I got the text message at 4:34 a.m.:

Alert: KU Police (Lawrence campus) - Student found dead off campus. Use caution w/ person of interest, Adolfo Garcia. Go to www.ku.edu.

I don’t know anyone named Adolfo Garcia, but I had already been buzzed out of REM, so I logged on.

The KU Web site gave more details: Jana Mackey was found dead in the home of Adolfo Garcia-Nunez just before midnight. She was 25. Garcia-Nunez, 46, was a “person of interest”… police were still looking for him.

That’s Jana. Dini’s Jana. Shit. Shit. Shitshitshitshit.

And that’s Fito.

Jana lived with my friend Autumn’s ex-boyfriend, Dini. Adolfo Garcia-Nunez had to be Fito, Jana’s ex-boyfriend. They weren’t friends of mine, but they weren’t strangers either.

As soon as it registered that Jana Mackey had to be Dini’s roommate Jana (because, I figured, how many Janas could possibly be spending time with much older, hispanic men?), I called Autumn. That was at 4:42.

Autumn soon confirmed what I had figured out, but it was at 4:34 a.m. that my everything changed.

Michigan Street.
Slain.
Hanging out.
Artist.
Relationship.
Law student.
Murder.

Murder.

I don’t know that I will ever read these words again without seeing Jana. Jana in that ugly orange shirt, with Fito, playing soccer in South Park last week. Last week. Jana, her long limbs almost tangled up, in the beautiful portrait he painted for her. Jana, laughing, her smile revealing more gums than imaginable, on the porch at FreeState the night Andrew and I made Autumn and Dini come to the Red Lion.

Jana.

We weren’t close. She was mostly just images and stories and the girl who raised the cat who swatted at my legs when I sat at the kitchen table. She was mostly just the owner of a lot of stuff in Dini’s house. Mostly a woman my friend looked up to and, though she never said it, felt she must compete with just a little.

Two and a half (or so) years ago, Jana met Fito. Yes, he was older than she. Yes, he had two kids. No, she didn’t know much about him… then.

But that was two and a half years ago.

I don’t know when they started dating, but Jana and Fito broke up a week (or so) ago. I don’t know much about it, but I know she knew they had different lives ahead of them. She understood how the age difference and his kids could factor into her life if she so chose. But he wasn’t just an old father. By that time, Jana knew him: He was an artist who played recreational soccer and cooked her dinner.

She knew he had spent two years in jail, but Fito didn’t just lie to Jana about his name. He told her his ex-girlfriend had manipulated the system, that she was crazy, that his sentence had been unjust. He was 46, yes. He had spent two years in jail. But to Jana, Fito proved himself to be more than those numbers.

And so, somehow, a week after they broke up, Jana ended up at his house. And, somehow, she ended up dead. Murdered. But police say she fought like hell; Fito was beat up pretty badly when they finally caught him a day later. That’s Jana.

But she could have been me. She could have been any of us.

Because she didn’t do anything wrong.

I want to be able to point to the details, to say “Look. It makes sense that she died because _____.” But it doesn’t. It might never make sense. I might never have enough information to make a rule. I want (I need) to be able to say, “I’ll be OK, as long as I don’t ______.”

Jana was at the home of a man she trusted. She had known him for years. She had ended a relationship that had needed to be ended. It was just another breakup. She didn’t do anything wrong.

So what do I put in that blank? I’ll be OK, but as long as I don’t what? Trust? Love? Forgive?

An extensive autopsy has left those who knew her (and those who didn’t) with no more answers than the newspaper articles about her death. Nothing in this murder can tell me how to protect myself. Nothing in this murder is telling me it’s OK to trust, love and forgive.

Jana’s life will be celebrated at Liberty Hall on Wednesday afternoon. And if the joy I saw each time she smiled in my presence (and in Fito’s representation of that smile) is any indication, the music hall will be full. And maybe that’s where I should look for answers. Maybe Jana’s friends and family members can tell me that it’s OK —that it’s safe — to love.

Judging by the way she lived her life, I know Jana would.

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