This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book “The Gravity Of Imagination” Down in the Dirt, v203 (1/23) Order the paperback book:

Order this writing that appears in the one-of-a-kind anthology Forbidden Library the Down in the Dirt Jan.-April 2023 issues collection book		get the 420 page Jan.-April 2023 Down in the Dirt 6" x 9" ISBN# perfect-bound paperback book:

Order this writing in the book the 2024 flash fiction date book (the 2024 flash fiction and art weekly paperback book)		get the 140-page prose & art weekly planner as a 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Dig

Doug Hawley

    I’m a volunteer at Ryon State Park, named after an early settler Aristotle Ryon. I’m a two way guy in that I edit the Ryon Newsletter and do physical work in the park, getting rid of invasive species, improving the trails and doing some planting. I’m retired now and love spending time in Ryon’s natural beauty. There’s always a chance that I might see a coyote, an owl or maybe a salamander. It is no surprise that this place is so popular.
    Recently our executive director asked me to write a column in the newsletter about the most notorious episodes in our history – two brutal murders about a year apart. Each homicide stayed in the papers for weeks and caused visitors to avoid the park at night and to only visit while accompanied.
    After a bit of research through old newspapers, and interviews with police investigators, I came up with this:

Murders In Ryon

    There were a couple of things in common about the murders. Both occurred on an obscure dead end trail, Illana, where hardly anyone goes, and even though it is not polite to speak ill of the dead, neither of them were upstanding citizens.
    Victim one was Charlie Talbot. The police concluded that he was on the trail after dark because he had been excluded from the park after repeatedly and illegally bringing his vicious dog Caesar off leash to the park. Caesar was known to attack wild life, people and other dogs with impunity. Mr. Talbot was found with his head bashed in after Caesar showed up the next morning at park headquarters and led a ranger to the body where it had been dragged twenty feet off trail.
    Victim two was Chris Massey. She too had been excluded from the park because she had been caught digging up plants in the park to take home. Her murder was even grizzlier. She was killed a year after the first in a similar location to where Mr. Talbot was found, but with her head cut off by some sort of curved blade. She was easy to find because she had told her daughter where she was going.
    The park is in an urban area with many entrances and no way to register those that enter the park. Despite a plea to anyone in the metro area who had seen either of the victims in the park on the day that they were killed, or anything suspicious, there were no leads in either case. In both cases there was no forensic evidence – identifiable footprints or DNA. The two victims had nothing in common except for being excluded from the park, so the police assumed that there was no connection between the two crimes.
    Neither murder has been solved.

*********************************************************

    I didn’t mention in the article that no one checked the shovel that I use. It wouldn’t have been a problem anyway. I got a new shovel.
    Nobody messes with my park.

    Appears in Yellow Mama, Black Poppy, Writer’s Egg #4 and Dark Dossier 57.

Copyright of written pieces remain with the author, who has allowed it to be shown through Scars Publications and Design.Web site © Scars Publications and Design. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

Problems with this page? Then deal with it...