4 days ago I gave birth to my baby girl at 22 weeks. There are still so many questions, including the massive “why” that are unanswered. Below is my experience.
Last year I fell pregnant and had a MMC in April (the baby stopped growing at 6 weeks, we didn't find out until our first scan at 10 weeks).
After the loss, we tried for 7 months until we fell pregnant again in Jan. We suspect it took some time because I have an 8-day luteal phase (this is considered a short luteal phase or luteal phase defect). A standard luteal phase is 12-14 days.
I did early pregnancy monitoring and every test and scan came back perfect with the exception of one blood test at 4 weeks pregnant: my TSH was slightly elevated, meaning my thyroid wasn't functioning at the level that it should. I was put on a daily dose of Levothyroxine and every blood test showed normal TSH levels after that.
Two weeks after a clean anatomy scan and one week after an OBGYN check-up, I did a 20-minute, low-impact workout for the second trimester. The workout included squats and I held an 8lb weight. It had been a few weeks since I worked out and I was feeling guilty so I did it. I paused the YT video 3 times to take long breaks (5-10 minutes). I drank plenty of water and modified certain moves as needed.
Later that night while trying to sleep, I noticed I had more discharge than usual. It was clear and wasn't too much more than I usually had so I didn't think anything of it.
The following day I already felt sore in my thighs and legs. This is normal for me. I also experienced round ligament pain. It's extremely common for round ligament pain to become more intense after a workout. It was worse than usual, but not debilitating or concerning in any way. It was all within normal ranges.
That night, so early Wednesday morning, around 3AM, I woke up because I was uncomfortable. This was normal for me at 22 weeks. I had some round ligament pain that was more annoying than anything else. As the hours passed, it got more intense and frequent. But it still just felt like round ligament pain. No blood, no mucus plug, no craps similar to a period.
At 6:30AM I propped myself up in my bed and there was a rush of liquid. I thought maybe I peed. The liquid didn’t smell like anything and even though I had just been on the toilet, I knew peeing yourself isn’t uncommon. My weak pelvic floor made peeing a regular occurrence throughout the pregnancy.
I immediately woke up my husband to get his take. I called my OB’s answering service and left a message. My husband and I decided to play it safe and get ready to head to the hospital. We thought we were being abundantly cautious. We thought we would be told I peed myself.
A little after 7:30AM, we get to the hospital. At this point, it didn’t click that something was very wrong, I don’t think my brain was allowing me to think that. I was having intense pain that was making me contort every few minutes. Once I got into the ER, I could no longer stand. I was wheeled back to L&D immediately.
In the L&D intake room, I asked to use the bathroom to pee. My husband went with me, but once I was there I couldn’t pee, I then felt like I had to poop. Seconds later, my daughter was born into the toilet. We had only been at the hospital for 5-10 minutes. My husband opened the door and yelled for help while holding me up so baby wasn’t in the water. She was moving.
They rushed our baby to the NICU doctors and after 5 or 10 minutes, the NICU doctor came over to explain there wasn’t anything else that could be done. We held her as she passed.
We only have the autopsy results left, which will take a month to receive. All other blood tests, urine tests, placenta biopsy, etc has come back clean.
I am convinced the workout I did Monday night tipped the first domino. Without that, I may still be pregnant with our baby.
Given how old I am (34 in less than 2 months) and that we want 3-4 kids, we want to start trying again immediately. One doctor recommended we wait 3-4 months, but I don’t want to. Is 3-4 months a standard wait time after a 22-week loss?
During the wait, they will do a saline sonogram to confirm there are no anomalies in my uterus that could have caused this. The doc is convinced this will come back clean and treatment for the next pregnancy will be progesterone supplementation and a cervical cerclage. She thought my weak pelvic floor could be a potential contributing factor.
If you read this in its entirety, I appreciate you. I hope people can relate and feel less alone. Maybe people can learn from my experience. There are some details I left out so if you have questions, don't hesitate. Much love to you all.

I first started noticing that something was wrong around 3 months ago. At the time, I was working from home and would usually light a scented candle while I worked, which usually helped me relax and stay focused on my work. I would usually burn through a candle a week, but over time, the candles started to take less time to fully burn up. At first, I thought that this was because of a change in ingredients the company that made the candles used, but the problem persisted after I switched candle brands, which I once again blamed on the candle manufacturers.
I kept this belief for another week until the first incident. While getting up from my computer desk, which faces away from the candle, to take a quick bathroom break, I caught a glimpse of the lit candle. A two-inch layer of molten wax rested on another three-inch layer of solid wax, the wicks rising out at first and being somewhat visible through the molten layer, finally breaking the surface and being slowly burned away. The flames flickered as I swung the door open and walked out of the room. When I returned 10 minutes later, the molten layer was gone, and the wicks had been shortened so that the flames rested right above the solid layer of the wax. At first, I thought that the glass jar that contained the candle was leaking, but after a short inspection, I was only able to find two small drops of candle wax that had solidified right next to the candle on the bedside table. I still had 2 hours of work left to do, but I was too lost in thought and was unable to do any work for the rest of the day.
Every night before I go to sleep, I like to read for at least 30 minutes, and while reading, I usually light a candle. Around 4 days later, I had mostly forgotten about the incident and went back to using candles. Due to my naivety, it returned.
I fell asleep while reading with a candle lit on my bedside table. I woke up to loud slurping noises. As I opened my eyes, the brightness of the light I had not turned off almost blinded me. As my eyes tried to readjust to the light and focus on what was in front of me, I saw a somewhat humanoid dark gray to light blue blur that contrasted with the white paint on the walls behind it. Another gray line stretched from the shape's head to the candle on my bedside table. I could feel my heart skip five consecutive beats. I opened my mouth and tried to force out a scream for help, but the pressure I applied to my throat was way beyond what it was able to handle, leading me to only produce a light wheezing sound. I tried to sit up or to at least prop myself up, but my muscles failed me. Trying to push myself up with my arms felt impossible. As I stared at the figure that had suddenly appeared in my room, my eyes finally managed to focus, making it possible for me to see the intruder who was now staring at me. The figure was a man at least 7 feet tall, fully naked; he looked bloated; his eyes were bloodshot and looked like they would pop out of their sockets; at any point, his skin was a grayish light blue.
HIS LIPS
His lips extended from his mouth like an elephant's trunk, which had been split in half. The lips extended from the man's face to the candle; the flames had been put out. He was using his lips as a makeshift straw, slowly sucking up all the molten wax from the candle, which had fully liquified while I was asleep. I laid in bed, unable to move, unable to scream for help, staring until he emptied the jar. His lips retracted back to his face, the molten wax solidifying on their tips and cracking, flakes of wax falling off the man's lips and falling to the floor. The man grinned, staring at me. The ridges and gaps between the teeth were filled in with wax, making it impossible to make out where one tooth ended and the next one began. The man opened the door he was standing next to, but instead of walking out of the room, he stepped behind it. His face peered at me from above the door, and then once again, like he had done to drink the wax, the man puckered his lips, which stretched from his mouth and floated to me. I shook and tried to roll over away from him. I wanted to get up and run, but my fear had taken over my body. Tears flowed from my eyes. He kissed me on the cheek, leaving flakes of wax and light moisture. He retracted his lips and lowered his head behind the door.
I don't remember falling asleep, but when I woke up, I saw the empty glass jar, which at one point contained the candle. Even though I had hoped that what had happened was a dream, it wasn't. I still had flakes of wax on my cheek, and on my bedroom floor, the wax in the jar had disappeared. I called the police, but they were unable to find anyone in my apartment; they also could not find any evidence of a break-in.
After the break-in, I started looking for a new apartment to move to, thinking that the man was tied to the building I was in, but even though I had thrown out all of my candles, I could not stomach spending another hour in my apartment, constantly looking over my shoulder or walking around with my back pressed up against the wall to not allow it to creep up on me. Thankfully, my friend Emma was able to let me stay over at her apartment while I looked for a new one for myself.
Me and Emma have been friends since we were 8, and we've been there to support each other when times get rough. This isn’t the first time I've had to stay over at her house for an extended amount of time; in fact, I have had to stay over at Emma’s as many times as she has had to stay over at my apartment, whether it was because of evictions after losing a job, breakups, or a candle wax drinking squatter. I didn't even know if it was human. I mean, sure, it looked like one, but human lips are not supposed to do what his did, and somehow it didn't have a reaction to molten wax being poured down its esophagus. I didn't tell Emma about what happened—the details at least—I just told her that a man had broken into my house and was watching me sleep. The only people I told the truth to were my therapist and the cops, and all of them disregarded what I told them as my mind making things up after a traumatic event.
For a while, I believed what they said—I mean, why wouldn’t I?—but then I started seeing him again. For a few days, I thought it was my mind playing tricks on me again like it had done during the night of the incident. For split seconds out of the corner of my eye, I would see the outline of a tall, bloated figure. At first, they were hours apart, but after a while, it became constant. He was standing in each room I passed, in every single dark corner I glanced past, and then he spoke.
“FeeD MeEeee”
It stood in the kitchen, peering over from a small gap between the fridge and the sink, where the trash can that had been knocked over onto its side usually stood. His voice was raspy, and every word that came out of his mouth was distorted as if he were gargling water, but still, I could somehow clearly make out each word he said from over 15 feet away.
“Please just leave me alone I… why are you following me?”
I shouted at the figure, the same fear that had taken over my body during the night I saw him for the first time paralyzing me, making it impossible for me to move anything other than my eyes, eyelids, and mouth.
“i’M sTarviNg, I nEEd You To FeEd ME”
It replied again. Now, stepping out from behind the fridge, he stepped directly onto a rotten banana. Its mushy brown content’s seeping out of the peel under the pressure of his decomposing foot, which was covered in scabs, and took up the same grayish light blue color as the rest of his body. He mostly looked the same; his bloodshot eyes bulged from their sockets, but now his tongue was swollen. It peeked out from between his bloated, cracked gray lips; it stared at me, waiting for an answer.
“Ok, I’ll.. I’ll feed you, but please just... leave me alone.”
I replied, the tone of my voice shifting into high-pitched squeals with every quick breath I took. He looked satisfied by my response. He somehow squeezed his bloated body back into the gap that was at least four times smaller than him. After peering over at me from above the fridge, he bent over backwards, his spine releasing a series of sickening cracks until he was fully obscured by the fridge, and then he vanished.
Still barely in control of my body, I limped over to the couch tucked away in the back corner of the living room, it took me at least 10 minutes to steady my breathing and 20 more to fully regain control of my body again but as soon as I did I ran out the house and to the nearest store, during the 15-minute walk he stared at me through dark windows and the backs of cars, peered out at me from gaps between leaves in the trees and bushes, he even followed me into the store staring at me from the middle of deserted isles before disappearing right before my eyes were able to fully catch him, once I finally got the candles I randomly picked four off of the shelves and rushed to the self checkout.
When I arrived home, I had 2 hours before Emma got off work. I didn't want to feed it while she was home, and I didn't want her to see it. I pulled out two of the candles from the black plastic bag and placed them on the kitchen table, the first a light blue candle named “Garden Rain” and the second a red candle named “Juicy Watermelon." I pulled out a lighter from one of the drawers Emma used after her stove stopped lighting on its own and lit each of the 6 wicks on the candles. As soon as I started seeing the wax melt under the heat of the burning wicks, I dropped the lighter onto the table next to the candles and ran out of the room. I could not stomach seeing that thing again; even just thinking about it made me shudder and hyperventilate. The paralyzing fear that seeing him caused me made me want to vomit.
At least 30 minutes later I started to hear it drink even though the living room and kitchen were separated by a wall, even though I had closed the door I could still hear what at first started as slurping sounds which were followed up by loud gulps, then it stopped, and once again 30 minutes later it started drinking, as the slurping started once again I heard the door to the apartment crack open, it was Emma, as she stepped through the door I saw her carrying two large brown paper bags of groceries in her hands, she was headed to the kitchen.
“Hey let me grab those for you”
I said running over to her, my voice shaking.
“Oh, thanks. Are you… okay, you look scared?”
My eyes shot wide open in a mixture of fear and surprise. I said the first thing that came to mind.
“Yeah just umm… I didn't expect you to come home so early and I got a bit spooked”
“shit sorry, I know I should have called you, work let me off early today,”
I started to turn away from her walking to the kitchen.
Trying to keep her away from the kitchen I told her to wait for me in the living room because I wanted to talk to her about something. I didn't know what I would talk to her about but that was a problem for future me to resolve, somehow it worked.
“What's that sound?”
She called out to me while walking towards the living room couch. It took me a few seconds to come up with an excuse.
“I think it’s the sink, or the pipes at least”
I opened the door to the kitchen with my eyes closed at first hesitant to look knowing what would be greeting me. slowly prying my eyes open I started to see its outline, my muscles started to lose strength as the details of the man came into my view, I felt the grocery bags start to slip from my arms, my knees buckled, face first I fell onto the kitchen floor scattering the groceries all over the floor, I mixture of a light scream and a yelp escaped from my mouth as my body made contact with the floor, Emma concerned for my safety ran into the kitchen, she didn't scream, using all of the strength and mobility I had left in my muscles I rolled over expecting to see her face drenched in terror, her body frozen still unable to move just like my body had done the first time that I saw him, but Emma looked concerned, the man was gone, she crouched down beside me.
“Oh my god are you ok? What happened?”
I looked around observing my surroundings.
“I um… I… I tripped on the little thing at the bottom of the doorframe”
I finally managed to blurt out another excuse, not being able to remember what the name of a door sill was. I started to sit up using a part of the energy that had returned to my body, pain pulsed through my chest and arms, Emma looked at me with a concerned face.
“You've been acting really weird since I got home, are you sure you're ok?”
“Yeah… I think I’m just having one of those days you know”
The confusion on Emma’s face said that she didn’t know and to be honest I didn't either, I guess my luck of pulling random excuses out of my ass ran out, Emma thought that she triggered some sort of PTSD response after barging into the house unannounced at first apologizing then trying to change the subject to stop my trembling which I was still unsuccessfully trying to hide from her.
“Did you buy candles?”
Emma asked picking the groceries apart from the garbage that spilled out the can that the man had knocked over, placing them on the table next to the now half-empty glass jars, the flames flickered above the inch or so of molten wax the man was unable to finish drinking.
“Yeah I’ve been struggling with work lately, they usually help me focus”
“Huh Interesting combination you’ve got going on here”
She looked at me and smiled slightly, I smiled back and chuckled to seem normal.
“Yeah even I don't know what I was trying to accomplish here, to be honest”
I tried to help Emma clean up the spilled groceries but she did not let me, she told me that I needed to recover like I had been in a car crash instead of having taken a little tumble. After a few seconds of silence, Emma spoke again.
“Anyway, what did you want to talk to me about earlier?”
A quick jolt of stress shot through my body, in a jumbled mess of lies and fear I had forgotten what I had told Emma, I sat there in silence for a few seconds unable to come up with an excuse
“I…umm… I don’t remember, it wasn't anything serious though”
“Damn did you hit your head too?”
She said once again proudly smiling at her joke.
At this point Emma picked up the last bag of potato chips from the floor and placed it on the table, then she opened the fridge and started loading the groceries into it.
“Anyway I gotta go get back to work’’
I blurted out after a few more seconds of awkward silence.
“Alright well good luck”
I walked over into the living room and sat down in front of my workstation, which now consisted of a laptop sitting on a small foldable TV tray that had just barely enough room left on it to fit a small USB mouse.
The last thing I remember, before I fell asleep, was me mindlessly scrolling through apartment listings while Emma watched a random 90’s horror movie I’m positive only had a budget of $500.
I woke up with a light stinging pain shooting through my dry throat, and a dim hissing sound caused by thousands of water drops striking the ground outside filled the room. I pressed the spacebar on my laptop, the brightness of the screen blinding me temporarily, after taking a few seconds to let my eyes readjust I managed to make out the time, 3:45 AM. A strong smell I was unable to make out the origin of assaulted my nostrils. Lavender.
The smell hitting my nose had the same effect on me that I would expect smelling salts would have on a weightlifter right before they set a world record. Before I knew it my legs were moving on their own at an almost uncontrollable pace, fighting back against my mind which was telling them to slow down after years of being used to navigating both mine and Emma’s apartment as steadily as possible to not bother the neighbors.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity I stood before Emma’s bedroom door, a faint, yellow, pulsating light radiated from a lamp and snuck out of a small gap between the door and the doorframe, reluctantly I pushed my left hand up against the door, my right hand grasping onto the door frame for a sense of stability, once the door was fully agape I scanned the inside of the room my heart skipping a beat for every humanoid shadow cast up onto the wall by the lights from the wicks which were set ablaze and were being slowly burnt away.
I walked into Emma’s room and made my way over to her bedside table to put out the candle, as I stepped closer towards her, her face became more defined, I could finally make out her features, she was awake, but no she could not have been, even though her eyes were wide open they never blinked, she didn't even move slightly, as I moved closer I finally managed to fully make out the expression of pure terror on her face, her mouth wide agape as if she was about to release a deafening screach, but she could not have, a single drop of solidified wax dribbled out of the corner of her mouth and clung to her cheek, my eyes traced the cream colored path back towards her mouth, first up her cheek then between the corner of her mouth and finally behind her teeth, there instead of her tongue or the roof of her mouth I saw a wall of wax which had filled in the entirety of her mouth.
I fell to my knees and hunched forward supporting my body weight with my arms, I was too late, I resisted the urge to vomit and got back up onto my feet, a mixture of tears and snot slid down my face and onto my lips, shaking now I slowly started limping over towards my phone which I had left on the couch next to where I had awoken just minutes before, just minutes before my life was destroyed because of my lies if I had just told Emma what I had gone through, if I had just told her what had happened on the night of the incident which now seemed trivial, even if she thought that I was crazy, I know that she would have complied just to make me feel comfortable.
It took me at least 30 seconds of repeated attempts to stabilize my hands enough to properly dial 911. “Someone broke into my apartment and hurt my friend” was the only reasonable explanation I could come up with that would not get the operator to hang up on me thinking that this was a prank call.
I sat there in the living room for an agonizing 10 minutes, crying, my sadness slowly transformed into anger towards myself, and my mind raced thinking of all the lies I’d told, I kept thinking that if I had just told her the truth she would not have been laying there in her bed, her body bloated, “every single orifice has signs of forced penetration and has been filled with what seems to be candle wax” is what was written on her autopsy report.
For a few days I was the main suspect in Emma’s murder, but due to the almost unstoppable crying and the unresponsive state that I was in when the police arrived, mixed with the lack of evidence of me having a way to produce 30 pounds of candle wax led to me being released out of police custody, but because I was the main suspect I was not told any details about what had fully happened to Emma, for days all I had to work off of was the image of her face frozen in terror, and a short glance I caught of her bloated body as she was being carted out on a stretcher.
I recounted every single word of our last conversations over and over again until they became permanently etched into my brain.
Emma’s parents originally wanted to cremate her, as that is what she had somewhat jokingly asked for whenever the topic of funerals came up, well she had joked about wanting to have had unpopped popcorn shoved down her throat before she was sent off to “scare the shit out of the guy cremating me” but due to all the wax which would have been impossible to get out of her body they were forced to bury her.
A few days before Emma’s funeral her body disappeared.
After Emma’s death, her parents took me into their home, after reading the autopsy reports and seeing her corpse they had thrown out every single candle they owned which made their home the safest choice I had, still, this did not stop me from buying a machete and keeping it under my bed, just in case.
I was laying on the bed in their guest bedroom The day that the police informed Emma’s parents about her disappearance, the bedroom is right above the front porch of the house, at first I heard them ring the doorbell which was followed up by 3 powerful knocks on the door, for about a minute I laid there on the bed listening to muffled voices exchanging distorted words I was barely able to make out which slowly transformed into distorted weeps, curious I lifted myself up from the bed, made my way over to the window and carefully lifted the bottom panel making Shure to not make too much noise, the distorted muffled sounds started forming into coherent words “We checked the security footage but the only strange thing we could see was a 5 second time jump” one of the officers spoke in a serious and almost monotone voice “which meant that the security guard who was the only person in the building had to climb down 2 flights of stairs walk through a 40 foot long hallway and then drag her body back up stairs and out of the building in 5 seconds” Emma’s mom let out yelp “ but don’t worry ma'am that’s actually good news because we know that her corpse is still somewhere within the building and was probably brought to the wrong floor by an intern, we’ve already warned all of the staff at the hospital to keep an eye out, and we also sent 5 officers to search the hospital”
I could not believe what I was hearing, my breathing quickened, but this time instead of fear I felt anger, that fucker stole her corpse and was probably in the weird separate plane of existence he always went back to after terrorizing me, cutting off chunks of her body, melting her, and drinking her.
I closed the window Emma’s mom's cries once again turned into a muffled rumble which was only possible to make out if you knew what to look for, I took a few steps back away from the window planning to lay back down, not wanting to bother Emma’s parents. I bumped into something, not something, someone, its fleshy towering form as solid as a wall sent me tumbling forward, I knew it was him, he had returned to take me too, to stretch his swollen cracked lips, push them down my esophagus, fill my lungs and stomach with wax. But despite all of that this time I was not scared, I was angry, and I was not going to stand there in terror like I had the last time I saw him.
I fell forward onto my knees my face missing the window sill just by mere inches, I put my hands onto the floor, lifted one of my knees, and rotated 180 degrees now facing the monster, to the right of him pushed up against the wall was the bed, light from the sun reflected off of the metallic button which kept my machete in it’s sheathe, the man started to stretch his lips, they were moving towards me, waving a wiggling through the air like a snake slithering towards me.
I dove towards the bed one of my feet pushing off of the floor and the other pushing against the wall which creaked under the pressure applied to it, I flew for a few moments before slamming down onto the carpet and sliding forward, the heat generated by my skin brushing against the carpet released a sharp stinging pain throughout my body, my outstretched arm landed just a few inches short of the machete, I quickly bent my arms, pushing my body up and crawled towards the machete. my fingers wrapped around the handle I spun around, my back pushed up against the bedside table, once again facing the man, he was still facing the window but his lips faced me and were just a few feet away from me, for what felt like minutes but was most likely no longer than a second, I struggled to hook my finger under the strap securing the machete into its sheath, as the lips inched towards me the man started producing gurgling noises, he was regurgitation wax.
I finally pulled the machete out of its sheath, I swung the blade at the man's lips, the blade was not met with any resistance as it sliced through the man’s lips which landed on the carpeted floor with an audible thud, the man did not have a physical reaction to my counter-attack, his lips kept creeping towards me, once again I slashed at the lips, still no reaction, I repeated this at least 3 more times.
I wanted to kill him, I wanted to take revenge for what he had done to Emma, but fighting back was pointless. I realized that no matter how much I tried to hurt it, I could not kill him, I could not get rid of him.
My rage dissipated and a mixture of fear and sadness crept in, and soon took over my body, I screamed for help, I screamed in fear, in agony, tears streamed down my face as the man's lips finally reached my face, he wasn’t met with any resistance as his lips snuck between mine, pried my jaw open and finally started to slide down my esophagus.
I heard the cops run up the stairs, they started banging on the door asking if I was okay only to have been met with muffled screams, hot wax started to pour down inside of me, the stinging pain of the heat made me want to plunge the machete which I had dropped onto the ground next to me into my stomach to create a gaping wound that the wax would hopefully funnel out of, the texture of the man's slippery, oily lips matched with the poison like flavor of the wax caused me to start gagging, I felt my insides bulging like at any moment my intestines would have been filled to the point where they would pop, I wanted to vomit, the drain myself of the filth I was filled with, but his lips had plugged my throat not allowing anything to get out.
Hearing my muffled screams the cops started kicking the door down, the man retracted his lips, the suction aided my attempts at cleansing my insides, I got onto my hands and knees streams of molten wax pouring out of me, solidifying on the the carpet, with another loud thud the door swung open slamming into the wall, the man was gone.
That’s the last thing I remember before I passed out, but according to one of the doctors who was in the ambulance that brought me to the hospital, I was still semi-responsive during the first 10 minutes of the ride to the hospital.
Approximately 13.4 pounds of wax were removed from my body, the doctors said that I was in a critical condition and some of them did not expect me to make it.
One of the officers who was there the day the man attacked me took a report of what had happened to me, due to the unmistakable evidence of what had happened to both me and Emma, and the fact that this was the 3rd instance of me reporting something like this the police finally started investigating who this man might have been.
Around a month later I was discharged from the hospital and once again have been staying in the living room of Emma’s parent's house.
I’ve been seeing the man again, candles were not allowed in the hospital I stayed at, which means that he’s probably very hungry, he’s close to attacking me again, I know it, he wants to finish what he started and I don't know if I have the power to fight back, I’m not sure if defeating him is even possible, I’m tired.
I’ve been seeing Emma too, her bloated, reanimated corpse often appears to be standing next to the man. If I let him take me will I get to join them? I’ve tried asking but they don’t answer, they just stare, I can’t keep living in constant fear, always looking over my shoulder, I miss Emma.

