Here’s what happens when producers of the Asheville Citizen-Times don’t actually read the newspaper

What happens when the producers of the Asheville Citizen-Times don’t actually read their own newspaper? Ad juxtaposition like this is what happens.

A couple of weeks ago, the Asheville Citizen-Times ran two ads side-by-side that should never have appeared together. This is what the page looked like. The large ad is a remembrance of Tom Scotchie, who was shot and killed on Jan. 16, 2008 — by Gus McCurry, whose remembrance ad appears right next to Scotchie’s. After killing Scotchie, McCurry drove a few blocks away in West Asheville to his home and killed himself.

Scotchie ran Mountain Valley Water on Haywood Road, and there was apparently a long-running dispute between Scotchie and McCurry. Still, it needn’t have ended in a murder-suicide.

The incident clearly left two families devastated, and families have a right to remember their loved ones. But in terms of a newspaper knowing its community, it’s also clear that the two ads, which appeared on the newspaper’s obit pages, should never have run side by side.

There was another off-shoot of the incident that was never really fully investigated by the local media or anyone else. It turns out that McCurry was an habitual felon who should have been in prison, but was out because of a decision by Buncombe County District Attorney Ron Moore.

The Scotchie family was so upset by this fact — the fact that a man who should have been in prison was out, and committed murder — that a Scotchie family member set up a web site aimed at ousting Moore. StopRonMoore.com still exists, but the web site hasn’t been updated in about a year.

Meantime, here’s a video of the WLOS report of the shooting.