An Archdale police officer shot and killed junior Courtland Benjamin Smith in the predawn hours of Aug. 23 in what police called a "confrontation" after they pulled him over on I-85 in Randolph County.

He was a popular junior, president of the campus chapter of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, and his death shattered his fraternity brothers, friends and others across campus and beyond.

Once again, much too soon, the Carolina family has had to rally around grief-stricken family and friends. We've had too many memorial services remembering young victims of violent death in recent years.

And once again, much too soon, we're left trying to understand, trying in vain to make the fragmentary facts we have fit into a pattern that makes some sort of sense. At this point, the picture is bafflingly incomplete.

What exactly transpired there in the dark on the shoulder of a lonely stretch of highway?

What happened between the time when Smith left his friends and fraternity brothers at a frat party earlier that night and the time he called 911 as he sped south? He spoke with a dispatcher for 15 minutes before officers responding to his call caught up with him shortly before 5 a.m.

The investigation is ongoing, and thus far what few details we have are puzzling in the extreme.

Friends said Smith seemed to be himself when he left the fraternity party at about 12:30 a.m., and roommates who saw him shortly after that said the same.

But a few hours later he was speeding south on I-85 (although he apparently thought he was still heading west on I-40), telling a 911 dispatcher in a slurred voice that he had a 9 mm gun in his back pocket and was driving 95 miles per hour. When she asked what his destination was, his only response was "110 miles an hour."

Although he did tell the dispatcher at one point that he was "trying to kill myself on I-40," he also asked her plaintively why the police were taking so long to find him: "Can you not find any authorities? ... There's no one that can pull me over or anything right now?"

The 911 conversation is chilling and heartbreaking, but in the absence of more information and context, it doesn't shed much light on the most pressing questions: exactly what happened, and why?

Given how little we know, it is premature to judge the conduct of the officers. But authorities say there may be police video of the traffic stop, which could help answer the narrow issue of what happened after Smith pulled over.

Why it happened is quite likely a more difficult, and agonizing, question. Smith told the 911 dispatcher that he had sent an e-mail to his family that would explain "everything that anyone needed to know."

All we know now is that once again, much too soon, we've lost another bright young life and the limitless future it held.