I remember when I was a little girl I would look in the mirror and just be so disappointed, in my mind, I was ugly, stupid, and poor, and it broke me completely. I would get bullied heavily in elementary school not only because I was poor but because I was chubby, while I ate lunch kids would stand by my desk and make pig sounds at me, oinking and calling me butterball. They told me I had meth head teeth. The only thing I liked about myself was my freckles but that brief feeling of liking myself soon disappeared when one boy told me it looked like I had shit splattered on my face.
I was eleven when I began to diet, whiten my teeth, and wear makeup. My teeth naturally straightened out on their own and I shed the weight with the help of heavy restriction, not without developing an obsession over how I looked. When I was twelve, boys began to notice me, I broke my nose and in doing so had to get it straightened out so I could breathe properly, no longer did I have my father's Roman nose which I so despised. I wanted desperately to be like the girls who ignored me and to be liked by the boys who bullied me for a little baby fat.
Because of this obsession, I didn't believe people when they told me I was pretty. Compliments always felt ingenuine and I naturally assumed boys were asking me out as a joke so I turned every single one down out of fear of humiliation. Deep inside me something seethed, I wasn't satisfied with the weight I had lost and begged and cried until my mom shared her Ozempic with me. I was thirteen.
Still, I could describe in detail the way I picked apart every flaw, the way I had autopsies on past conversations, searching for a new insecurity. One day I went into my dad's toolbox and stole his roll of duck tape and wrapped it around my waist. I was amazed by how beautiful I looked, my waist was the smallest of all the girls at my school and this felt like a victory. I tailored my favourite sundress on my mom's sewing machine to fit my brand-new waist and wore it to the first day back from summer break.
Everyone turned their heads to look at me, I thought that only happened in the movies until I strolled into English class with a waist the size of a tangerine. I shoved lies through my teeth about a gym and diet plan I had done over the summer to make myself look so small, my friends listened with eager ears and wide eyes trained on my midriff. The attention was more addictive than any substance I've put into my body. My friend had told me how the boys were talking about me and how they planned to ask me out, that's when I made up my mind.
It felt like a poison I happily drank, knowing all of the risks. Every Sunday after church I walked to the Dollar General by my house and bought five rolls of duct tape, two dollars each for one week of classes, ten dollars in total. The same woman was always there and she always smiled at me, asking what I did with all of the tape, my face would split into a sickly sweet smile as I told her a new falsehood every time.
My mother would comment on how she didn't want me to go anywhere by myself because I was too pretty to do so, this was like pouring gasoline onto my forest fire. In the morning when everyone was sleeping, I wrapped one roll of duct tape around my waist so no one could hear the sound; I took it off before my showers at night, water running as pain pushed tears from my eyes and bit the inside of my cheek until I could taste iron flood my gums. I was left with cuts and tears in my skin, flesh tender with torture, still, I mummified my body every morning with duct tape. Sometimes I would do my thighs if I wore leggings or skinny jeans so people would comment on my impressive thigh gap.
After a year of doing this, my midriff looked like a piece of raw steak beaten with a meat tenderizer until it was almost torn apart entirely. I wouldn't even let people touch me in fear that they could feel through my attempt at perfection. I started skipping church. Every weekend I shut myself inside so I could breathe at full capacity while I shut my blinds and stared at my ceiling, my mind went numb with the impending doom that I would suffocate myself with that dreadful silver tape when the bell rang. My whole life I had heard that beauty is pain and that's all I thought this was, I thought that models did similar things and it was just something I had to accept to be beautiful.
Essentially, I had turned into a zombie; my breathing was shallow, and I became pale, clammy, shaking, and nauseous. I couldn't stomach meals. Every night I would wake up around midnight and cough up my guts but I hadn't eaten any food so there was nothing left in me to vomit but bile and eventually blood. I stopped talking to people, I thought it better for them just to look at my pretty long lashes and my tiny little waist than to listen to me tell them I was fine through shaky breaths. My dad was so scared for me, he kept bringing food into my bedroom and would come to collect the uneaten dish when he dropped off the next. He couldn't look at me without crying. It was just his drowsy gaze piercing into my vacant skull while we both swallowed back what we wanted to say, the words dying in our throats, never to be heard.
Everything hurt all of the time, it didn't matter anymore whether I had the duct tape on or not. I almost preferred the feeling of it on so the stinging of the cuts and the soreness of my ribs was shielded by something. One day in PE the teacher asked me to sit out so I did. I tried my best to keep my vision straight and my head up while I watched the other kids play California kickball. It was okay until there was a suffocating feeling, like something was consuming everything in my body like tiny creatures with razor-sharp teeth were cutting their way up my organs. My body began to convulse as I coughed until I fell to my hands and knees, coughing up this invisible force in my throat. The game stopped abruptly and every pair of beady eyes turned to watch me writhe in pain on the dusty gym floor while I clawed at my chest and throat, eager to tear the skin off completely.
Mr. Duke jogged over to me, crouching down to my level and putting a hand on my back. With furrowed eyebrows, he asked what was happening and with nothing more than Ozempic running through my system, I screamed at him to get away from me. That final wave came like a million little hands of wind pushing at the back of my throat until I heaved up the very last of what was left in me. Hands flew over mouths while some gagged at the sickness once inside of me. On that floor was a pile of what looked to be red coffee grounds in a little puddle of cherry wine. I was as terrified as anyone else in the gym, I screamed between heavy sobs while scuttling away from the mess I had made.
I knew that this was the end of me, that I would be taken to a hospital and everyone would know what I had done. I didn't even need to go to the hospital for everyone to know what I had done. Once I had collected myself and began talking frantically in a hushed circle of my friends while we waited for the ambulance, one boy on the hockey team caught a glimpse of shimmering silver beneath my gym strip and snuck up behind me, pulling my shirt up and revealing the secret I carried like a cross I had to bear.
My back laden with strips of duct tape like it was armour was on display to my entire class, my shame shown to what I had perceived to be the entire world. The girls didn't find this so funny but the boys came up with the name of Tape-Face. I remember rushing to the locker room with my friends following close behind, I grabbed scissors from my pencil case and began to cut it off myself, ripping it away madly along with little segments of flesh. My friends watched in horror, they just stood like it was a game of wax museum and I was the security guard there to punish whichever moved first.
In the hospital, I couldn't face my parents, not even the doctor, I kept my eyes locked on my lap. I couldn't see their stares but I could certainly feel them digging into me like a frog on a dissection table. My mom was utterly speechless and my dad spoke only through voice cracks and subtle sobs while he brought me soggy sandwiches from the cafe on the first floor.
I took another week off school because I could predict the painfully true rumours and when I finally set foot back into the school, it was worse than I anticipated. I felt hideous, like a pig that had been chugging back lard in my t-shirt, sweatpants, and perfectly average body. My friends were hesitant to eat around me and tiptoed around the incident like it had never happened which almost felt worse than bringing it up. Others were not so kind. A group of kids, guys and girls all mixed together, the kind that stole cigarettes from their parents had waited until I came back to sneak away from class and cover my locker in duct tape. Over top of the tape they scribbled on a dictionary of names they would call me in the hallway "Tape-Face" "Fraud" "Botched" "Duct tape Barbie". One of the girls sat behind me in math and had cut little squares of duct tape to stick them into my hair, I called my mom in the principal's office and cried while the secretary had to cut it out of my hair.
My dad made the decision to pull me out of school, so I started homeschooling but that didn't stop the harassment. We lived close to the school and during lunch and after school kids would throw duct tape wallets and wads of tape onto the porch. My dad's final straw was when someone dropped off a Barbie whose waist and thighs had been wrapped in duct tape in our mailbox. He had contacted not only the school but the parents of the kids several times with no avail to the torment ending anytime soon. He moved us to a new town where I could go to class without anyone knowing the pain I subjected myself to for two years.
I'm in college now and I've never told anyone this. I've cut contact with everyone from that school. One of the bullies tried to reach out and apologize, blaming her behaviour on mental illness but that felt like she had shattered a plate and said sorry, thinking that it would put the plate back together. I told her I didn't forgive her and blocked her. A boy from the hockey team also messaged me, the one who flipped my shirt up. He said he just had a daughter he couldn't imagine her going through what I went through and that he's sorry for what he did. All I had to say was that I hope she doesn't have to go through what he put me through either.
​
​

