Today's Philly Confidential headline comes straight from an old Paul McCartney song, "Heart of the Country." Sing it, Sir Paul:

"Want a horse, I got a sheep,
I'm gonna get me a good night's sleep,
Livin' in a home in the heart of the country.

Heart of the country, where the holy people grow.
Heart of the country, smell the grass in the meadow."

I know, it's not exactly a former Beatle at his best, but the song is fitting nonetheless. It was playing on the radio on Oct. 2 last year when I was driving, for the first time, out to Nickel Mines, Pa. An editor had called me at home and told me a milkman went crazy and shot up an Amish school house.

A million thoughts swirled through my head as I sped down Route 30. I had never been to Lancaster County before, and couldn't imagine what the crime scene was going to look like. The roads out to the West Nickel Mines Amish School were all winding and narrow, lined on either side with farms and animals who stared curiously at me while I swore at the Mapquest directions.

When I finally whipped around Mine Road and got within a mile of the school, I was awestruck by the seemingly endless line of TV trucks and frenzied reporters. Forget the usual characters from the local networks; there were reporters from Japan, Australia, London and everywhere in between. It was an international media feeding frenzy, and anyone who looked Amish was fair game.

I felt bad for the Amish folks, who seemed to be equally disturbed by the media intrusion as they were by the tragedy itself. Frankly, I couldn't blame them. They were trying to come to grips with a horrendously violent act in a historically peaceful community, and their grieving process was observed 24/7 by the media.

By the middle of the week, the hysteria died down some, and it was actually possible to hold a conversation with an Amish person and get a sense of what they were going through. On one of the quieter nights, a bunch of reporters and family members were allowed to walk down to the edge of the grass that surrounded the school. The schoolhouse was bathed in white police spotlights, a stunning contrast with the completely dark countryside. I think we all forgot about our jobs for a little while there and just thought about those little girls -- and the sheer horror and chaos of what it must have been like inside.

It goes without saying, then, that Nickel Mines holds a special place in my heart. I headed back out on Route 30 once again last Monday to revisit some familiar faces and get a feel for how people are doing now, a year later.

The school has long been demolished, of course, and there was something strange about seeing horses graze on the field where it once stood. It's sacred ground, isn't it? Aside from the missing school, everything appeared normal in Nickel Mines. It's a quiet town, with little more than an old auction house and some farms to boast in terms of landmarks. But I soon found that scars run deep, and most people are still trying to adjust to a new sense of normal, whatever that is. Check out the story here.