Hey Kittens:

I just saw a news blurb which freaked me for a millisecond. It's a tragedy, at any rate, but not *that* tragedy.

The newsstory is the death of a young actress named Benson: THAT'S *LYRIC* BENSON.

I have no idea who she is, other than CNN's blurb said that she was 21, and was shot a couple of days ago by her ex-boyfriend. My sympathies go out to her family, friends and fans . . . as does, frankly, my relief that it's not someone else.

Have you Kittens ever heard a story (on the news, from a friend, on the web) wrong, and panicked? Or did you hear a story, that for a slight change, would have been (more) terrible for you personally, and you were oh so glad that you didn't hear it wrong? Did you then feel guilty that you perhaps belittled the pain of someone else?

How would Willow and Tara feel and behave in these situations, individually and together?

GG Can we please find a way to separate boys and guns already? Out

Here is the imdb.com link to her info: Lyric Benson

She's Robbie Benson's daughter...

...but I can't find the article at CNN..

Well, that's sad. My thoughts go out to her family and friends...

I've only misunderstood news once, although it did turn out to be true in the end... Luckiy, she recovered. *phew*

umm, whos robbie benson?

Caz

well, Robby Benson has done the voices for some Disney productions, including the Beast for the Disney movie, Beauty & the Beast..

And when he was a teen heart-throb (not my type at all) he was in Ice Castles (& I only remembered this when I looked it up.)

Here's his imdb.com link: Robby Benson(He spells his name both ways) He directed the movie which his daughter was in..... that's her only screen credit listed.

Here is the NYTimes article about it:

Young Actress Shot by Former Fianc Dies
By ROBERT D. McFADDEN

A 22-year-old aspiring actress whose former fianc harassed her for two months before shooting her in the face and killing himself outside her Lower East Side apartment building early Thursday morning, died at Bellevue Hospital Center yesterday, the authorities said.

The woman, Lyric Benson, who graduated from Yale last year and worked as a hostess at the SoHo brasserie Balthazar while performing voice-overs and appearing in soap operas and advertisements, was shot outside her building at 211 East Broadway by Robert J. Ambrosino, 32, the police said.

After shooting Ms. Benson once with an unlicensed .45-caliber handgun, Mr. Ambrosino who had served in the merchant marines, had been unemployed for about a year and was a candidate to become a New York City firefighter immediately shot himself dead. The shootings were witnessed by Ms. Benson's mother, who was visiting from North Carolina.

Friends said that Ms. Benson had begun dating Mr. Ambrosino as an undergraduate and had moved into his apartment in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, after graduation last May. Over the past year, she had had a series of small roles in soap operas and on "Law and Order: Criminal Intent." She has also been seen throughout the city on an American Express advertisement for the TriBeCa Film Festival, which starts early next month.

But as her career gained promise, Ms. Benson underwent what one acquaintance called a religious reawakening, and about two months ago she moved out of the Greenpoint apartment and took one of her own in Manhattan. Since then, friends said, Mr. Ambrosino had refused to accept the breakup and had pursued her relentlessly, appearing at her workplaces and leaving countless messages on her telephone.

After her shift at Balthazar ended late Wednesday, she called her apartment and asked her mother to come downstairs to let her in. As her mother opened the door, Mr. Ambrosino fired the fatal shots, the police said. Friends said Ms. Benson was kept alive for more than a day so that her organs could be donated. James Saunders, a hospital spokesman, said she died at 11:30 a.m. yesterday.
(end of article)

link to article in NYTimes

Yet another gruesome "if I can't have you, no one can," murder-suicide.

A woman I knew in college lost her children in a murder-suicide. Her estranged husband chased her out of their house, shot and killed their children, then turned the gun on himself.

I pray for Lyric Benson and her family. How anyone can survive losing a loved one in this manner is beyond my comprehension.

That is just horrible, and for her mother to have witnessed that. How can anyone recover from such a thing and go on living. My brother's sister in law and her husband lost their only son in a utterly senseless accident for which no one could be 'blamed' last year and it has nearly destroyed them. The loss of a loved one is never something you just get over and move on from, no matter how you lose them, but this just makes it all the more horrible. I can never understand how anyone can be capable of such a thing. To kill someone you supposedly love?

Terrible stuff.

I remember there was a big uproar in NZ once when someone announced on the radio that the Queen Mother had died (years before she actually did). That was a shocker.

Oh how horrible. A teacher I had a class with went on to do that with his fellow teacher gf. Murder/suicide , so tragic and cowardly. I like Robby Benson, poor man. He was also in "Ode to Billy Joe" which was about the tragic suicide of this young man after a homosexual incident.