Okay, it all started 6 years when I first stumbled upon this:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR1YcjfAddI then one of the Zero Hour episodes).
Notice in that MMD video there's High School Of The Dead and Terminator references/Easter eggs? That's what inspired me to start this mission making a Blender animation with this type of Easter egg(s). Vocaloid and anime characters - particularly my personal favourite cartoon and anime characters in place of the originals. This is all that was needed to set my dream of a parody video or Easter egg hunt involving my favorite fictional animated characters combined with existing media into motion.
But due to some power-happy mods/admins of certain websites who had no idea of this special mission of mine - as I was hiding it until it's complete (no spoilers), they had to act above and beyond and discipline me by either removing my posts regarding this question (E.G., "Where can I download this sound effect(s)?") or out-of-the-blue (perma)-banning me for "breaking the (site) rules"/"piracy efforts"!
Plus, it took me a whopping 8 years (as no keyword I used (at the time) yielded what I was expecting/requested for) just to determine/figure out it was Hollywood Edge, Hanna Barbera, Sound Ideas, etc., etc. that I had to refer to for the "common sound effects" we hear all the time in TV shows, movies, video games, and cartoons. This is a new realm of sound effects to me and now that I finally found it, I need a breather. But these mods/admins gave me anything but that.
Even the MMD community has rules to follow regarding downloading models others have "created" - those that were literally ripped from a video game. So to still respect the MMD model usage rules/be a law-biding citizen, I resorted to Blender as after watching a 3D remaster of Cars Community Service, I realized Blender is basically the entire package.
If you don't understand English, here's the simple version: I need help to streamline my 3D modelling process to obtain 3D models of things I’ll need for my Blender animation - with whatever strategy I can improvise. I need any readily available and already made 3D models for my Blender animation. I’m currently 28 years of age; I got this far in my life, but I’m not sure how much further I can go. But this is one case where I won’t accept “Too bad, so sad” that easily.
Whether it’s requesting for the thing for this game via the game dev team’s email by emailing them what you request for in the game and once they do make it for the game and upload it to their client and I update my copy of the game via patching, I then decompile the game from my end and presto. I obtain that game’s new model.
It’s faster to rip them from a game as they’re already made for that game.
Sadly, I have yet to find a high graphic Columbine High School in it’s original floor plan as a 3D model via any game. So I have to fall back to Plan B and make it via Blender. But that (learning to use Blender) takes time and I’m not that skilled at using Blender yet. So I have to seek help from someone who’s already an expert and fluent with using Blender or any other 3D modelling software to make it for me to streamline that process.
But some people have died earlier than anticipated like Terry Fox when he died of cancer at 22 and Wowaka when he died of heart failure at 31. So I’m not taking any chances and need to streamline the modelling process with any measure or strategy I can think up before I meet a similar early fate like they did.
Is that the way you want to go? To leave your fan base hanging in suspense for the rest of their lives while you head for your eternal place in the who-knows-where's? Every millisecond counts. - Especially for those who have a terminal illness and are literally living on borrowed time. Some of us must and will complete our goals no matter what obstacles we encountewhat gets in our way in any way possible. You really never know when your time is up. Age has no relation to when is the day you die; it could happen on any day and we need to get our goal done with whatever strategy we can whip up/improvise. I'm still bummed Wowaka missed out on the Project VOLTAGE collaboration with Miku.
Wouldn't you feel bummed if your family member or friend or relative died too soon if you were this close to letting them see something you made? So via the game dev's email and requests forum, I request for the said model, but make sure it's somehow related to the game's gameplay or storyline.
This is the strategy: get a game dev company to make the models for me, but via for the video game. That way, once it's released to the public, I work my magic from there and decompile the game for the said 3D model. Thanks to Payday 2 and it's Bundle Modder and Diesel Tool programs, it dramatically cuts down the amount of time I need to remodel the stuff I need for my Blender movie from scratch.
Plus, I can't just think about myself, I gotta think about others too. So I thought "What if everyone would enjoy my weapons and stuff in the said video game?" But since I don't work for the game dev company, I might as well write to them my request list of things to implement into the game via their email. Now that I submitted my ideas for their games, all I have to do is wait til they make it now while I finish up some unfinished personal matters on my end.
Columbine High School is going to play an important role in my Class of 1999 (starring Bradley Gregg) parody movie. But so many people are reluctant to help me due to this school building.
And also, you can’t imagine the heartache I endured while trying to seek assistance in searching for sound effects. They treated me like I’m some felon trying to “pirate” sound effects. So after 3 months of wasted time on my sound effects search quest, the least I can do right now is make up for that wasted time.
Finally, this is the whole reason Alvin Earthworm discontinued Super Mario Bros Z: "Us: HURRY UP WITH THE NEXT EPISODE ALREADY!", his project was merely intended to be a hobby. So to avoid comments like that, I'm going to finish my animations FIRST, then upload them later. So you can see what happens at the end before you pass away early.
So yes, is there anything wrong with thinking/planning ahead of YOURSELF as well as thinking about others before you do the same (stupid) thing they did? I even did my due diligence and stumbled upon things like this: Run Hide Fight (Isabel May). They clearly did their planning, due diligence, and studies before publishing this movie. So therefore, as long as I follow the same procedure, I should be able to publish my Blender vocaloid parody video while offending as little to no people in the process. I'm going to make a Class of 1999 (Bradley Gregg) parody video that involves several of the Zero Hour episodes mixed together as Easter eggs along with my favorite characters and things taking place of the original characters and props - while in the process, making a few changes to the story line.

Okay, it all started 6 years when I first stumbled upon this:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RR1YcjfAddI then one of the Zero Hour episodes).
Notice in that MMD video there's High School Of The Dead and Terminator references/Easter eggs? That's what inspired me to start this mission making a Blender animation with this type of Easter egg(s). Vocaloid and anime characters - particularly my personal favourite cartoon and anime characters in place of the originals. This is all that was needed to set my dream of a parody video or Easter egg hunt involving my favorite fictional animated characters combined with existing media into motion.
But due to some power-happy mods/admins of certain websites who had no idea of this special mission of mine - as I was hiding it until it's complete (no spoilers), they had to act above and beyond and discipline me by either removing my posts regarding this question (E.G., "Where can I download this sound effect(s)?") or out-of-the-blue (perma)-banning me for "breaking the (site) rules"/"piracy efforts"!
Plus, it took me a whopping 8 years (as no keyword I used (at the time) yielded what I was expecting/requested for) just to determine/figure out it was Hollywood Edge, Hanna Barbera, Sound Ideas, etc., etc. that I had to refer to for the "common sound effects" we hear all the time in TV shows, movies, video games, and cartoons. This is a new realm of sound effects to me and now that I finally found it, I need a breather. But these mods/admins gave me anything but that.
Even the MMD community has rules to follow regarding downloading models others have "created" - those that were literally ripped from a video game. So to still respect the MMD model usage rules/be a law-biding citizen, I resorted to Blender as after watching a 3D remaster of Cars Community Service, I realized Blender is basically the entire package.
If you don't understand English, here's the simple version: I need help to streamline my 3D modelling process to obtain 3D models of things I’ll need for my Blender animation - with whatever strategy I can improvise. I need any readily available and already made 3D models for my Blender animation. I’m currently 28 years of age; I got this far in my life, but I’m not sure how much further I can go. But this is one case where I won’t accept “Too bad, so sad” that easily.
Whether it’s requesting for the thing for this game via the game dev team’s email by emailing them what you request for in the game and once they do make it for the game and upload it to their client and I update my copy of the game via patching, I then decompile the game from my end and presto. I obtain that game’s new model.
It’s faster to rip them from a game as they’re already made for that game.
Sadly, I have yet to find a high graphic Columbine High School in it’s original floor plan as a 3D model via any game. So I have to fall back to Plan B and make it via Blender. But that (learning to use Blender) takes time and I’m not that skilled at using Blender yet. So I have to seek help from someone who’s already an expert and fluent with using Blender or any other 3D modelling software to make it for me to streamline that process.
But some people have died earlier than anticipated like Terry Fox when he died of cancer at 22 and Wowaka when he died of heart failure at 31. So I’m not taking any chances and need to streamline the modelling process with any measure or strategy I can think up before I meet a similar early fate like they did.
Is that the way you want to go? To leave your fan base hanging in suspense for the rest of their lives while you head for your eternal place in the who-knows-where's? Every millisecond counts. - Especially for those who have a terminal illness and are literally living on borrowed time. Some of us must and will complete our goals no matter what obstacles we encountewhat gets in our way in any way possible. You really never know when your time is up. Age has no relation to when is the day you die; it could happen on any day and we need to get our goal done with whatever strategy we can whip up/improvise. I'm still bummed Wowaka missed out on the Project VOLTAGE collaboration with Miku.
Wouldn't you feel bummed if your family member or friend or relative died too soon if you were this close to letting them see something you made? So via the game dev's email and requests forum, I request for the said model, but make sure it's somehow related to the game's gameplay or storyline.
This is the strategy: get a game dev company to make the models for me, but via for the video game. That way, once it's released to the public, I work my magic from there and decompile the game for the said 3D model. Thanks to Payday 2 and it's Bundle Modder and Diesel Tool programs, it dramatically cuts down the amount of time I need to remodel the stuff I need for my Blender movie from scratch.
Plus, I can't just think about myself, I gotta think about others too. So I thought "What if everyone would enjoy my weapons and stuff in the said video game?" But since I don't work for the game dev company, I might as well write to them my request list of things to implement into the game via their email. Now that I submitted my ideas for their games, all I have to do is wait til they make it now while I finish up some unfinished personal matters on my end.
Columbine High School is going to play an important role in my Class of 1999 (starring Bradley Gregg) parody movie. But so many people are reluctant to help me due to this school building.
And also, you can’t imagine the heartache I endured while trying to seek assistance in searching for sound effects. They treated me like I’m some felon trying to “pirate” sound effects. So after 3 months of wasted time on my sound effects search quest, the least I can do right now is make up for that wasted time.
Finally, this is the whole reason Alvin Earthworm discontinued Super Mario Bros Z: "Us: HURRY UP WITH THE NEXT EPISODE ALREADY!", his project was merely intended to be a hobby. So to avoid comments like that, I'm going to finish my animations FIRST, then upload them later. So you can see what happens at the end before you pass away early.
So yes, is there anything wrong with thinking/planning ahead of YOURSELF as well as thinking about others before you do the same (stupid) thing they did? I even did my due diligence and stumbled upon things like this: Run Hide Fight (Isabel May). They clearly did their planning, due diligence, and studies before publishing this movie. So therefore, as long as I follow the same procedure, I should be able to publish my Blender vocaloid parody video while offending as little to no people in the process. I'm going to make a Class of 1999 (Bradley Gregg) parody video that involves several of the Zero Hour episodes mixed together as Easter eggs along with my favorite characters and things taking place of the original characters and props - while in the process, making a few changes to the story line.

I doubt you'll read this. And I know you and I will never really forgive me for what I said to you.
You could forgive another man probably, but not me. I understand why. So do you. Part of chess is pieces have different value.
That's not the point of what I'm trying to get at with you.
It is at it's nucleus, sure. But not the point I am trying to address.
First and most pressing- read, research, thoroughly understand time through Revelations. It's happening now.
Stupidity has always been more common than brilliance. Do not follow the crowd. That's the gambit.
I think you're falling for it. You have walked right onto dead land. Texas is not safe. The same wall that keeps you safe can also keep you prisoner.
War is upon us. And we gon lose. Big time. Already have. Hell, I helped but barely.
When I went to the desert, I know you know I wasn't no pencil pusher.
That's true. But what I was trained to do was to find things. Look for stuff. People.
Things like weapons, people buildin bombs, kidnappin, awful stuff, right?
We would stuff out of wood for them. They don't really have trees over there. And we would install things like water purification systems, stuff like that bc people out there use the same water to shit in as they do to drink. Make huts out of sand and trash. Anyway, folks'd try to sabotage critical infrastructure bc they understood we use it for regional control.
Truth be told, that's all they wanted to.
I'm sure you understand now that the news, both red and blue as they are still flavors of Kool Aid, does nothin but lie.
Anyway, I was diligent enough to start asking some important questions. Payin attention to what the grand design is.
I play chess. Chess and the Bible tells you everything I promise. Not some youtubin hipster.
So I splitttttttt. And they didn't like that one bit. Nope.
And I never killed anybody. I would only capture them. Chess. And many times, they did not like that.
In my life, I have killed an ungodly amount of insects and such, and they have hearts and ideas too, but maybe like 2 squirrels by gun, idk by tire, not much, 2 possums, a few birds, and a couple snakes. I told people I did when I was young. I was just tryin to be cool. I lied. But I absolutely would if somebody was a threat to someone I love or committing evil on others.
I told you I never done anything over there I had to hang my head about. That's true. Get a gun, learn to use it to protect your family, have a plan and somewhere very rural to go.
Anyway, onto us.
...
First, you and I both know I don't now nor have I ever really thought anything like that about you.
I said that to hurt you. Bc I could feel that you knew you were hurting me. Idk why you think that bc I was never mean to you that that is weakness in want. No. That is the strength in love. So small to think that's power. You know I would've made you feel powerful the right way, right?
I'm proud of you. And I'm sorry I said that to you.
You were my friend Devon.
I love you too. When you care about something, you just want what's best for them.
I don't think I'm the best thing for you or you for me anymore.
It doesn't change the fact that I love you. Probly nothin ever will bc you wont let it by giving me the chance.
Maybe I get it now.
Maybe that's it.
Bc we can hurt each other in ways that other people couldn't do to us.
Maybe that's why.
I don't know.
I don't think you love me anymore. And I don't think I love you anymore.
How could we?
I think it's our first nature to love each other. But we will always wind up in the loop we do.
I hope I broke us out by force.
I wanted to break us out gently.
I still want what's best for you.
I am going to find a girl and marry her and have a kid with her.
And I'm going to make it work.
That wouldn't have been something we would've had to do, it just would've worked on it's own.
Don't feel like I walked up and stuffed that money in your tits and spit on the ground. That's the way you make me feel anyway every time I'm nice to you. Your post said you were a single mom. Pssshh when? That's how you speak of the men you were with instead of me while you raised your son. Stuff like that hurts me girl. Seeing you proposed to with traffic goin by hurts me girl. You, your defense mechanisms only prove how deep and unresolved your feelings for me were.
That's not bc of me. It's just not.
It's bc of the way you see me.
As a vulnerability.
Same here girl. And you tiny. I hate that.
I don't hate you bc of that. I know your snapchat avatar was the last outfit you saw me in for years.
I know you kept my painting. Maybe up until recently.
I threw your leather jacket away. I made myself.
I made myself do those mean things to you so you would understand I would tolerate it no more.
I could feel your anger in the bottom of my heart when you saw I shared your post.
I forgave you Devon. Instantly, every time.
And you never even asked me. I am Milton fucking Bradley with the games at this point. Let's not.
I don't want to haunt you. I don't want you to haunt me.
I think that's common ground.
You went from I think you're annoyed it's not working to you refusing to tell me you didn't love me and we had no chance bc you didn't know the future in the span of 20 minutes or so. You told him you did know the future when you said til death do us part.
I don't want to fuck with you in an unhealthy way but I think mastering survival mode means there's nothing you're running from anymore and bein able to look everyone in the eyes.
I'm not bein poetic when I say I can feel you.
I mean, seriously, why else would I care to such a degree?
That has to stop. I can't be half the world away when all of a sudden I can feel you doin something. Got somethin goin on. Wanting me. Calls out to me like kids scream for help around Boe Jiden.
For whatever reason, I don't know. But it aint the one we was made for.
I'll leave you with this- of all the people I've ever been around anywhere on God's green Earth that HAARP and all that other shit are poisoning, you're the only one I never felt alone with. Even when you were gone. That mattered to me.
Don't ever let anybody talk to you like that ever again. If that husband of yours can't wipe someone's face off their head for treating you like that then you use some of this to get his ass karate classes and one of them mushrooms from super mario.

If the family wanted to, they could still have a toxicology report done on Micha’s remains.
Unfortunately they wouldn’t be able to do an autopsy ever. JP should be in prison or In front of the firing squad. If the FBI is unwilling to help, as they have proved, it’s time to get the US Marshall’s involvement to look into the cororner (who by the way is the ONLY PERSON with the power to remove the chief/head sheriff from his position of power), the person who cremated Mica (which btw the person who cremated Mica has already been in “trouble” for cremating another person body before investigation), the Lumberton PD, the Lumberton park rangers , the gas station clerks, everyone. The Marshals should also look into solid rocks money laundering and sexual abuse, the rev at the church, JPs dad, the fisherman, THE COUPLE & the family at the ramp the fisherman talked to & the man who owns the property near Lumberton, Robeson county, ALL OF IT. This investigation has been an absolute shit show from the very beginning.
HOW ARE THE POLICE GOING TO SIT THERE AND SAY THAT HIS TRUCK WAS CAUGHT ON A HIGHWAY CAMERA AND HES OFF THE HOOK???!!!!!
What was JPs full alibi?
Where is the camera footage of JP in the town he was allegedly in the day of Micas murder?
If he stayed at a hotel, for how long? Where’s the hotel camera footage?
Surely he had to get gas along the way or food ?!? Where are the receipts.
They went to dinner after the soccer game? Surly the place had cameras.

