unable to speak up themselves and say it is wrong then I hope there is another person like me who will be willing to stand up and say, “That family and the victim especially deserve more respect than you have shown them today by printing that picture and using that mode of transportation.”

Heidi McFadden

Belfast