“Six O’Clock Shadow” grew out of memories I have carried for nearly thirty years from working the Hog Trail murder investigation in Southwest Florida, the victims whose lives were taken, the one victim who survived, their families, and the people who worked the case.

When a death warrant was finally signed weeks before the scheduled execution date, those memories took on a different weight. I found myself confronting the fact that work I had done in service of justice had also helped lead another human being toward his death for committing the crime.

This song lives in that uneasy place between justice and mercy, grief and responsibility, and in the realization that a life can end while the shadow it leaves behind keeps moving through other people’s lives.