So this is a long post regarding SIL and going no contact
30th of November my 8 year old daughter was taken to hospital due to low oxygen due to a cold while in there she deteriorated quite extreme and ended up being transferred to a bigger hospital put on life support and unfortunately lost her life.
My daughter was three years old when I got with my partner and his parents have called themselves nanny and grandad since she was about 4 years old and treated her as a grandchild so regardless of DNA they are her grandparents however sister-in-law has always treated her like an outcast along with my older daughter that’s 13 and me and my partner have a three year old together but auntie is overbearing with him to the point my son cries every time she’s near him.
When my daughter was in hospital, my son was two,I’m still nursing to sleep so the hospital was happy to have him with me as he’s extremely clingy mummies boy. While my daughter was in hospital sister-in-law would message me asking how daughter was and offering to have my son that is extremely uncomfortable around her then when I politely declined her having my son but then would explain how my daughter was she would leave me on read because she didn’t get the answer she wanted rather than replying how my daughter was,then would message me the same thing practically the next day this went on for five days that we was in hospital where she offered to have my son then the message explaining how my daughter was doing which unfortunately was not doing well.
on the 5th of December, my daughter unfortunately passed away. I was with her and as you can imagine this destroyed me. Sister-in-law messaged me saying sorry for your loss blah blah blah nothing wrong with that part. Then it come to News getting around the town that my daughter had passed so I was receiving lots of messages on social media about my daughter so I just put a post up explaining what happened and then logged out of Facebook and stayed off social media for about a week. In that week SIL posted about how heartbroken she was that her niece had passed blah blah blah proper attention post considering she never once called my daughter niece in the whole time she was alive and was really milking social media.
When I did go back on I noticed she had done like five different posts about how heartbroken she was About my daughters passing bear in mind she never called her niece before in her whole life. For the sake of the family I didn’t bring it up plus I wasn’t sure if I’ve been extra sensitive due to grief
there was an autopsy performed because because they didn’t know exactly what happened since she had a common cold but unfortunately that virus attacked her heart so myocarditis was the reason, because everything had happened in December everything had been prolonged because the Christmas and New Year’s period.
my daughter didn’t get to the funeral directors until the 4th of January, I went to see my daughter on the 5th of January and asked my sister to watch my son for the first time ever my sister had watched my son and I’m not going to go into detail but my daughter had been passed for a month so as you can imagine seeing my daughter, she wasn’t in the best of ways, she didn’t look like herself and the best way to describe it is she was dead dead this really torn me up and I still have flashbacks to how she looked.
my partner receives a crappy message from his sister because it’s not fair that my sister got to watch Hunter and how this isn’t fair on her, she should’ve watched him which had actually shocked me that she would do that but it was the first ever time that my sister watched our son and given the situation that we had just gone to see my daughter‘s body who’s no longer with us I was extremely shocked that she could be that insensitive and entitled. I told partner I just couldn’t be around her for a little while. I won’t say anything to her. I’ll just avoid her to keep the peace then came January 15th that was my daughters funeral again obviously not an easy day. No parent should ever have to be planning a funeral for their child who was eight years old with her whole life ahead of her so not the best of days but his sister came she was nice on the day, no problems with her on that particular day the first thing she did when she got home was post pictures that she had taken and you know how hard it is blah blah blah on social media again for likes but I didn’t say anything. she asked if we could go round to her house, she still lives with her mum and dad and her partner and two children. she wanted us to go round there so me thinking maybe you know it’s it’s just checking in on us because of we’ve lost my a child but what it actually was was for her to give her personalised card and Teddy and a big amount of fuss to mine and my partners son asking him to be pageboy at her wedding , now this wedding is May 2026 so the fact that she needed to do it two days after my daughters funeral, didn’t sit right and that was when I actually finally had enough and I had to walk out because I could not sit through watching her try everything just to bring attention back on herself literally two days after we buried my daughter.
I didn’t hear from her at all and February comes my eldest daughter was 13 on the 22nd of February again no text nothing from sister-in-law then February 23 was my son’s third birthday my sister and my nieces and nephews came over. My partner Mum and Dad came over and they had brought my niece and nephew from that side of the family too so nobody mentioned anything about my sister-in-law so I assumed she wasn’t coming and was thankful for that then just as I’m about to do the cake I get told no wait for sister-in-law because she is coming. She didn’t even bother to let me know so then she gets there gives my son his presents and he’s got a lot more presents than usual and a voucher all fine. I do the cake and then they say it was lovely and leave then My daughter asked me if I could message my partners mum and dad to say thank you for her card and money as her birthday was the day before but being older she spent it with friends at the cinema so I stupidly said what did my partner sister get you assuming she would have got her a card at least even just a happy birthday but no she didn’t even say happy birthday to my daughter or hello so my daughter still getting the same treatment my other daughter got through life but then apparently was a niece once she died.
Then I noticed the post that sister-in-law had tagged me in about my son‘s birthday tag removed and the tag in my daughter’s funeral had also been removed and I was like okay then? But I’m not in the right mindset for drama so I just thought I’ll just remove as a friend on social media problems solved rather than this petty removing tag stuff,
within five minutes of me removing her straight away calling me a bitch and asking what my problem was with her so I explained from start to finish what my problem was with her and I explained that I don’t expect her to treat my oldest as her niece but I do expect her to at least say happy birthday to her and acknowledge that she is also human to which she replied that my daughter isn’t family so she will not be doing that and that she wasn’t using my other daughter for likes she would never do that even though she’s always been about attention and I snapped at that point and explained to her that if she can’t treat my children fairly on their birthdays then I don’t want her around on either of their birthdays to which my partner has hundred percent agreed with me, especially as I treat her two children exactly the same as my sister‘s children and class them as my nieces and nephews so that was how it was left
until she then messaged my partner explaining she is disgusted that I could say that she was using my daughter for likes when she would never do that and that she would never try and bring attention back to her the reason she picked two days after my daughters funeral for wedding stuff was because she was doing it for friends that lived far away too not that friends was there or anything so that was invalid. my partner then explained to her that there was no issue with her doing it for friends but it was not an acceptable time to do it when we have just lost a child.
I have decided to go no contact because I cannot bear to be anywhere near this woman and she has now messaged my partner moaning that she hasn’t seen my son for well since his birthday my partner has explained that I have gone no contact and that he agrees that if she can’t treat my children fairly, she doesn’t get to be around either of them so we have in fact taken the kids no contact too.
My partner has backed me. also, just as my daughter passed his sister went and like all of my Instagram posts with my daughter in from the last 5 years and commented on them about her beautiful niece even though she never liked her picture with my daughter and before this point. She also posted on New Year’s Eve about new chapter and how this was the best year of our life because she got engaged bare in mind that two weeks before that she was so heartbroken my daughter died but suddenly it was the best year ever. There’s a few more things she did but if I type them all I’ll be here all day.
Am I wrong for cutting contact because I’m in the middle grief? I have to second-guess everything in case it’s grief but I just feel the disrespect and entitlement that she has shown since the loss of my daughter is quite frankly something that I never want to be around because I could not imagine being that way to anyone that has just lost a child. But am I right for these feelings and cutting her from my son’s life? Can I have honest opinions please

AITA
So this is a long post regarding SIL and going no contact
30th of November my 8 year old daughter was taken to hospital due to low oxygen due to a cold while in there she deteriorated quite extreme and ended up being transferred to a bigger hospital put on life support and unfortunately lost her life. My daughter was three years old when I got with my partner and his parents have called themselves nanny and grandad since she was about 4 years old and treated her as a grandchild so regardless of DNA they are her grandparents however sister-in-law has always treated her like an outcast along with my older daughter that’s 13 and me and my partner have a three year old together but auntie is overbearing with him to the point my son cries every time she’s near him. When my daughter was in hospital, my son was two I’m still nursing to sleep so the hospital was happy to have him with me as he’s extremely clingy mummies boy. While my daughter was in hospital sister-in-law would message me asking how daughter was and offering to have my son that is extremely uncomfortable around her then when I politely declined her having my son but then would explain how my daughter was she would leave me on read because she didn’t get the answer she wanted rather than replying how my daughter was and then would message me the same thing practically the next day this went on for five days that we was in hospital where she offered to have my son then the message explaining how my daughter was doing which unfortunately was not doing well. Then on the 5th of December, my daughter unfortunately passed away. I was with her and as you can imagine this destroyed me. Sister-in-law messaged me saying sorry for your loss blah blah blah nothing wrong with that part. Then it come to News getting around the town that my daughter had passed so I was receiving lots of messages on social media about my daughter so I just put a post up explaining what happened and then logged out of Facebook and stayed off social media for about a week. SIL posted about how heartbroken she was that her niece had passed blah blah blah proper attention post considering she never called my daughter niece in the whole time she was alive and was really milking social media. When I did go back on I noticed she had done like five different posts about how heartbroken she was About my daughters passing bare in mind she never called her niece before in her whole life. For the family I didn’t bring it up plus I wasn’t sure if I’ve been extra sensitive due to grief there was an autopsy performed because it had happened in December. Everything could been prolonged because the Christmas and New Year’s period so my daughter didn’t get to the funeral directors until the 4th of January, so I went to see my daughter on the 5th of January and asked my sister to watch my son in the first time ever my sister had watched my son and I’m not going to go into detail but my daughter had been passed for a month so as you can imagine seeing my daughter, she wasn’t in the best of way, she didn’t look like her and the best way to describe it is she was dead dead really torn me up and I still have flashbacks to how she looked. my partner receives a crappy message from his sister because it’s not fair that my sister got to watch Hunter and how this isn’t fair on her, she should’ve watched him which had actually shocked me that she would do that but it was the first ever time that my sister watched our son and given the situation that we had just gone to see my daughter‘s body who’s no longer with us I was extremely shocked that she could be that insensitive and entitled. I told partner I just didn’t wanna be around her for a little while. I won’t say anything to her. I’ll just avoid her to keep the peace then came January 15th that was my daughters funeral again obviously not an easy day. No parent should ever have to be planning a funeral for their child who was eight years old with her whole life ahead of her so not the best of days but his sister came she was nice on the day, no problems with her on that particular day the first thing did when she got home was post pictures that she had taken and you know how hard it is blah blah blah on social media again for like but I didn’t say anything she asked if we could go round to her house, she still lives with her mum and dad and children. she wanted us to go round there so me thinking maybe you know it’s it’s just checking in on us because of we’ve lost my a child but what it actually was was for her to give her personalised card and Teddy and a big amount of fuss to mine and my partners son asking him to be pageboy at her wedding , now this wedding is May 2026 so the fact that she needed to do it two days after my daughters funeral, didn’t sit right and that was when I actually finally had enough and I had to walk out because I could not sit through watching her try everything just to bring attention back on herself literally two days after we buried my daughter. So I didn’t hear from her at all and February comes my eldest daughter was 13 on the 22nd of February again no text nothing from sister-in-law then February 23 was my son’s third birthday my sister and my nieces and nephews came over. My partner Mum and Dad came over and they had brought my niece and nephew from that side of the family too so nobody mentioned anything about my sister-in-law so I assumed she wasn’t coming and was thankful for that then just as I’m about to do the cake I get told no wait for sister-in-law because she is coming. She didn’t even bother to let me know so then she gets there gives my son his presents and he’s got a lot more presents than usual and a £50 voucher all fine. I do the cake and then they say it was lovely and leave then My daughter asked me if I could message my partners mum and dad to say thank you for her card and money as her birthday was the day before but being older she spent it with friends at the cinema so I stupidly said what did my partner sister get you assuming she would have got her a card at least even just a happy birthday but no she didn’t even say happy birthday to my daughter or hello so my daughter still getting the same treatment my other daughter got through life but then apparently, was a niece once she died. Then I noticed the post that sister-in-law had tagged me in about my son‘s birthday tag removed and the tag in my daughters funeral had also been removed and I was like okay then? But I’m not in the right mindset for drama so I just thought I’ll just remove as a friend on social media problems solved rather than this petty removing tag stuff, within five minutes of me removing her straight away calling me a bitch and asking what my problem was with her so I explained from start to finish what my problem was with her and I explained that I don’t expect her to treat my oldest as her niece but I do expect her to at least say happy birthday to her and acknowledge that she is also human to which she replied that my daughter isn’t family so she will not be doing that and that she wasn’t using my other daughter for likes she would never do that even though she’s always been about attention and I snapped at that point and explained to her that if she can’t treat my children fairly on their birthdays then I don’t want her around on either of their birthdays to which my partner has hundred percent agreed with me, especially as I treat her two children exactly the same as my sister‘s children and class them as my nieces and nephews so that was how it was left until she then messaged my partner explaining she is disgusted that I could say that she was using my daughter for likes when she would never do that and that she would never try and bring attention back to her the reason she picked two days after my daughters funeral for wedding stuff was because she was doing it for friends that lived far away too not that friends was there or anything so that was invalid. my partner then explained to her that there was no issue with her doing it for friends but it was not an acceptable time to do it when we have just lost a child. I have decided to go no contact because I cannot bear to be anywhere near this woman and she has now messaged my partner moaning that she hasn’t seen my son for well since his birthday my partner has explained that I have gone no contact and that he agrees that if she can’t treat my children fairly, she doesn’t get to be around either of them so we have in fact taken the kids no contact too. My partner has backed me. also, just as my daughter passed his sister went and like all of my Instagram posts with my daughter in and commented on them about her beautiful niece even though she never liked her picture with my daughter and before this point. She also posted on New Year’s Eve about new chapter and how this was the best year of our life because she got engaged Ben in mind that two weeks before that she was so heartbroken my daughter died but suddenly it was the best year ever. Am I wrong for cutting contact because I’m in the middle grief? I have to second-guess everything in case it’s grief but I just feel the disrespect and entitlement that she has shown since the loss of my daughter is quite frankly something that I never want to be there another human with because I could not imagine being that way to anyone that has just lost a child. But am I right for these feelings? I have honest opinions

