The outskirts of the town, somewhere to the northwest. A crowd hesitated at the edge of the woods, waiting for someone to return with some news, any news. It would be more accurate to say that some were waiting for a confirmation, while others awaited a revelation on the identity of the victim.
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The body was found in the dumpster outside of a small theme park called the Fun Zone in Central Florida, by an employee of the theme park's food stand in the early morning hours of April 19th, 1979. He had been taking out a trash bag from the dumpster when he noticed a particularly pungent smell emanating from it. Throwing the dumpster open, the body inside was bloated and bruised. He promptly called the police and an officer three blocks away was sent to the scene.
The man was Charles Heighter, a union representative for the Industrial Workers of the World. He had arrived in Montana by train the evening prior and checked into a nearby hotel called the Black Lilly Inn. He reportedly spent the evening in his room, ordering in wine and roasted chicken from the hotel's kitchen. He was expected to give a speech and then protest together with a local miner's union that was striking the following morning, April 18th, 1906.
It was a woman, wearing only a rotted cropped t-shirt. The body was transported to a nearby hospital, where an autopsy was conducted, finding that she was between the age of twenty-three to twenty-six. The only identification on her was a library card that had been stuffed into her bra, bearing the name Susan Parker. The cause of death was determined to be blunt force trauma to the head, although lacerations and deep cuts were found across her body. The time of death was estimated to be seventeen days before, based on the decomposition. A reconstruction sketch was aired on the evening and morning news, although no one reported to have known, or even recognize her.
When he had failed to contact the local union representatives or appear at the area where the strike was occurring, Leopold Ralph, a forty-eight year old man who had worked in the mines for thirty-five years, was sent to the Inn by the Union President, Lewis Matthews. The hotel staff claimed that they had not noticed Heighter leave his room since he checked in. Apparently, when they tried to carry out the wake up knock that he had requested, his door was locked tight and they received no response.
Detective Richard Brennan was assigned to the case, which was ruled to be a homicide. The official stance of the police force at the time was that Susan Parker was a sex worker who had arrived in the city sometime shortly before her death. The belief was that her body was kept for a period of over two weeks before being placed into the dumpster. Brennan first went to the library, as it was a local one, but the receptionist claimed that they had no record of any Susan Parker holding a library card. When he showed her the police sketch of Susan Parker, she claimed that she had never seen her in the library.
After multiple attempts by the hotel staff and Ralph to reach Heighter, a final warning was given before the room was opened. Upon entering, there was no sign of Heighter. The room was made up with no indication that Heighter had spent the night there, including the tableware from his dinner the previous night. Underneath the bed, a cork was found, although when compared to the wine that the hotel sold to its guests, they determined it to be from a different bottle entirely.
Six weeks into the investigation, Detective Brennan held an impromptu press conference with local reporters, announcing that he did not believe the body to simply be that of a sex worker who had a run in with a dangerous client. Brennan announced a belief that the woman was one of many victims tied to a trafficking ring that stretched to the Gulf Coast of Alabama, with victims being rounded into ships in the Tampa Bay region and received in Tamaulipas on the eastern coast of Mexico. Brennan stated that he did not believe that the dead woman was Susan Parker, and that they had both a homicide as well as a potential missing persons case on their hands.
Ralph returned to Matthews with news of Heighter's absence at the hotel. It was decided that in spite of the animosity between the unions and local officials, the matter should be brought to the sheriff.
Brennan was soon taken off the investigation, with the police department stating that he had not informed the station heads about his plans to hold a press conference, and that his statements there were based on unqualified speculation.
The sheriff, Quincy Brown, showed little interest in the disappearance, stating that it was likely Heighter had taken a morning train and left the town. He sent a deputy to the station with Ralph to look over the passenger list from the train that had left that morning. Heighter's name did not appear in any of the documents. Returning to the sheriff's office, Brown stated that Heighter had likely left town some other way. Ralph started to swear at Brown, calling him a crook. An altercation broke out in the sheriff's office between the two, leading to the confinement of Ralph and the five men that had accompanied him.
At work, Brennan vocally protested against his reassignment. This culminated in Brennan's dismissal from the force as a whole after he conducted a second interview with a reporter that had been waiting to talk to him outside of the station. In this interview, Brennan reaffirmed his statement about the sex trafficking ring and indicated that dozens of missing persons cases across central and northern Florida as well as southwestern Alabama were tied to it.
That evening, the five men that accompanied Ralph were released. Brown claims to have retired to his house two blocks away at nine o'clock, leaving a junior deputy, Robert Breyer, to watch Ralph in his cell.
The police were called in the early morning hours the night after the second interview aired. Brennan's neighbors reported hearing shouting and glass breaking, coming from inside of his residence. Upon arriving on the scene, the police found that the sliding glass door had been broken from the inside. Brennan was nowhere to be found. The house was otherwise untouched, with no valuables missing. A neighbor six houses from where Brennan lived claimed to have seen a dark Monte Carlo that they did not recognize speed through the neighborhood near the time the incident occurred.
The next morning, the Union President Matthews demanded that Sheriff Brown release Ralph from the jail cell. Brown told Matthews that when he arrived at the jail cell in the morning, the cell was empty and Deputy Breyer was unconscious on the ground. He stated that when Breyer awoke, he said that Ralph had assaulted him, took his keys, and escaped into the night. Matthews demanded to talk with Breyer. Brown claimed that he had told Breyer to receive medical attention, but that Breyer refused and said that he would return to his home to recover. Matthews responded with a serious threat, indicating that the entire Union was behind him and that Brown better bring him to Breyer this instant.. Brown walked Matthews to the family that Breyer rented an upstairs room from. When Matthews knocked on the door, the mother of the house came out and vehemently denied that Breyer had stopped by at all that morning.
After creating a tip line for Brennan's disappearance, the owner of a local bar that sat on the outskirts of the town claimed that a black Monte Carlo had pulled up to his property while he was closing up at sometime around four in the morning. The owner said that the man had inquired if the bar was still open. He said this without exiting the car, shouting over an empty passenger seat. The owner said that after replying no, the man thanked him and drove off towards a local road that ran through a thickly forested area. The police headed towards the forest, searching for any sign of Brennan by slowly driving through it. The police stopped the car after noticing something peculiar at the edge of the forest. Sitting in the grass was a plastic library card with the name "Jennifer Park" on it.
Matthews, enraged, accused Brown of having a hand in the disappearance of both Ralph and Heighter. Matthews returned to the union, rallying a search party that spread out from the town to the surrounding woods. Residents of the town began to gather around the edge of the forest, some helping while others watched on in curiosity. After six hours, a man came running back to the edge of the forest, announcing through ragged breaths that a freshly-dug grave had been found, but that the union members were still working on exhuming it.
The police called in for backup and a search party convened and began making their way on foot along the road and in the forest. Word quickly reached reporters who flocked to the scene. After three hours of waiting, the police asked the reporters to step back, and two police officers clad in ponchos began to carry shovels into the woods.
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One body was found in the ground. After a few hours, the crowd dispersed. Somewhere, it was still April.