Mentally exhausting week filled with sad news

As an assignment editor, I am usually exhausted at the end of my shift. It is 8-10 or more hours of non-stop multi-tasking.

If it was a successful day, and fortunately most of them are, you are exhausted yet exhilarated.

This was not one of those weeks.

One story began last week, and at first, seemed like it may have a positive outcome.

The other story began at the beginning of this week crushing anyone who has even a little heart inside.

Last week we began tracking a story about a missing family out of Knox County, Ohio. Quite odd. Though it's a bit away from us, we wound up sending our satellite truck and reporters every day to track the daily developments.

When Sarah was found alive, it started looking up but took a turn for the worse as Sarah started speaking with investigators and a possible suspect was taken in for questioning.

The outcome devastating--Sarah's mother, brother, and a family friend were found dead and stuffed into a hollow tree miles from their home.

WHY? We may never know why. At least right now, there are more unanswered questions than anything. I'm interested in finding out the story behind the story yet know when it starts coming out, it's going to be as grisly as the devastating find.

While working the story, you have to stay focused. We kept in contact with our sister station in Columbus. When I had my crews and sat truck on site, I had to get periodic updates from them to update our website as well as book satellite windows to get video back in house for our teases and to go live. You cover the story and don't really have time to think about what is happening.

That comes later and just deflates any bit of life you have left inside of you.

Earlier this week, another horrific story as a car and Lowe's van collided killing a family of 4 --one of the deceased was an unborn child still in its mother's womb.

The accident crippled the town of Wellington and really all of Northeast Ohio.

I have family out of state who stay on top of the news in our area and they, via facebook, kept commenting on both of these awful stories. The reverberations were obviously even felt outside of Ohio.

Both of these stories WERE national stories. All of the major networks picked up on both of them. You did not have to tune into wkyc but could be flipping to msnbc, nbc, or cnn and see the awful footage.

And the week ended with yet another national story that had local ties. A man from our area was gunned down outside of his child's Georgia daycare, just moments after the children were dropped off. This story was unwinding as I ended my week. I touched base with the Dunwoody Police Department where I got a press release and suspect composite, I put out feelers to solidly confirm the victim was from Beachwood. We confirmed through friends but not an official source as of the end of my shift.

All of these stories are ongoing....they will be happening for days if not weeks as funerals take place, memorial service vigils continue, court proceedings begin, and suspects at large are pursued.

At the end of the day when you realize what has happened, your heart sinks, you do get a deflated feeling, sometimes you even feel like bursting into tears, especially when there are lives lost.

Honestly, I could not wait to get home to unwind, not think about the week's events and just turn on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon to hopefully get a laugh or two to take my mind off of this mayhem, at least for 48 hours, until we rev up again on Monday.