So this is a long post regarding SIL and going no contact
30th of November my 8 year old daughter was taken to hospital due to low oxygen due to a cold while in there she deteriorated quite extreme and ended up being transferred to a bigger hospital put on life support and unfortunately lost her life.
My daughter was three years old when I got with my partner and his parents have called themselves nanny and grandad since she was about 4 years old and treated her as a grandchild so regardless of DNA they are her grandparents however sister-in-law has always treated her like an outcast along with my older daughter that’s 13 and me and my partner have a three year old together but auntie is overbearing with him to the point my son cries every time she’s near him.
When my daughter was in hospital, my son was two,I’m still nursing to sleep so the hospital was happy to have him with me as he’s extremely clingy mummies boy. While my daughter was in hospital sister-in-law would message me asking how daughter was and offering to have my son that is extremely uncomfortable around her then when I politely declined her having my son but then would explain how my daughter was she would leave me on read because she didn’t get the answer she wanted rather than replying how my daughter was,then would message me the same thing practically the next day this went on for five days that we was in hospital where she offered to have my son then the message explaining how my daughter was doing which unfortunately was not doing well.
on the 5th of December, my daughter unfortunately passed away. I was with her and as you can imagine this destroyed me. Sister-in-law messaged me saying sorry for your loss blah blah blah nothing wrong with that part. Then it come to News getting around the town that my daughter had passed so I was receiving lots of messages on social media about my daughter so I just put a post up explaining what happened and then logged out of Facebook and stayed off social media for about a week. In that week SIL posted about how heartbroken she was that her niece had passed blah blah blah proper attention post considering she never once called my daughter niece in the whole time she was alive and was really milking social media.
When I did go back on I noticed she had done like five different posts about how heartbroken she was About my daughters passing bear in mind she never called her niece before in her whole life. For the sake of the family I didn’t bring it up plus I wasn’t sure if I’ve been extra sensitive due to grief
there was an autopsy performed because because they didn’t know exactly what happened since she had a common cold but unfortunately that virus attacked her heart so myocarditis was the reason, because everything had happened in December everything had been prolonged because the Christmas and New Year’s period.
my daughter didn’t get to the funeral directors until the 4th of January, I went to see my daughter on the 5th of January and asked my sister to watch my son for the first time ever my sister had watched my son and I’m not going to go into detail but my daughter had been passed for a month so as you can imagine seeing my daughter, she wasn’t in the best of ways, she didn’t look like herself and the best way to describe it is she was dead dead this really torn me up and I still have flashbacks to how she looked.
my partner receives a crappy message from his sister because it’s not fair that my sister got to watch Hunter and how this isn’t fair on her, she should’ve watched him which had actually shocked me that she would do that but it was the first ever time that my sister watched our son and given the situation that we had just gone to see my daughter‘s body who’s no longer with us I was extremely shocked that she could be that insensitive and entitled. I told partner I just couldn’t be around her for a little while. I won’t say anything to her. I’ll just avoid her to keep the peace then came January 15th that was my daughters funeral again obviously not an easy day. No parent should ever have to be planning a funeral for their child who was eight years old with her whole life ahead of her so not the best of days but his sister came she was nice on the day, no problems with her on that particular day the first thing she did when she got home was post pictures that she had taken and you know how hard it is blah blah blah on social media again for likes but I didn’t say anything. she asked if we could go round to her house, she still lives with her mum and dad and her partner and two children. she wanted us to go round there so me thinking maybe you know it’s it’s just checking in on us because of we’ve lost my a child but what it actually was was for her to give her personalised card and Teddy and a big amount of fuss to mine and my partners son asking him to be pageboy at her wedding , now this wedding is May 2026 so the fact that she needed to do it two days after my daughters funeral, didn’t sit right and that was when I actually finally had enough and I had to walk out because I could not sit through watching her try everything just to bring attention back on herself literally two days after we buried my daughter.
I didn’t hear from her at all and February comes my eldest daughter was 13 on the 22nd of February again no text nothing from sister-in-law then February 23 was my son’s third birthday my sister and my nieces and nephews came over. My partner Mum and Dad came over and they had brought my niece and nephew from that side of the family too so nobody mentioned anything about my sister-in-law so I assumed she wasn’t coming and was thankful for that then just as I’m about to do the cake I get told no wait for sister-in-law because she is coming. She didn’t even bother to let me know so then she gets there gives my son his presents and he’s got a lot more presents than usual and a voucher all fine. I do the cake and then they say it was lovely and leave then My daughter asked me if I could message my partners mum and dad to say thank you for her card and money as her birthday was the day before but being older she spent it with friends at the cinema so I stupidly said what did my partner sister get you assuming she would have got her a card at least even just a happy birthday but no she didn’t even say happy birthday to my daughter or hello so my daughter still getting the same treatment my other daughter got through life but then apparently was a niece once she died.
Then I noticed the post that sister-in-law had tagged me in about my son‘s birthday tag removed and the tag in my daughter’s funeral had also been removed and I was like okay then? But I’m not in the right mindset for drama so I just thought I’ll just remove as a friend on social media problems solved rather than this petty removing tag stuff,
within five minutes of me removing her straight away calling me a bitch and asking what my problem was with her so I explained from start to finish what my problem was with her and I explained that I don’t expect her to treat my oldest as her niece but I do expect her to at least say happy birthday to her and acknowledge that she is also human to which she replied that my daughter isn’t family so she will not be doing that and that she wasn’t using my other daughter for likes she would never do that even though she’s always been about attention and I snapped at that point and explained to her that if she can’t treat my children fairly on their birthdays then I don’t want her around on either of their birthdays to which my partner has hundred percent agreed with me, especially as I treat her two children exactly the same as my sister‘s children and class them as my nieces and nephews so that was how it was left
until she then messaged my partner explaining she is disgusted that I could say that she was using my daughter for likes when she would never do that and that she would never try and bring attention back to her the reason she picked two days after my daughters funeral for wedding stuff was because she was doing it for friends that lived far away too not that friends was there or anything so that was invalid. my partner then explained to her that there was no issue with her doing it for friends but it was not an acceptable time to do it when we have just lost a child.
I have decided to go no contact because I cannot bear to be anywhere near this woman and she has now messaged my partner moaning that she hasn’t seen my son for well since his birthday my partner has explained that I have gone no contact and that he agrees that if she can’t treat my children fairly, she doesn’t get to be around either of them so we have in fact taken the kids no contact too.
My partner has backed me. also, just as my daughter passed his sister went and like all of my Instagram posts with my daughter in from the last 5 years and commented on them about her beautiful niece even though she never liked her picture with my daughter and before this point. She also posted on New Year’s Eve about new chapter and how this was the best year of our life because she got engaged bare in mind that two weeks before that she was so heartbroken my daughter died but suddenly it was the best year ever. There’s a few more things she did but if I type them all I’ll be here all day.
Am I wrong for cutting contact because I’m in the middle grief? I have to second-guess everything in case it’s grief but I just feel the disrespect and entitlement that she has shown since the loss of my daughter is quite frankly something that I never want to be around because I could not imagine being that way to anyone that has just lost a child. But am I right for these feelings and cutting her from my son’s life? Can I have honest opinions please

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Introduction/Methodology
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Master List
All stats and info through the 2023 season.
I forgot to write an intro for this, and I'm kind of racing to get these done before the playoffs are over, so go ahead and enjoy ten more entries without any of my babbling to precede it.

• 40. Walt Frazier - 335.4
  
  • Career - 247.5
    • 1968-1980
    • NYK, CLE
    • 113.5 Win Shares
    • 0.242 Adjusted MVP Award Shares (1 top-five finish: 1970 - 4th)
    • 4x All-NBA First Team Selection (1970, 1972, 1974, 1975)
    • 2x All-NBA Second Team Selection (1971, 1972)
    • 7x All-Star Selection (1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976)
    • 7x All-Defensive First Team Selection (1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975)
    • 5.8 Championship Win Shares (2 titles - 1970 NYK, 1973 NYK)
    • 3.3 Finals Win Shares (1 Finals loss - 1972 NYK)
    • 6.0 Conference Finals Win Shares (3 Conf. Finals losses - 1969 NYK, 1971 NYK, 1974 NYK)
  • Peak - 423.3
    • 1970-1974
  • Other achievements
    • NIT champion (1967)
    • NIT MVP (1967)
    • 1x All-Star Game MVP (1975)
    • 5,000 Assist Club (5,040; 71st all-time)
    • 10 retired by the New York Knicks
    • College Basketball Hall of Fame Inductee (2006)
  • Look, I know it's a better "story" that Willis Reed won the 1970 Finals MVP, being the league MVP that season and "coming back" from injury to play Game 7 of the Finals. Except that Reed played 27 minutes of Game 7 and scored four points, three rebounds and an assist, whereas Frazier played 44 minutes and put up 36/7/19. The series averages were a bit more debatable, with Reed going for 23.0/10.5/2.8 while Frazier had 17.6/7.7/10.4. But Frazier played in all seven games to Reed's six. It just really feels like that should've been his Finals MVP that year.
  • The 1973 Finals are much more of a toss-up. Five guys (Bill Bradley, Frazier, Reed, Earl Monroe, and Dave DeBusschere) all averaged between 15.6 and 18.6 for the series. You could probably talk me into any one of those five, but I'd probably go Reed that year.
  • Regardless, and with all due respect to Patrick Ewing, Frazier is probably the greatest Knick in franchise history.
• 39. Dave Cowens - 335.9
  
  • Career - 237.1
    • 1971-1980, 1983
    • BOS, MIL
    • 86.3 Win Shares
    • 1.995 Adjusted MVP Award Shares (4 top-five finishes, 1 win: 1973 - 1st, 1974 - 4th, 1975 - 2nd, 1976 - 3rd)
    • 3x All-NBA Second Team Selection (1973, 1975, 1976)
    • 8x All-Star Selection (1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1980)
    • 1x All-Defensive First Team Selection (1976)
    • 4.8 Championship Win Shares (2 titles - 1974 BOS, 1976 BOS)
    • 3.8 Conference Finals Win Shares (4 Conf. Finals losses - 1972 BOS, 1973 BOS, 1975 BOS, 1980 BOS)
  • Peak - 434.8
    • 1972-1976
  • Other achievements
    • Rookie of the Year (1971)
    • 1x All-Star Game MVP (1973)
    • 2x All-Defensive Second Team Selection (1975, 1980)
    • 10,000 Rebound Club (10,444; 36th all-time)
    • 18 retired by the Boston Celtics
    • College Basketball Hall of Fame Inductee (2006)
  • Cowens has the rare and probably never-to-be-matched distinction of being the only MVP winner in NBA history to never make the All-NBA First Team. Bill Russell was the MVP while on the Second Team three times (1958, 1960, 1961), but he made the First Team in other seasons. Cowens was the MVP on the Second Team in 1973, but never did crack the First Team in his career.
  • I know this is probably a bit higher than most people probably rank Cowens, but his peak from 1973-1976 is pretty nuts: one MVP and three more top-five finishes, plus being the best player on one title team (1976) and the second best on another (1974) pulls his score up quite a bit.
• 1. Dwight Howard - 338.7
  • Career - 270.1
    • 2005-2022
    • ORL, LAL, HOU, ATL, CHO, WAS, LAL, PHI, LAL
    • 141.7 Win Shares
    • 1.250 Adjusted MVP Award Shares (4 top-five finishes: 2008 - 5th, 2009 - 4th, 2010 - 4th, 2011 - 2nd)
    • 5x All-NBA First Team Selection (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012)
    • 1x All-NBA Second Team Selection (2014)
    • 2x All-NBA Third Team Selection (2007, 2013)
    • 8x All-Star Selection (2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014)
    • 3x Defensive Player of the Year (2009, 2010, 2011)
    • 4x All-Defensive First Team Selection (2009, 2010, 2011, 2012)
    • 1.0 Championship Win Shares (1 title - 2020 LAL)
    • 4.5 Finals Win Shares (1 Finals loss - 2009 ORL)
    • 3.4 Conference Finals Win Shares (2 Conf. Finals losses - 2010 ORL, 2015 HOU)
  • Peak - 407.3
    • 2008-2012
  • Other achievements
    • 1x All-Defensive Second Team Selection (2008)
    • T1 League (Taiwan) Most Valuable Import (2023)
    • All-T1 League First Team Selection (2023)
    • T1 League All-Defensive First Team Selection (2023)
    • T1 League All-Star (2023)
    • T1 League All-Star Game MVP (2023)
    • 1x Olympic Gold Medalist (2008)
    • 1x World Cup Bronze Medalist (2006)
    • 10,000 Rebound Club (14,627; 10th all-time)
  • What do we say about Dwight Howard? Amazing defensive presence. Best center of his generation. Not the most offensively gifted player. Not the greatest basketball IQ. Kind of a weirdo? We could go all kinds of different ways here. One thing is definitely certain though: from 2007-2011 (and part of 2012 until he decided he wanted out of Orlando), Howard was one of the 3-5 best players in the game. If he was on your team, you, at the very least, had one of the best defenses in basketball. The Magic's defensive rating those years was 6th, 6th, 1st, 3rd, and 3rd. Could you build an offense around him? No. Did he realize this? Unfortunately, no. That was his ultimate downfall is he wanted to be the offensive star just by virtue of being the defensive star, but didn't have the skill set for it. But surround him with shooters, almost against his will, and that's a very dangerous team. If he was anchoring a 3-and-D team in today's game, they would be legitimately scary.
  • Even after saying all of that, I think Howard's nomad years hurt his legacy more than anything, and I'm not entirely sure why. If it was the prevailing wisdom that nobody wanted him, or that he couldn't make it work anywhere, or what, but his post 2012 career adds virtually nothing to his score. Even the 2020 title only gives him 12 points, which isn't much in the grand scheme of things. I don't know. Sometimes I feel like we should give him more credit for wanting to keep playing so badly (even to the point of playing in Taiwan and, currently, Puerto Rico), but it's just this odd misfit characterization that he can't shake.
  • And even after saying all of that, his exclusion from the 75th Anniversary Team invalidates that entire project for me. To the point that I made my own NBA75 list just for my own peace of mind. (And a good time to remind everyone that was not the NBA's actual 75th anniversary the year they did that., but we're entrenched now and it'll probably never be corrected.)
• 37. George Gervin - 342.2
  
  • Career - 277.5
    • 1973-1976 (ABA), 1977-1986
    • VIR, SAA/SAS, CHI
    • 88.1 Win Shares
    • 1.860 Adjusted MVP Award Shares (4 top-five finishes: 1978 - 2nd, 1979 - 2nd, 1980 - 3rd, 1981 - 5th)
    • 5x All-NBA First Team Selection (1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982)
    • 2x All-NBA Second Team Selection (1977, 1983)
    • 9x All-Star Selection (1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985)
    • 4.0 Conference Finals Win Shares (3 Conf. Finals losses - 1979 SAS, 1982 SAS, 1983 SAS)
    • 28.2 ABA Win Shares
    • 2x All-ABA Second Team Selection (1975, 1976)
    • 3x ABA All-Star Selection (1974, 1975, 1976)
    • 1.4 ABA Conference Finals Win Shares (1 Conf. Finals loss - 1976 SAA)
  • Peak - 406.8
    • 1978-1982
  • Other achievements
    • 1x All-Star Game MVP (1980)
    • 20,000 Point Club (20,708; 45th all-time)
    • 44 retired by the San Antonio Spurs
    • College Basketball Hall of Fame Inductee (2006)
  • Maybe a bit too high for Gervin, but not much. He was amazing. He's getting the upper-echelon ABA boost that I talked about with Artis Gilmore, though not nearly to as strong of a degree. But how can you not love a player who's profile boils down to "he was nicknamed 'The Iceman' and invented the finger roll"?
  • Gervin also had a bit of a winding career to the NBA. He went to Eastern Michigan University, which was a Division II school at the time. In 1972 as a sophomore, Gervin led the team to the Final Four of the Division II tourney, where he then punched an opposing player and got himself suspended for a full season.
  • Rather than stay at EMU, Gervin went to the Pontiac Chaparrals of the Continental Basketball Association. (This was a different Continental Basketball Association than the one Isiah Thomas drove into the ground in the late 1990s/early 2000s, which originally grew out of the Eastern Basketball Association. This CBA was founded in the Great Lakes area in the 1970s as a way to keep local semi-professional football players in shape in the offseason.)
  • From there, Gervin was scouted by a few ABA teams, but signed with the Virginia Squires prior to the 1973 season. The next season, the Squires started to go under financially, and traded Gervin to the San Antonio Spurs for something like $250,000.
  • At this point, prior to the 1975 season, Gervin was eligible for the NBA draft, and was drafted by the Suns, but he decided to stay with the Spurs. (At this point in time, players were not allowed to go to the NBA prior to completing four years of college. There were some "hardship exceptions," but they were incredibly byzantine and hard to get approved. Gervin would've been a senior in 1974, so, since his college eligibility was now up, despite having played professionally for multiple years, his name went into the 1974 draft.)
  • Then, since he was already on the Spurs when the leagues merged, he just stayed there. (Sorry, Phoenix.) As a side note, the "Final Four" of the final ABA season in 1976 was nuts. They got rid of conferences, for one thing, so you had the Gervin-led Spurs against the Julius Erving-led Nets in one semifinal, and the David Thompson/Dan Issel-led Nuggets against the Artis Gilmore-led Kentucky Colonels in the other. Eventually, Erving outdueled Thompson as the Nets beat the Nuggets in six games. It's just weird when you compare it to the NBA for the same year. The East was a fairly loaded Celtics team (Cowens, John Havlicek, Jo Jo White, etc) against a Cavaliers team with a 34-year-old Nate Thurmond as probably the only player an average basketball fan would recognize. And in the West, the Paul Westphal-led Suns stunned the Rick Barry-led Warriors. (Boston over Phoenix in six in those Finals.) As much as the NBA would like to have you believe they bailed out those ABA teams by absorbing them, the league desperately needed the influx of talented players.
  • Anyway, Gervin played ten years in the NBA altogether (and still got to 20,000 points without even including his ABA numbers), including a final season in Chicago with a young Michael Jordan in 1986.
  • Gervin then played a year in Italy, a year back in the states with the Quad City Thunder of the Continental Basketball Association (this time it is the one Isiah Thomas bankrupted), and then a year in Spain before retiring at 38.
• 36. Kawhi Leonard - 349.1
  
