Be prepared, this one's a little depressing

I think everyone is probably curious about people from his or her past. It's only natural. And Google makes it so convenient to spy on people you will probably never see or hear from again. Here's a little story of preGoogle happenstance that led me to discover what an old schoolmate of mine became.
When I was 11, my mother moved us to Baltimore, variously known as "Charm City" and "The City that Reads" (or breeds depending on whom you ask). Our neighborhood was relatively quiet and almost suburban. The elementary/middle school was right behind our house. Unfortunately, they did not have an "Advanced Academic" program at that school, so I only spent about a month there before being transferred to a school which was an hour and a half away by bus. My sixth grade class had more than its fair share of class clowns. Instead of the usual one, we had three, one of them being a boy named Ransom. He frequently did his impression of the Lollipop Guild from Wizard of Oz always calling them the Lollipop Kids. We ended up sitting near each other in almost every class. He was forever getting in trouble, both in class and outside. After a number of suspensions, Ransom was transferred to a less academically challenging class. I never really saw him much after that, as they sheltered the smart kids to the point where we never even got to take gym in the three years I went there. Anyway, the Ransom I knew was smart and funny, but "didn't work to his potential."
Fast forward 13 years. I'm still living in Baltimore and I pick up the new copy of the City Paper. On the cover is the headline "Murder One: A Baltimore Killing Behind the Numbers." Baltimore at the time was averaging a murder a day, and was widely considered a dangerous town, though I rarely felt unsafe there. Something told me I would know the subject of the article, but I expected to know the victim, not the perpetrator. Ransom, the goofy kid I went to middle school with, turned out to be a murderer. It really shook me. I have yet to watch The Wire, but I imagine that the season centering on the school system will probably hit pretty close to home for me. It was a tough place to go to school. There was a lot of violence and a lot of suspicious behavior. It's sad that so many children there find it so hard to work to their potentials. Few of teenagers I knew escaped without an unplanned pregnancy or some sort of substance abuse problem.
I still like to poke around the internet looking for information about people I remember fondly, but this experience makes me a little cautious. Every murderer, molester, and terrorist was also once a child who may have been sitting at the next desk.
And you want to know why I'm wary of public school...