Two people are dead, one a child and one an almost-child.

Anthony Tucker, 13, of Palmyra, was an eighth-grader at Somerset Valley Middle School in Hartland; his mother's boyfriend, 39-year-old Todd Curry, was charged Tuesday with his murder.

Amy Drake of Skowhegan was 19; her remains were found last Friday in rural Norridgewock. Police are hunting for her killer. Their deaths are unimaginable; the forces that may have played into them are not.

Anthony's accused murderer, Curry, was arrested on a domestic assault charge in January; one area resident said "this whole neighborhood was petrified of him." The same neighbor says she called police several times about gunshots coming from the home Curry shared with Anthony's mother. He claimed he was engaged in target practice -- after dark.

Drake's best friend, Tracy Turner, told this newspaper that the Skowhegan teen, who had been missing since September, had descended into a life of drugs and hung out with the wrong crowd -- even though she also visited her mother every single day. Turner claimed her friend had holes in her arms from shooting up.

Just as alarming, Drake's boyfriend -- and the father of her child -- pleaded guilty this summer to domestic assault against Drake and was sentenced to six months behind bars -- but was out on a stay of that sentence when Drake was last seen. This was the same man who Drake told police had punched her in the head, broken her nose, thrown her to the floor in a previous assault -- and threatened to kill her if she reported the assault.

Two slayings, two young people whose lives were cursed with horrific violence, who will never live to see the brightness of the sun, taste the pleasure of a summer ice cream cone, delight in the antics of their own children. We are sorry for what they had to endure in their brief lives, we are sorry that we could not help them -- and we are so very sorry for their deaths.