  • Career - 260.1
    • 2012-2021, 2023
    • SAS, TOR, LAC
    • 90.4 Win Shares
    • 1.160 Adjusted MVP Award Shares (3 top-five finishes: 2016 - 2nd, 2017 - 3rd, 2020 - 5th)
    • 3x All-NBA First Team Selection (2016, 2017, 2021)
    • 2x All-NBA Second Team Selection (2019, 2020)
    • 5x All-Star Selection (2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021)
    • 2x Defensive Player of the Year (2015, 2016)
    • 3x All-Defensive First Team Selection (2015, 2016, 2017)
    • 7.8 Championship Win Shares (2 titles - 2014 SAS, 2019 TOR)
    • 3.1 Finals Win Shares (1 Finals loss - 2013 SAS)
    • 4.0 Conference Finals Win Shares (3 Conf. Finals losses - 2012 SAS, 2017 SAS, 2021 LAC)
    • 2x Finals MVP (2014, 2019)
  • Peak - 438.1
    • 2016-2020
  • Other achievements
    • 1x All-Star Game MVP (2020)
    • 4x All-Defensive Second Team Selection (2014, 2019, 2020, 2021)
  • Leonard being this high was somewhat surprising to me, because you kind of just think "all that for one (admittedly incredible) championship run? So let's break this down a little bit.
  • In my mind, there's pre-superstar Spurs Kawhi, superstar Raptors Kawhi, and always-injured Clippers Kawhi. But that's not entirely accurate. His first Finals MVP was definitely in his pre-superstar days, but after that, San Antonio Kawhi was a monster. He finished top three in MVP voting twice and was a two-time Defensive Player of the Year. In 2016, he became the seventh player to win Defensive Player of the Year while also averaging at least 20 points per game. Dwight Howard (twice), Michael Jordan, Sidney Moncrief (twice), Alonzo Mourning (twice), Hakeem Olajuwon (twice), and David Robinson were the players who had done it before. (And Giannis Antetokounmpo has done it since, for eight players altogether.) He was also the best player on a 67-win team. (2016 was nuts. There have only been four teams to win 67+ games and not win the title, and two of them happened in 2016. The 1973 Celtics won 68 games and lost in the Conference Finals, and the 2007 Mavericks won 67 games and lost in the first round, to go along with the 2016 Spurs and Warriors.)
  • Then we had Toronto Kawhi, where the regular season didn't really matter much, but who had 4.9 win shares in the playoffs, which is the seventh-most in a single playoff run, behind Tim Duncan in 2003 (5.9), LeBron James in 2012 (5.8), Dirk Nowitzki in 2006 (5.4), LeBron in 2013 (5.2), LeBron in 2018 (5.2), and Nikola Jokic in 2023 (5.0).
  • Then we have Clippers Kawhi, who is still undeniably good, but hasn't reached those same levels as 2016-2019. 2020 was close - he finished fifth in MVP voting that year, but the Clippers deciding the bubble was a sham (I guess?) kind of killed anything they had there and he's been hurt since. The Clippers did make the Conference Finals in 2021, but Kawhi got hurt in the playoffs, so he didn't actually play in the Conference Finals that year (but he does get credit for his playoff performance up to his injury that year, however.) All in all, his Clippers tenure doesn't really add a whole lot to his legacy.
• 35. Steve Nash - 354.6
  
  • Career - 275.2
    • 1997-2014
    • PHO, DAL, PHO, LAL
    • 129.7 Win Shares
    • 2.429 Adjusted MVP Award Shares (3 top-five finishes, 2 wins: 2005 - 1st, 2006 - 1st, 2007 - 2nd)
    • 3x All-NBA First Team Selection (2005, 2006, 2007)
    • 2x All-NBA Second Team Selection (2008, 2010)
    • 2x All-NBA Third Team Selection (2002, 2003)
    • 8x All-Star Selection (2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, 2012)
    • 8.4 Conference Finals Win Shares (4 Conf. Finals losses - 2003 DAL, 2005 PHO, 2006 PHO, 2010 PHO)
  • Peak - 434.0
    • 2004-2008
  • Other achievements
    • 2x WCC Player of the Year (1995, 1996)
    • 1x Citizenship Award (2007)
    • 1x AmeriCup Silver Medalist (1999)
    • 1x AmeriCup Bronze Medalist (2001)
    • 5,000 Assist Club (10,335; 5th all-time)
    • 13 retired by the Phoenix Suns
    • FIBA Hall of Fame Inductee (2020)
  • Nash is my highest-rated player to never play in the Finals, which is kind of crazy to think about just how many great players have at least played in the Finals, if not won a championship.
  • A lot of people say Kyle Lowry is the prime example of a "late bloomer" in the NBA, but I really think Nash is the prototype. Yes, he made a couple All-Star teams and All-NBA Third Teams in Dallas, but going from that to the MVP in Phoenix felt like it came out of nowhere. I mean, imagine if, say, Julius Randle switched teams next year and won the MVP. That's what Nash's MVP season felt like. And then he arguably kept getting better.
• 34. Chris Paul - 359.2
  
  • Career - 354.0
    • 2006-2023
    • NOK/NOH, LAC, HOU, OKC, PHO
    • 205.1 Win Shares
    • 1.808 Adjusted MVP Award Shares (5 top-five finishes: 2008 - 2nd, 2009 - 5th, 2012 - 3rd, 2013 - 4th, 2021 - 5th)
    • 4x All-NBA First Team Selection (2008, 2012, 2013, 2014)
    • 5x All-NBA Second Team Selection (2009, 2015, 2016, 2020, 2021)
    • 2x All-NBA Third Team Selection (2011, 2022)
    • 12x All-Star Selection (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2020, 2021, 2022)
    • 7x All-Defensive First Team Selection (2009, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017)
    • 2.5 Finals Win Shares (1 Finals loss - 2021 PHO)
    • 2.1 Conference Finals Win Shares (1 Conf. Finals loss - 2018 HOU)
  • Peak - 364.4
    • 2012-2016
  • Other achievements
    • Rookie of the Year (2006)
    • 1x All-Star Game MVP (2013)
    • 2x All-Defensive Second Team selection (2008, 2011)
    • 2x Olympic Gold Medalist (2008, 2012)
    • 1x World Cup Bronze Medalist (2006)
    • 20,000 Point Club (21,755; 37th all-time)
    • 5,000 Assist Club (11,501; 3rd all-time)
  • Paul's late career resurgence was something I did not see coming. I thought his career was basically done by the end of his Clippers tenure, and that anyone taking on his huge contract was just desperately hoping to recapture some faded magic of a big name. But nope! He did well in Houston, he was an All-Star in Oklahoma City, he helped get Phoenix to the Finals. It really was quite the master class in "floor general"-ism.
• 33. Dwyane Wade - 376.0
  
  • Career - 314.1
    • 2004-2019
    • MIA, CHI, CLE, MIA
    • 120.7 Win Shares
    • 0.794 Adjusted MVP Award Shares (2 top-five finishes: 2009 - 3rd, 2010 - 5th)
    • 2x All-NBA First Team Selection (2009, 2010)
    • 3x All-NBA Second Team Selection (2005, 2006, 2011)
    • 3x All-NBA Third Team Selection (2007, 2012, 2013)
    • 13x All-Star Selection (2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2019)
    • 9.7 Championship Win Shares (3 titles - 2006 MIA, 2012 MIA, 2013 MIA)
    • 4.9 Finals Win Shares (2 Finals losses - 2011 MIA, 2014 MIA)
    • 2.1 Conference Finals Win Shares (1 Conf. Finals loss - 2005 MIA)
    • 1x Finals MVP (2006)
  • Peak - 437.9
    • 2009-2013
  • Other achievements
    • Conference USA Player of the Year (2003)
    • 1x All-Star Game MVP (2010)
    • 3x All-Defensive Second Team Selection (2005, 2009, 2010)
    • 1x Olympic Gold Medalist (2008)
    • 1x Olympic Bronze Medalist (2004)
    • 1x World Cup Bronze Medalist (2006)
    • 20,000 Point Club (23,165; 32nd all-time)
    • 5,000 Assist Club (5,701; 47th all-time)
    • 3 retired by the Miami Heat
  • There is an argument to be made that Wade is the third-best shooting guard of all time. This argument largely hinges on whether or not you consider Jerry West and/or James Harden to be shooting guards. I would say West was a point guard who sometimes played shooting guard, and Harden was a shooting guard who sometimes played point guard. But regardless, if you want to count both of those guys as "combo guards" or whatever, then Wade has to be third on the "pure shooting guard" ranking list.
• 32. Dolph Schayes - 376.8
  
  • Career - 341.7
    • 1950-1964
    • SYPHI
    • 141.8 Win Shares
    • 1.196 Adjusted MVP Award Shares (3 top-five finishes: 1956 - 5th, 1957 - 4th, 1958 - 2nd)
    • 6x All-NBA First Team Selection (1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1957, 1958)
    • 6x All-NBA Second Team Selection (1950, 1951, 1956, 1959, 1960, 1961)
    • 12x All-Star Selection (1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962)
    • 1.8 Championship Win Shares (1 title - 1955 SYR)
    • 4.1 Finals Win Shares (2 Finals losses - 1950 SYR, 1954 SYR)
    • 6.7 Conference Finals Win Shares (6 Conf. Finals losses - 1951 SYR, 1952 SYR, 1956 SYR, 1957 SYR, 1959 SYR, 1961 SYR)
  • Peak - 411.9
    • 1954-1958
  • Other achievements
    • NBL Rookie of the Year (1949)
    • 10,000 Rebound Club (11,256; 29th all-time)
    • 4 retired by the Philadelphia 76ers
    • 1x Coach of the Year (1966)
  • Dolph Schayes was born in 1928. That's important to the story because Dolph Schayes' full name is "Adolph." It's pretty easy to imagine a young Adolph Schayes in the 1940s grabbing a newspaper and saying "well, son of a bitch..." Now, there aren't a lot of famous "Dolph's" out there, but when I looked up the name to try to find more famous examples, there are a few, mostly athletes, and then Dolph Lundgren. All have the full name "Adolph," and all except Lundgren were born before World War II. And you really have to admire the balls of Dolph Lundgren's parents, who, in 1957, decided to give their baby the name of the most notorious mass murderer in history, and thought, "we're taking the name back!" And I mean, it's a pretty cool name if you've got Old English or German roots - it's a portmanteau of "noble" and "wolf," so if you wanted to name your son something badass, "Adolph" was a good bet. Just one more thing Hitler ruined for everyone.
• 31. Bob Cousy - 390.4
  
  • Career - 353.2
    • 1951-1963, 1970
    • BOS, CIN
    • 91.1 Win Shares
    • 1.747 Adjusted MVP Award Shares (4 top-five finishes, 1 win: 1956 - 3rd, 1957 - 1st, 1959 - 4th, 1960 - 4th)
    • 10x All-NBA First Team Selection (1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961)
    • 2x All-NBA Second Team Selection (1962, 1963)
    • 13x All-Star Selection (1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963)
    • 4.7 Championship Win Shares (6 titles - 1957 BOS, 1959 BOS, 1960 BOS, 1961 BOS, 1962 BOS, 1963 BOS)
    • 1.5 Finals Win Shares (1 Finals loss - 1958 BOS)
    • 1.4 Conference Finals Win Shares (3 Conf. Finals losses - 1953 BOS, 1954 BOS, 1955 BOS)
  • Peak - 427.6
    • 1957-1961
  • Other achievements
    • NCAA champion (1947)
    • 2x All-Star Game MVP (1954, 1957)
    • 5,000 Assist Club (6,955; 21st all-time)
    • 14 retired by the Boston Celtics
    • College Basketball Hall of Fame Inductee (2006)
  • Cousy had one of the coolest nicknames ever, which was "The Houdini of the Hardwood," and if you ever go find some highlights of some of his moves, and keep in mind the rules for palming and carrying the ball while he played were extremely strict, I think you'd be legitimately amazed at some of the stuff he was doing in the 1950s.
  • I should note that Cousy's "peak" years here (1957-1961) probably don't coincide with his actual peak as a player. It's just that those seasons are the years the MVP started getting voted on, so Cousy gets far more points in those seasons than he does in his earlier seasons. (Also note Cousy's score would probably be a little higher had MVP voting been around for his entire career.)

My father was a police officer in the 90s, he worked some investigative cases, one of which was actually turned into a movie because it was such a big deal. My mother told me that the longer he worked, the more he changed. He became a drinker, and abusive. He always acted like he was hiding something. My mother, thinking he was cheating on her, decided to snoop through his desk one night. It was there that she found a small black book, one with numbers, and names written down. More specifically, names of his fellow police officers. Before she could look further, he came in and attacked her for going through his things. After he calmed down, he cried and told her she didn't need to see those things, and pretend it never existed. He said that he was investigating some shady shit going down in our local police station, with some of the higher ups. That was the end of the conversation and she stopped questioning him. Not long after, they seperated. For the next year they still shared a home, and were never legally divorced. At one point he even begged my mother to take him back. The day my father passed away, he came to see me hours before. I was at my grandmothers house, and she said she still remembers the look on his face as he kissed me goodbye. She said she knew something was wrong. The next morning, the police showed up at my grandmothers door, and informed her that he had killed himself. Now. Here's where things got tricky. - Originally this is how the scene was set up - empty beer cans scattered around the room with a reciept that read they were bought that same night. Blood on the floor with a shoe print that was not my fathers. And a GSW deemed self inflicted on the scene. This case was to be investigated as a homicide. Who found my father? Two officers he worked with, that just "happened" to stop by and check on him, despite him not working that day. However, not long after they opened it as a homicide, it was quickly closed as a suicide. My mother didnt believe it, even though he had his problems he seemed to be doing better. She was bestfriends with a woman who worked with my father, and met up with her begging for any information she could give her. All her friend told her was that the original Dr. said the gunshot wound was in no way possible self inflicted, but the final report says it was. She then begged her to drop it. She told her to Stop showing up around the police station, and don't ask anymore questions about it. When my mother went back to our house to clean out his things, there was one thing missing. The little black book. Despite his death being ruled a suicide, he was given an honorable death, with the whole show. His name was even put on a plaque in my town saying he was killed in the line of duty. All things a fellow officer who commited suicide just a year prior - DID NOT recieve. NOW. i was a child when all this happened, how do I know any of this is true? I dont. But years of growing up without my father caused curiosity. I have repeatedly asked family, family friends, and others to recount his final days. To tell me everything they know. When I was old enough, I accessed the crime scene reports (what I was legally able to see and gain access too) and what I discovered chilled me. His autopsy report? There was no alcohol in his blood. Then why did they make note of the empty beer cans? Why was there a reciept from purchasing them just hours before? Ive thought about traveling to meet with my fathers partner. Not long after my father passed he quit, and moved hours away. He too told my mother to proceed with caution, and not ask questions. I want to speak with him. I will not bring this up to any law enforcement. I do not want my fathers case reopened. I do not want eyes on me, though I knew I risked something when requesting his crime scene and autopsy information. I've done my own "investigation" over the last two years. I only know what I know from what people have told me, and what the reports show. I dont know what happened to my father. But i believe he didn't do it to himself.
I know this may come off as sounding unrealistic, and another crazy reddit story, but this is my fathers story, and I wanted to get it off my chest. Thank you.

