A Killing Among "Two Friends"

Two beautiful baby boys had been born to Harold and Evelyn McAdoo. Twins! Identical twins! Harry and Larry were born at 12:03 Friday morning at Hartford Memorial in Baltimore, Maryland.  Full of life (as their screaming to the top of their lungs could attest to) these two kids would have their lives intertwined always! Or would they?

   Let us go back and get the whole story. When 18 year old Harold met 17 year old Evelyn Caldwell, he was a senior, she a junior at Fredericksburg High School. Their meeting transcended the old cliché, “love at first sight.” The moment their eyes fell upon each other, Harold and Evelyn sensed the uniqueness of their meeting. It was in the school’s guidance counselors’ office where it all began. He was there to engage in talk about furthering his education, to be the first of nine siblings to attend higher learning. He had not decided this by himself, for his teachers and the guidance counselor, Mrs. Foster reaped high praises on him; his grades were pretty good also.  His choices’ narrowed down to a local technical school or a four-year college in North Carolina. Through the sound of Mrs. Foster voice and the leafing of college brochures Harold glanced up and gazed upon the most magnificent creature.  She was quite lovely, mahogany skin, shoulder length hair, sparkling eyes, petite, yet firm in all the right places. He could not take his eyes off her, failing to recognize the shrilling voice of Mrs. Foster as she repeatedly called out his name. Evelyn however did recognize the eagerness in which Mrs. Foster tried to get Harold’s attention and motioned to him so that he could respond. Now it was her turn to size up Harold, of which she did without any hesitation “ What a MAN!” … she thought to herself.  Handsome was putting it mildly. Rugged, someone who knows what he wants. Broad shoulders, muscular build, piercing eyes, yes, this man oozed masculinity.  She was at the guidance counselor’s office to get a jump start on her academic career but never ever did either of them think that it would be here that they would peer into the light of their eternal destinies.

     Romance, courtship and marriage would become for both Harold and Evelyn a testimony as to what true love was all about. From that momentous day July 3, 1953 they were inseparable. Movies, dinner parties, skating, or whatever the event, people were perplexed if they saw one without the other. Case in point; Harold attended Baltimore Technical College the first year after high school so that he could be near his beloved Evelyn. When Evelyn graduated in 1954, together they went off to school in North Carolina, escaping the prying eyes of family and friends. At the university both became engineers, graduating with the highest of honors but more importantly being the first and only of their families to do so.