The reader response to the double homicide reported in The Tribune has already soared to predictable conclusions. Why is Ames becoming so violent? Who are these people? Is 1103 Pinon Drive subsidized housing?

Part of us recoils at what we see as thinly veiled racism implied by these questions. But we're journalists, too, and a question is a question. For the record, the two people killed this weekend in Ames, Shakena Varnell and Michael Odikro, were not participants in the Section 8 Housing and Urban Development subsidy program.

Should it matter?

Atiba Spellman, accused of killing Varnell and Odikro on Saturday night, was an Iowa State University student who lived at 415 Garden Road, a house built by Habitat for Humanity. If we were really to explore who brought the violence to the community, it would be through whoever killed Varnell and Odikro, not through the victims.

That might or might not turn out to be Spellman. In the meantime, we don't know whether Spellman came here originally seeking low-income housing, either through private or government channels. But there is strong evidence that he was here seeking an education. Shall we surmise that it was in fact the university that has caused this crime wave?

Further, Spellman has been in Ames since at least 2000. So the speculation that he's part of an only-recent crime wave may also be dispelled.

The sad truth is that Spellman has a long history of domestic violence against Varnell. Domestic violence permeates our society. Thirty-one percent of American women report being physically or sexually abused by a husband or boyfriend at some point in their lives.

Domestic violence strikes regardless of income. But it is true that people with incomes lower than $25,000 per year are three times as likely to experience domestic violence as people whose annual incomes are more than $50,000.

It's also true that between 1993 and 2004, residents of urban areas experienced the highest levels of domestic violence. Residents in suburban and rural areas were equally likely to experience such violence, about 20 percent less than those in urban areas.

And women between the ages of 20 and 24 are at the greatest risk of nonfatal intimate partner violence. Varnell was 34.

Was it subsidized housing, or Habitat for Humanity, or Iowa State University, or bad planning all over that caused the deaths of Varnell and Odikro?

None of the above. It was their killer.

Let's say that none of the individual variations to the story listed above is true, and the victims and their killer came here within the last year from some big city specifically seeking subsidized housing. Even then, are we to fault them for trying to find a better life?

The deaths of Varnell and Odikro should be no less a concern if they happened in Chicago or in Ames. The fact is they happened here. Our hearts go out to their families. We can respond only with grief.