City Councilwoman Lori Gilbert was hosting the town-hall discussion featuring police officials and Crime Stoppers. Even the FBI was present to answer specific questions regarding the murders, along with District Attorney Howard Clayton.
The school assembly was at its boiling point.
“We don’t expect these things to happen in a rural community. People don’t lock their doors,” a Strong Edge resident said.
“The fear in my children’s eyes—I don’t know how to take that out of them,” another resident said. “I don’t know what to tell them.”
Chief of Police Michael Henderson stepped up to the microphone. "Keeping a safe community means developing partnerships between citizens and the department that serves them,” he said in a calm voice. “We strongly believe that by providing crime prevention education to our community, we can help citizens learn how to keep their families, homes, and property safe and at the same time, keep crime and the fear of crime at bay within our city, but we must avoid panic.”
The Chief of Police continued. “Such partnership relies heavily on those citizens who are willing to report crime in their area. We need the help of the whole community. You can call the tips number, call us individually, or call anybody you know to pass the information to us, and we will be glad to go wherever they are. To report a crime, call the police or Crime Stoppers at the number on the flyers which are being handed out. Thank you.”
Small chatter spread amongst the agitated people, but it ceased when a man in an expensive suit stepped up to the microphone. He was Investigator Lou Adams, from the FBI.
"There are similarities—which I can’t discuss—which indicate Ben Adler was the second victim of the same killer as Daniel Masterson. There is a small chance the killer could be someone local, and I'd like to stress that this should turn into a witch-hunt. I suggest a temporary curfew for those under the age of eighteen.”
The investigator went on to describe the scene where the first victim, Mr. Masterson, had been found dead, which he said was horrific and bloody. The victim had been killed Sunday night and found late Monday night. How the bloody rhododendron bush had escaped people’s attention for twenty-four hours remained a mystery.
The primary crime scene was located in the park. It was suspected that Mr. Masterson had tried to outrun the perpetrators. He'd probably been forced to leave his car at his last known location and attempted to struggle with—and perhaps escape from—the murderer, but had been silenced along the way. The murderer had probably hoped to find cover at Serenity Park.
His throat had been slit to the point of decapitation, and his lungs had been punctured due to several stabs to the chest. No murder weapon had been found.
The victim had been an outsider. He'd announced his trip to Strong Edge to no one, but from his belongings, it seemed he'd been there on business.
They'd identified the victim as Daniel Masterson. He'd been a businessman with a shady reputation—a fraud, and he was bound to have enemies.
The analysis of the crime scene indicated there had been little struggle between the victim and his killers—they believed there had to have been more than one. Stabbings were time-consuming, difficult, messy, and required a strong hand.
They'd traced the anonymous call to a prepaid phone that had been dumped in a trashcan. His car was found by the National Park Rangers, still running. A message, written in the victim’s blood, had been left near the dead body, reading "NOT WORTHY." The information about the message would never have been leaked to the public if a citizen hadn’t discovered the second victim and the writing on the wall with the same message. Before investigators had been able to prevent it, news of the bloody message had spread like wildfire—a serial killer was on the loose.
Victim number two, Ben Adler, had been found in a cabin. In front of the cabin, a trail of blood had been left as evidence of a crime. There had been blood spattered on the walls. Most gory of all was the writing in blood: "NOT WORTHY!"
He, too, had been stabbed to death, rather brutally. By the looks of it, Ben Adler must have been filling his car with gas when he was snatched by his perpetrators. His car had been left at the gas station, which was puzzling—Daniel Masterson’s car had been dumped in the wild, yet Ben Adler’s car had been left where he had last been seen.
As was the case with Daniel Masterson, no one had seen or heard anything regarding Adler's disappearance. A citizen of Strong Edge had discovered Adler's body, while Daniel Masterson’s discovery had been the result of an anonymous tip to the police. As the cases were still under investigation, no more information was available to the public.
"It’s a challenge for us,” Michael Henderson said. “By killing these people, the criminals have challenged us, but we will smoke them out, even if they hide.”
Over the course of the investigation concerning victim number one, seventy-five people had been interviewed thus far, including people at the bar, people at the hotel, and the woman, Loretta, with whom Daniel Masterson had gone home, plus people living in the area around Serenity Park, but the case had gone cold. No one had seen or heard anything, oddly enough. How could anyone not notice a crime being committed on an open street?
“He was a bad man, that Masterson, Dr. Williams," Loretta Cornel softly confessed to Sal’s mother. “He was a bad man. He had it coming, and I’m not weeping for him.”
As for victim number two, the crime was still fresh, and the victim’s children were still in shock. They were unavailable for interviews for the time being.
"DNA evidence left behind at the crime scene still needed to be tested." It was a lie, but the crowd didn’t need to know how little the police had to go on.
“Small communities are hiring outside patrols to fight crime,” someone in the crowd said, ignoring the investigator. “Maybe we could do the same. Perhaps just for the summer and see how it goes from there.” The crowd mumbled and nodded in agreement to the idea.
“We could raise some money and paid for it ourselves," someone said, doing research on his smartphone. "It’s a budget of eighty-six thousand dollars, as far as I can tell. I think it would be money well-spent.”
That spurred a young mother to speak up: “I understand the cost is high, but can we really put a price on our children’s safety?
A second woman added: "I believe the eighty-six thousand will save a lot of people a lot of money in possible losses. I would definitely feel safer."
The sessions weren’t meant to enlighten a frightened population, but a way for the authorities to let the criminals know how much they knew. In this case, they didn’t know shit, no matter how hard they tried to convince people otherwise.