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That was the message William C. Harris had for thieves in February, after his funeral home's cargo van — with a dead woman in the back — was stolen outside a QuikTrip.

Harris took time out from his stressful day to talk with me about how the van went missing when a funeral home employee mistakenly left the engine running and went inside the store.

Many of the people I interview during a year of crime reporting are stressed. Or in mourning. Or dubious when a reporter starts asking questions about their loved one.

Here are some of the memorable people I spoke with in 2021 as I covered breaking news for the Post-Dispatch.

1. Shanna Williams stood outside her Ferguson home and told me all about her volatile nephew "JoJo," the accused serial killer Perez Deshay Reed. He was, in the aunt's words, "like a bomb about to explode."  Read the story.Ìý

2. DeAngelo Thomas told me how his conscience pestered him so long in prison that he chose to confess to murdering a St. Louis man over $18. "It was time," he said. Read the story.

3. Vickie Munton of Sullivan shared how her son-in-law, James Cook, died working as a MetroLink security guard and hadn't been allowed to carry a weapon on the job. Cook's survivors include two young daughters, whose bedroom walls are decorated by the murals Cook drew by hand. Read the story.

4. Friends of Brian Vazquez recounted for me his odd demeanor leading up to the night he wandered, clad in pajamas, into a stranger's home during a power outage in Webster Groves. Vazquez was shot to death by a resident. Read the story.

5. And Lester Eugene Robinson, a father in mourning, graciously agreed to sit down with me to talk about his son. Yes, his son was a heroin addict, but he was so much more, the father said. He was a self-taught barber who loved to read mysteries and dreamed of returning to Florida where his daughters live. Read the story.