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Fletch gently pushed open the large and lavishly decorated bronze doors of the university administration building and ambled out into the portico. He set his cup of coffee down on the pedestal of a granite pillar and pulled his cigarette case from the breast pocket of his tan trench coat. The old chief inspector plucked a cigarette from the ornately engraved case with slender fingers and wondered why the Kael let him come at all.
Something felt very off with the whole thing. The more he thought about it, the more he questioned the story he got. Mike Anderson was certainly depressed, but as far as Fletch could tell, he had not displayed any suicidal behavior. And why now? Fletch thought. Things were on the upswing for the kid. His grades were excellent, his family situation was good, and he was out of the house more this term than the last. Fletch scratched his mustache. Why would the seals hide the autopsy and the gun? He brought the cigarette to his lips, snapped the filigreed case shut, and slipped it back into the breast pocket of his coat. Fletch flicked open his lighter and sighed as he lit his cigarette. Murder.
It was a hopeless case. These days, warrants were approved by the seals, and even if they weren't, he doubted that he could get one anyway. His suspicion of foul play was backed by nothing but his instinct.
Fletch watched students hustle and bustle through the plaza in front of him as he puffed away at his cigarette and pondered his theory.
But why kill him now? They could have done it in complete secrecy while he was a POW. And it couldn’t be to keep what happened in Philadelphia under wraps. His death brings more attention to it. And he wasn’t a rebel. So why? Fletch sipped at his coffee as he flicked ash from his cigarette. Vengeance? Did he kill some noble brat during the war?
Fletch scratched at his grey mustache and glanced at his watch. I’ll have to follow that thread. He tossed his half-smoked cigarette into a puddle as he briskly walked down the steps and through the university plaza.
The withered investigator was deep in thought when he entered the parking lot. What do I tell that Enrique chap? He unlocked his car and crawled in. I certainly can’t tell him that his mate’s been clipped with no evidence. Fletch turned the key, and the engine of his little Volvo sputtered to life. It’s no bleeding use. I’ll just tell the lad they weren’t interested in sharing and keep my suspicions to myself.
As he reached for the shifter, Fletch noticed a delightfully thick manilla envelope stuck in the gap between the center console and the passenger seat.
He pulled the envelope from the crack. Gingerly, he opened it and pulled out a small note. It read We’re even now, prick.
Fletch smiled and couldn’t help but mutter, “The game is afoot,” as he flicked through the stack of documents inside.
Isabella poked her head into the large office and saw Professor Dret’la with a ball of dark green yarn on her lap and bone darning needles beset with carvings in her hands.
Isabella was struck with confusion. What? She crochets!?
The professor looked up from her labor, spotted the confused girl outside her door, and called, “Come in.”
Isabella walked into the office and took a seat. She gestured to the yarn in the professor's hands. “What are you making?”
The professor smiled as motherly as one could with a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth. “It will be a hat for my son. He just received his commission as a junior biologist, so he has to rummage around in freezers to get samples for his whole research team.”
Isabella blinked. This was not characteristic at all for the quick-tempered professor with a penchant for launching chalk across lecture halls at the mildest provocation.
Isabella shook off her shocked expression and gave the tall professor a dimpled cheek smile. “That’s so sweet! I’m sure he’ll love it. One of the best gifts I’ve ever received was a thick wool sweater from my mamma during a training exercise off the coast of Norway.”
The professor, still smiling, sat up straight. “I hope that’s the kind of reception I get.”
The professor’s demeanor hardened as she stowed the yarn and needles in the desk drawer. “Now, let's get down to business.”
Isabella gulped.
“To start, congratulations. You’ve passed our testing and been selected for officer training.”
Isabella asked, “Who else was selected?”
“There are nine others: Robert Rhodes, Elena Pavel, Hal Jellico, Zheng Li, Brooke Halsey, Colow Aden, Magnus Tordenskjold, Bill Lee, and Kazuya Yamamoto.”
Isabella didn’t recognize all the names.
“Should you choose to accept, you will be taking a prep course taught by Colonel Ocidea and I starting next week and lasting all through the summer. If we deem you ready, you’ll ship out for basic training and then off to the Royal Military Academy, where you can earn your commission.” Dr. Dret’la leaned in close to Isabella. “Do you accept?”
Without hesitation, Isabella answered, “Yes.”
“Mike, come over here. You’re going to want to see this.” Calty voiced from her seat in the front of the cockpit.
Mike rolled off the couch and walked into the front of the cockpit as the captain shouted, “Decelerate!” Mike couldn’t help but grab onto the back of Calty’s seat as the FTL drive kicked into gear. The cockpit glass dimmed just before blindingly bright blue jets of fire from the front-facing engines came into view. A bright green circle flickered onto the glass surrounding a marble-sized dot darker than the rest of the now dim screen. The dots and circles expanded at an extreme pace until they took up most of the display. Another dot appeared—minuscule compared to the other—surrounded by a red circle. The growth of the shadowy dots and the circles around them slowed and then stopped entirely as the engines sputtered out.
The HUD faded out of view, and the tint of the glass slowly lightened, revealing a vast planet embraced by blue-green ice with a colossal foundry in its orbit. The planet, a gas giant called Drassus, was orbited by four rings. One was made of containers, and the other three were made up of loose ore gleaming in the nearby star's light. Exhaust chimneys spewing gas and fire sprouted from the otherwise spherical foundry, giving it a sea urchin-like profile, which, together with the weave of pipes bringing fuel from beneath the icy surface of the planet below, made the foundry resemble an old naval mine.
The captain strode up to the front of the cockpit. “One-third ahead and steer 14 degrees left. We’re unloading in bay three.”
Six mech suits and a tug exited a plasma-shielded hanger as the ship came to a halt. The mechs glided to the front of the ship and started dismounting the external cargo bay from the Broken Fin while the tug hitched onto the opposite end of the ten-kilometer-long rack of containers.
A little while later, the tug pulled away with the load of containers, and the comm system blared to life. “Broken Fin, you are cleared to leave. The UO corporation thanks you for your business.”
The captain replied, “Our pleasure. Broken fin out.” as the ship pulled out of the loading bay.
He turned to the navigation officer and said, “Lock in coordinates for jump to Kael Prime.”
The captain went to the central control board and pulled up traffic control. “Tower 1, this is the Broken Fin. We request a jump slot to Kael Prime from Drassus.”
“Broken Fin, request granted. Your departure slot is at 16:33.”
Mike glanced at the top right of the ship's HUD and looked at the time. 16:21.
Better get my stuff together…
The ship shuddered ever so slightly despite the inertial dampeners as it exited FTL. Mike was lounging on the couch with his bag at his feet. He was ready to get off this tub.
Mike idly watched flames lick at the cockpit window as the ship descended into the atmosphere of Kael Prime. He looked at Dreki, who was sitting on the other couch. His muscles bulged through his clothes despite wearing a white sweater so large it could be mistaken for the sail of an average-sized boat. Mike asked, “Do you know anything about what’ll happen to me now?”
The big Kael shifted in his seat. “Technically, I’m not supposed to tell you anything, but what the hell.” Dreki pulled the collar of his sweater down, revealing an angry white number burnt into his iron-gray skin just below the collarbone. “First, you’ll get branded.” He released his shirt and pointed to a small scar on the side of his head. “Then you’ll get an AR implant.”
“Where will I be getting that?” Mike asked.
“The Imperial Science Academy. We’re going to be staying there for a few days. They’ll run a bunch of tests and get you fitted for equipment there. After that, I’ll drop you off at the spaceport, and you’ll be off to Tlaxcalssus for basic training. After that, I don’t know.”
“Thanks.”
The ship shook as it touched down on the landing pad. “Time to go.” Dreki shouldered his pack and walked out the door. Mike fiddled with the straps of his bag as he followed Dreki down the ramp and to the far side of the ship, away from the rest of the passengers. Mike's nose was immediately assaulted with the acrid smell of sulfur from where the fiery exhausts of engines had melted asphalt. The spaceport was swarming with vehicles and filled with the constant roar of ship engines and a symphony of smaller equipment. Power loaders and mechs loaded and unloaded heavy cargo, shuttles bustled to and fro with passengers, baggage carriers snaked through the crowded landing pads, and vehicles that looked like floating garage doors zipped through the air at ankle height, bringing pilots and crew to their ships. Mike couldn’t help but chuckle a little at the absurdity of it all. Here he was, in the heartland of the enemy, walking through what was essentially a ten-acre parking lot.
Dreki plopped his bags on the ground and yawned as he stretched his arms over his head. “Our skiff will be here in a minute.”
Mike tuned out the beeps and whirrs of the tank-sized forklifts and mechs unloading the ship and gazed out beyond at the horizon. You’re not in Kansas anymore, bub. Mike thought as he studied the skyline of the imperial city basked in the glow of the early evening sun. Some of the buildings wouldn’t look all that out of place on Earth, but the skyline was assaulted with abominations that pissed on the laws of physics as Man understood them. Tusk-shaped skyscrapers defied gravity with their seemingly unsupported curves, and even more absurd were pyramids stacked atop another point-to-point like hourglasses. Any delusion of normalcy that Mike could come up with was shattered.
Dreki picked up his bag and pointed to a slab of black marble speeding towards them at ankle height. “Here’s our skiff.” A railing popped out of the center as the skiff came to a gliding halt. Dreki boarded the skiff and took hold of the rail, and Mike followed suit.
They sped through the spaceport and stopped outside what looked to Mike like a train station. Dreki shouldered his bag and stepped off the skiff. Mike stepped off and quickly fell in pace with Dreki. The big Kael led Mike into a grand station bustling with people. Most were Kael, but there was a smattering of other species. Some stared at Mike, others glanced, but most completely ignored him as he followed Dreki through the hall and onto a platform. Unfamiliar aliens clearly weren’t an uncommon sight here.
The walls of the station were covered with mosaics depicting Kael warriors from the distant past. Dreki noted the human's curiosity and said, “The founders of the clans.” He leveled a massive hand toward an opulent, towering mosaic of a Kael warrior wielding a bronze falx. The imposing figure's body was made of blue gemstones, the eyes rubies, one tusk silver, and the other gold. “That’s the founder of my clan, Drekalla Gold Tusk.”
Mike asked, “How’d he manage that?” As he followed Dreki into a mostly empty train car.
Dreki plopped down on a bench. “He was the war priest of Hroptaug the Conqueror during the unification wars. After the wars were won, Hroptaug granted us the Steam Hills.” Dreki pointed through the train window at the mosaic of another warrior whose body was made of milky white pearls. “That one,” He paused and spat on the floor, “Tiblan the Terror, challenged Drekalla to a duel for most of that land. Drekalla was cutting him to pieces, but the craven poisoned his blade. Just before Drekalla could deliver the final blow, the poison reached his heart, and Drekalla died. The only wound on his body was a cut across his forearm that barely drew blood.” Dreki rolled up his sleeve, showing a scar that reached from his elbow to the middle of his forearm. “Every K’alla is cut the same way to remind us of the blood feud.”
Mike inwardly sighed. Kael and their damned feuds… “How long ago was this.”
“Seven thousand four hundred and fifty-one years ago.”
Mike held back a snort. The absurdity of it all. The first human law codes came about to stop blood feuds, and out here, they have feuds that have lasted longer than Earth's recorded history.
“How’s that feud been going as of late?”
Dreki’s face sagged, “Not good.”
They both grew quiet. Mike shuffled uncomfortably.
Mike glanced at the route display and broke the silence, “What's with the middle city, inner city thing?”
Dreki relaxed slightly. “Oh, so the city used to be a fortification. The inner city is actually a volcanic island. The middle is built over the river, and the outer city was built on the banks.”
“I see.”
The doors closed, and the intercom sounded, “Next stop, the inner city.”
Dale Robert’s wrinkled face was unreadable, and his highly decorated black and blue dress uniform immaculate as he led a horse through the street. He felt the eyes of thousands of onlookers on him, and he hated it. The pure black horse had a black leather saddle on its back. Two tall, glossy black boots were placed backward in silver stirrups, and the elaborate hilt of Mike’s basket-hilted broadsword jutted from the top of a black leather scabbard buckled to the saddle. Roberts followed the horse-drawn caisson bearing the flag-draped coffin of his old commanding officer. Not much farther now, he thought. The sounds of the cartwheels rolling and the horse’s tack jangling were wholly drowned out by boots stamping the ground in unison. Almost all of the 1800 survivors of the 801st regiment were there, resplendent in their dress uniforms, marching behind Mike one more time. The local police and fire departments joined them.
Roberts was unsure about it all. He felt that the poor kid's family would have preferred a smaller service back home in Colorado instead of this damn near royal procession. And Roberts was damn sure that the seals did not give their permission for this, no matter what the police chief said.
A reporter ducked through the police barricade and tried to ask the marching soldiers questions, but they remained stone-faced as the procession marched nearer to the gates of Philadelphia National Cemetery. Roberts handed the reigns of the riderless horse to another man in uniform and joined seven other members of Charlie platoon in pulling the casket from the cassion. They silently began their march to the grave, closely followed by General McCarthy, the man who was Joint Chief of Staff, and the color guard. Bagpipers began to blare, “Going Home.” Roberts heard the sound of gravpulse engines and looked up in dismay as a Kael gunship broke through the low clouds and descended to just barely above the cemetery. A loudspeaker blared, “Disperse at once.”

Look, these are just my thoughts…
All of John B’s suffering, the man-hunt and troubles in the Bahamas could’ve all been prevented. I get the show wants to show is something cool and all, but this really bothers me now that I’m rewatching for the 3rd time and start to notice details. I’m sorry for the long paragraph, but these are my thoughts on this:
First of all, after surviving the attacks from Ward with the fishing hook on the yacht, John B could go straight to the cops to tell them what happened, Peterkin would’ve protected him. Even though he ran out of gas on the jetski, he went somewhere else instead. Peterkin would’ve known it was Ward who killed the 2 outsiders in the beginning, because the guy from the morgie said they were likely killed by a fishing hook.
Second of all, he could’ve persuaded Lana to go to the cops WITH him, to testify against Ward.
And third, after Peterkin was shot, he could’ve stayed even though Rafe was dangerous. Ward would’ve called on Peterkin’s radio and they could testify right there and then. This seems highly unlikely as Ward would’ve stalled anyways. Only if the other 3 stayed and watched from a distance, it would’ve all ended differently.
Also, when John B ran away from the airstrip and almost got ran over by a car, he could’ve asked the guy to bring him to the police station ASAP because the Sheriff has been shot. I’m sure the guy would’ve driven him to the police station.
Finally, he went to the police station, WAY too late might I add, to tell them who shot the Sheriff. If only he cooperated with the cops, as intimidating as it sounds, he could be detained and maybe spent a few nights there. When interviewed, he could’ve told his story, let Sarah vouch for him, which she would most likely have done, and maybe even get Lana to testify for him as well. Lana might’ve been scared to do so because of Ward (and probably Rafe as well), and maybe his friends could’ve also testified because they would do so 100%. So in Peterkin’s autopsy, they might’ve found the bullet if there was no exit wound and if there was an exit wound, they could’ve searched the airstrip since they also HAVE to conduct an investigation at the crime scene, aka the airstrip. Big chance they find the bullet, after which they could trace it back to which kind of gun was used, check the register or get a search warrant for Tannyhill after all the leads they got from the “witnesses”. If they found the gun, they could trace tracks of fingerprints, hair or maybe even saliva to find the one who shot Peterkin. After Rafe is then arrested, John B would walk out of the police station as a free man, teenager, whatever he likes.
Also he could’ve told the cops he found the gold, show them the evidence, which is those 3 molten bars which they couldn’t sell and stole back from Barry, and tell them Ward stole it and Sarah could tell them to where, their Bahama house.
The way it all went baffled me, to say the least. The first 1-2 times watching I wasn’t noticing this that much and it was cool and fun to watch, but I just wanted to share my thoughts with you Pogues/Kooks. Either way, John could’ve been free, not hunted, not stolen from and maybe rich (If the government wouldn’t take the gold) if he did what I described above. The government of whom the gold belonged to back in the 1800’s might’ve put a claim on the gold and maybe even give them a finder’s fee or the gold would end up in a museum if they mentioned the gold to the cops and got the Bahama police to retrieve the gold from Ward’s Bahama house.
Anyways, thanks for reading and I am really curious for your guys’ opinion.

