We don’t know why Andrea Susan Forbes left her home and family in Johnson City, Tennessee, to move to Florence in 2015. We may assume it was for a reason that can easily turn sour. The 33 year-old’s Facebook friends were mainly from her home in Tennessee. A neighbor at the Sherrod Apartments in North Florence is said to have stated she and Miss Forbes had both lived there over two years and didn’t know each other’s names.
No matter the circumstances of Andrea Forbes’ life, she didn’t deserve to be murdered. She, in death, does deserve to be treated with some respect. There’s little respect on a gurney being taken from a murder scene; there’s little respect on an autopsy table; there’s little respect when the intimate details of one’s life are plastered over local news, not to mention social media.
Judging from past cases in Lauderdale County, even if Miss Forbes’ murderer is found, he will receive a slap on the wrist. Murder victims in certain circumstances never receive justice. Prosecutors invariably say “at least we got something.”
Did you see the photo the Shoals Insider posted of Miss Forbes? She looked like an all-American girl. The one Pen-N-Sword posted? She looked glamorous. The one Florence police provided media? She looked like a homeless person coming off a week long binge. We have to ask why? The photo with the half-shaved head wasn’t even her Facebook profile picture. Someone had to dig to find the one with the shaved head. Again, we have to ask why?
No, Miss Forbes wasn’t a Florence fixture; nor was she a pillar of society. She was a human being, and her killer deserves to be punished.