An hour after getting back from the Mason apartment, Bruce Kenner had the distinct misfortune of meeting Bertha Henderson.
A plump, gaudy woman with wrinkles and sun beaten skin only an alligator could love, Bertha Henderson wore bright red lipstick, bright red rouge, and way too much mascara. Her tangled hair was a dull red color and her clothes - pink pants and a white floral top - stretched tight across her bulbous frame. She looked like the kind of woman who lived in a trailer with velvet pictures of Elvis on the wall and pink flamingos in the front yard.
She acted like one too.
From the moment she stormed into his office, she hadn’t shut up once. She scolded, chided, accused, and badgered, sometimes even wagging one fat finger in his face like he was a naughty little boy. Ten minutes into the dressing down and Bruce was beginning to fantasize about police brutality.
It took him another ten minutes to find out what the hell she even wanted.
“It’s my granddaughter,” she shot back, “she’s missing in your town.”
My town? Lady, this is barely my office. I share it with three other people.
“Well, if you’ll calm down, maybe I can help.”
Jesus Christ was that the wrong thing to say. She hit the roof and didn’t come down again until Bruce was this close to arresting her for assault on a police officer. “Young man, I do not appreciate the way you’re talking to me. My tax dollars are the only reason you have a job. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be working at a car wash.”
At least I wouldn’t have to deal with you.
Bruce took a deep breath and held his tongue in check. “How can I help you?” he asked.
“I told you, my granddaughter is missing. If you listened to me, you’d know this already.”
Bertha produced a picture and slid it across the desk. Bruce studied it. A girl, roughly sixteen with black hair, blue eyes, and dimples smiled back at him. “She;’s with that Rossi man, I just know it,” she said bitterly.
“Who?” Bruce asked.
Rolling her eyes like he was stupid, the old woman told him the story. Jessie - the dimple faced girl - had the rotten luck of having to live with Grandma Bertha after her parents went to jail on drug charges. They lived in Sand Lake, a little town in the mountains outside Albany, where Bertha was no doubt loved and admired by all. One day, Jessie, who her grandmother lovingly described as “A little troublemaker”, ran off. Bruce didn’t blame her. He’d known Bertha for half an hour and he wanted to run off. Bertha did some snooping on Jessie’s laptop and found that the “little whore” had been chatting with an older man, Joe Rossi. Rossi, or so Facebook said, lived in Albany and worked at Club Vlad.
“I want him arrested for pedophilia,” Bertha said and crossed her arms defiantly over her chest. “He’s a dog just like all men. She’s probably pregnant already. Another mouth I have to feed.”
Behind the old battle ax, Vanessa appeared in the doorway and lifted her brows as if to say What a piece of work. Knowing her, she’d probably been standing just out of sight this whole time with McKenny, the elderly evidence clerk, and snickering into her hand like a little girl. LOL she called him young man.
Bertha noticed him looking over her shoulder and started to turn. Vanessa’s face went white and she ducked out of the way, narrowly avoiding detection. “I’m glad you think this is funny,” Bertha said to Bruce. “Meanwhile, if I don’t get Jessie back, the state’s going to stop sending me my checks. I need that income. I can’t work, you know. I have gout.”
Too bad being an asshole isn’t a job, you’d be world-famous
“I’ll go talk to him,” Bruce said.
“I want more than talk, young man, I want action.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
When Bertha finally decided to waddle off and ruin someone else’s day, Vanessa came in and sat in the chair the old woman had so recently occupied. “Oh, my God,” she said, “that was intense. I was this close to radioing in a 1015.”
1015 was code for officer down.
“Funny,” Bruce said without a trace of humor. He had kids going missing, a dead guy someone moved around like a goddamn Barbie doll, and now this. What next, hemorrhoids?
“What do you think? Code 1 or code 2?”
Code 1 meant top priority. Code 2 meant not a top priority. Bruce thought for a moment. It didn’t sound like Jessie Henderson was in danger. It sounded like she met a guy - granted, one too old for her - and decided to hide out with him from her psycho grandma. Maybe it could be something more, but he had a gut feeling that it wasn’t…and his gut feelings were usually right. “2,” he finally said. “I got shit to do.”
By shit, he meant “Talk to the families of those missing boys again.” He’d been interviewing them for two days looking for clues, but there was nothing. It’s like they just vanished. Bruce didn’t like this. He didn’t like it at all.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” Vanessa said and slapped the desk.
When she was gone, Bruce sighed.
Never a dull moment, he thought.
***
Ed Harris - no relation to the Hollywood actor - had been the medical examiner for the City of Albany since 2002, and in all that time, he had never seen anything quite like this.
It was Wednesday evening and Ed was locked away in the cold, sterile space beneath the city offices that comprised his domain. With its puke green tiles, harsh lights, and cloying smells of disinfectant, the .coroner's office creeped most people out, but not Ed. He was at home here, as comfortable surrounded by toe-tagged bodies as a cactus was surrounded by desert. A thin man in his fifties with curly, steel gray hair thinning in the middle, he wore a white smock, blood stained over his clothes that made him look like a butcher instead of a low level government functionary. He had a dark and dry sense of humor, but then again, so do all people who play with dead bodies for fun and profit.
The coroner’s office was a vast, utilitarian vault segmented into multiple different rooms. Here, where the magic happened, three stainless steel tables stood in a row; a bank of refrigerated drawers kept watch, making sure nothing funny happened. One of the cold fluorescent lights overhead flickered with a hum of electricity, and water dripped rhythmically from a faucet. It was a cold, eerie place, but to Ed, it was home.
On most nights, only one of the tables was occupied, but tonight, two were. On one lay an old lady who died of what appeared to be cyanide poisoning. On the other was Dominick Mason.
Naked save for a white cloth draped over his groin to protect his dignity, Dom was the most corpsy corpse you’d ever hope to see. In fact, if you looked up dead guy in the dictionary, you’d see a picture of him. His body was pale and sunken, one side covered in purple splotches where his blood had pooled, and his eyes were closed. His abdomen was slightly distended with the expected build up of gas, and his flesh stuck fast to the bones beneath. In other words, he was text book. A normal corpse.
Mostly normal.
As men of his trade are wont to do when strange bodies mysteriously appear, Ed had opened Dom up, making a Y shaped incision from his neck to his groin. He hummed to himself as he did so, his hands wielding his sharp and shiny tools with the deft assuredness of a seasoned surgeon. Done cutting, he dipped his gloved hands into the cavity and started removing organs. A spleen here, a liver there, nothing Dom would miss. When he got to the heart, however, he stopped.
There was something…off…about it. At first glance, it was black and withered like an oversized raisin. An odd and putrid odor emanated from it and though he was familiar with the various smells and stenches the human body produced after death, this wasn’t one of them. Try as he might, he couldn’t place it, couldn’t even compare it to anything. Plucking a magnifying glass from the metal cart next to the table, he peeled back part of Dom’s chest and examined the heart closer.
That’s when things got really weird.
Dominick Mason’s heart was, indeed, shriveled, but it was not black. Instead, it was almost entirely covered by an interlacing crisscross of what appeared to be black mold. Here and there, Ed could glimpse flashes of the heart beneath: It was wrinkled and a sickly gray color. “What is this?” Ed asked himself at length. He grabbed a pair of tweezers from the tray and carefully, very carefully, attempted to remove a piece of the mold for analysis. The moment the cold metal tips touched the heart, it gave a violent spasm that sent Ed falling back with a shocked gasp, the tweezers falling from his hand and clinking to the tiled floor.
The heart began to pulse like an alien egg sac, slowly at first, then more rapidly. For a moment, Ed was frozen in place, unable to comprehend what he was seeing. Once you die, your heart ceases beating. That’s that. Only living hearts beat, and Dominick Mason was certainly dead. He was dead from the moment Ed first laid eyes on him earlier that day and he was dead now. Yet there was his heart, beating anyway.
It could be a muscle spasm. They usually aren’t that violent and consistent, but dead bodies sometimes do strange things. As he watched the blackened muscle expanding and contracting, however, Ed had the most eerie feeling. He went to rub the back of his neck, realized he was still wearing blood soaked gloves, and stripped them off. He was spooking himself out; he needed a break and a hot cup of coffee. He’d come back fresh and start over again.
With that mold.
Could you really blame him for being creeped out? That stuff wasn’t normal. He’d never seen anything like that before, not even in textbooks. Dom was scrawny and didn’t get enough vitamins in life, but overall, he was healthy; that mold…or whatever it was…had no business being there.
Going over to the coffee pot, which stood in the same room to save travel time, Ed grabbed a styrofoam cup. When he was done here, he planned to go home and -
A terrible, metallic clatter rang out, and Ed jumped. He turned around, and when he saw Dominick Mason standing next to the table, hunched slightly over and staring at him, an electric burst of fright shot up his spine and exploded in his brain, so strong it made the edges turn gray. Pale, hands hooked into talons, and the flaps of his chest hanging open to reveal the cavity beneath, Dominick Mason looked for all the world like a boy who’d been caught sneaking out to meet his girlfriend. A weak, involuntary, “Oh, God,” slipped from Ed’s trembling lips, and the spell was broken. Dom came alive and ran toward the door leading out to the parking lot. He slammed through it, and the sound of it crashing open and then falling closed again echoed through the empty chamber.
Shaking, panting for air, and soaked in piss, Ed sank to the floor in a sitting position, his eyes wide and staring like those of a soldier returning damaged from the front.
It was a long time before he composed himself enough to call the police.
***
Dazed and caught in a nightmarish twilight realm where nothing made sense, Dominick Mason limped painfully down the sidewalk, a stranger lost in a strange land filled with danger and hostile creatures. Barefoot and shrouded in a white sheet, he trembled with cold and struggled to ignore the dark, threatening shapes looming from the fog in his brain, shapes that would turn into unspeakable truths if he let them.
Passersby openly stared at him, their expressions either morbidly curious, disgusted, or alarmed. A man put his arm protectively around his girlfriend; a woman pulled her little boy to her breast, and another man sneered at him, his nose crinkling. Dom, his glazed eyes narrowed against the harsh glare of the many street lamps, headlights, and storefronts, lumbered headlong toward nowhere, his fear growing until he was shambling. He imagined he could hear every cough, every whisper; smell the odor of every unwashed body. Each car horn was deafening, every whiff of ass or armpits sent his stomach churning. The rustle of a passing pedestrian’s jacket jammed into his ears like icepicks, and the approaching globes of LED headlamps burned his eyes. He gritted his teeth and groaned against the pain.
The dense mist wrapping his brain made it hard to think. Like a frightened animal, he made his way on instinct alone. Home. He needed to get home. Out here, on the street, he was exposed. At home, locked away in his small apartment, he would be safe.
A car passed in the street, bass heavy rap music blaring from its open windows, and Dom’s brain exploded with agony. He threw himself against a street sign and held on for dear life, his legs weak. Dizziness overwhelmed him, and he almost went down. He was also cold.
So, so cold.
People around him quickened their step; they never took their eyes off him, as though he were a venomous snake that would strike at any moment. He needed to get away from them. They were going to hurt him; people always hurt him.
Pushing away from the sign, he began to hobble once more toward home, wherever home was. He looked over his shoulder several times as he made his way down Central Avenue, and each time, he saw that no one was following him as he had feared.
No one, that is, except for the man in sunglasses.
Tall and lank with curly hair, he wore dark Aviators and a leather motorcycle jacket over a button up shirt. His hands were thrust deep into his pockets and his face showed no expression. He was always there, always a few steps closer. Outside Capital Fried Chicken, a group of people openly stared at him, He heard their whispers as he passed. What’s wrong with him? Dude’s straight tweakin. And the one that struck him the most. That guy looks dead.
Dom hobbled faster, as if to outrun the realization that he was, in fact, dead. The man in sunglasses was closer now, his footsteps so loud that Dom winced. He turned around, and the man was impossibly in front of him. Dom ran into him and bounced backward, going ass over tea kettle and landing on the former. They were in front of a church on a darkened corner, the lights here either burned out or shot out - you could never tell in Albany. Even though it was dark, Dom could see everything with crystal clarity. Dom tried to scurry away, but he was too weak to escape. Right there and then, he decided to give up. Come what may, he just wanted this nightmare to be over.
The man stared down at him, emotionless, unspeaking.
Dom squirmed.
“You’re real lucky I came along,” the man said. His tone was flat, even.
Dead.
“Get up,” he said, “I’ll take you home.”
Home?
Yes.
Dom wanted to go home.
The man helped him up, and Dom followed him into the night.
***
Bruce Kenner stood in the middle of the medical examiner’s office at half past nine that evening with his hands on his hips and stared doubtfully down at Ed Harris. The lonely cavern was alive with activity as cops went over everything, all of them looking either bemused or a mused. Bruce was neither. He’d been at home, sitting in his chair and having a beer in front of AEW Dynamite when Vanessa called. “You might wanna get down here,” she said, sounding confused, “something really strange is going on.”
Ed Harris - no relation to that one guy - sat in a straight back chair beside his cluttered desk and gripped a styrofoam cup of coffee in both hands, putting Bruce - for some reason - in mind of a monkey. When Bruce came in, the old man was white as a sheet and shook like a leaf. In the last half hour, little had changed.
“Tell me again,” Bruce said.
He and Ed were pretty good friends. He knew that Ed knew standard police procedure. Cops don’t ask you to repeat your story a thousand times over because they’re forgetful fucks, they do it because telling it again and again helps to jog loose details that you might have forgotten. Ed, therefore, did not protest. “I turned my back,” he said and chopped the chair like Jackie Chan, “and I heard the noise.”
His voice was thick, unsteady, and halting. He sounded as squirrely as he looked…and he looked pretty damn squirrelly right now.
“I turned around…and he was looking at me. He was standing there and he was looking at me.”
This was the fourth time he’d had Ed go through the story, and nothing had changed. Bruce felt something stirring deep inside his gut. It was either disquiet…or he had to fart. He opened his mouth to speak, but sighed.
“You don’t believe me,” Ed said.
“I dunno, Ed. Dead bodies don’t just get up and walk away.”
Ed flashed. “I know that, goddamn it, but this one did.”
Bruce glanced at Vanessa. She looked uncomfortable.
“Are you sure he was dead?” Bruce asked.
Ed opened his mouth, closed it again, and said, “I did the autopsy.” His voice broke on the last word, and he sounded almost like he was pleading. “His fucking liver’s on the floor. He stepped on it. The man has nothing in him. I-I’m telling you, there’s no way he’s alive.”
During the autopsy, Ed had sat Dominick Mason’s organs on the little tray table where he kept his pointy things. Mason knocked it over while getting up. Indeed, there were human organs on the floor, and one of them did look kind of squished. Bare, bloody footprints led to the exit door, up a set of concrete steps, and then disappeared in the alley behind the office.
“You said you left his heart,” Bruce said.
“And his brain,” Vanessa helpfully added.
Ed pinched the bridge of his nose like a put upon professor dealing with two particularly stupid students. “Even with his heart and his brain, he’s dead. You saw the livor mortis. He was cold, he was stiff. His heart wasn’t beating, he wasn’t breathing. He was in one of those drawers for nine hours, not breathing, no blood flow - it’s impossible. It’s just…it’s impossible. I don’t care what you think, he was dead. And even if somehow he wasn’t, I cut out almost everything. I opened his stomach, I took his spleen - you don’t just get up from that. You don’t walk away from that, much less run.”
Bruce chewed the inside of his bottom lip because he didn’t have a Twix. He didn’t look like the smartest man in the world…and he wasn’t…but he knew a dead body when he saw one, and the body they took out of Dominick Mason’s apartment was D.E.A.D. And like Ed said, even if by some freak fluke of nature he wasn’t, he couldn’t just get up and go about his day with no liver, spleen, or kidneys. Hell, Bruce had his gallbladder out and he couldn’t even walk away from that.
“You said there was something funny about his heart,” Vanessa said.
Ed finished off his coffee. “Yeah. It was…moldy. I-I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Is it possible that…has something to do with it?”
“Unless the rules of biology have changed overnight, no,” Ed stated.
While Ed poured himself another cup of Joe, spilling some because he was still shaking, Vanessa took Bruce aside. “So what do you think?” she asked. “Is he telling the truth?”
For that, Bruce did not have an immediate answer. All else aside, he was a cop. He followed the evidence - and his gut instinct - wherever it led him. Ed was a sober man - he was not a drunk, insane, or stupid - and no man on earth could fake the look of trauma in his eyes. Bruce’s eyes went to the bloody footprints leading away from the exam table and his stomach roiled. It might be cliched, but there had to be a rational explanation. “Yeah,” he finally said. “The kid got up like he said, but there’s no way he was dead. Maybe…I dunno, he had a surge of adrenaline or something. I’m not a doctor.”
“That’ll only get him so far,” Vanessa said. “We’ll probably find him on the street somewhere.”
He went back to the purple splotches on Dom’s face, to his cold stiffness. There’s no way he was dead?
Bruce was confused, and he hated being confused.
“I dunno,” he said, “maybe.”
But he had the gnawing feeling that they wouldn’t. They would never find him…and Bruce would be confused forever.
Goddamn it, Mason, he thought, where are you?

An hour after getting back from the Mason apartment, Bruce Kenner had the distinct misfortune of meeting Bertha Henderson.
A plump, gaudy woman with wrinkles and sun beaten skin only an alligator could love, Bertha Henderson wore bright red lipstick, bright red rouge, and way too much mascara. Her tangled hair was a dull red color and her clothes - pink pants and a white floral top - stretched tight across her bulbous frame. She looked like the kind of woman who lived in a trailer with velvet pictures of Elvis on the wall and pink flamingos in the front yard.
She acted like one too.
From the moment she stormed into his office, she hadn’t shut up once. She scolded, chided, accused, and badgered, sometimes even wagging one fat finger in his face like he was a naughty little boy. Ten minutes into the dressing down and Bruce was beginning to fantasize about police brutality.
It took him another ten minutes to find out what the hell she even wanted.
“It’s my granddaughter,” she shot back, “she’s missing in your town.”
My town? Lady, this is barely my office. I share it with three other people.
“Well, if you’ll calm down, maybe I can help.”
Jesus Christ was that the wrong thing to say. She hit the roof and didn’t come down again until Bruce was this close to arresting her for assault on a police officer. “Young man, I do not appreciate the way you’re talking to me. My tax dollars are the only reason you have a job. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be working at a car wash.”
At least I wouldn’t have to deal with you.
Bruce took a deep breath and held his tongue in check. “How can I help you?” he asked.
“I told you, my granddaughter is missing. If you listened to me, you’d know this already.”
Bertha produced a picture and slid it across the desk. Bruce studied it. A girl, roughly sixteen with black hair, blue eyes, and dimples smiled back at him. “She;’s with that Rossi man, I just know it,” she said bitterly.
“Who?” Bruce asked.
Rolling her eyes like he was stupid, the old woman told him the story. Jessie - the dimple faced girl - had the rotten luck of having to live with Grandma Bertha after her parents went to jail on drug charges. They lived in Sand Lake, a little town in the mountains outside Albany, where Bertha was no doubt loved and admired by all. One day, Jessie, who her grandmother lovingly described as “A little troublemaker”, ran off. Bruce didn’t blame her. He’d known Bertha for half an hour and he wanted to run off. Bertha did some snooping on Jessie’s laptop and found that the “little whore” had been chatting with an older man, Joe Rossi. Rossi, or so Facebook said, lived in Albany and worked at Club Vlad.
“I want him arrested for pedophilia,” Bertha said and crossed her arms defiantly over her chest. “He’s a dog just like all men. She’s probably pregnant already. Another mouth I have to feed.”
Behind the old battle ax, Vanessa appeared in the doorway and lifted her brows as if to say What a piece of work. Knowing her, she’d probably been standing just out of sight this whole time with McKenny, the elderly evidence clerk, and snickering into her hand like a little girl. LOL she called him young man.
Bertha noticed him looking over her shoulder and started to turn. Vanessa’s face went white and she ducked out of the way, narrowly avoiding detection. “I’m glad you think this is funny,” Bertha said to Bruce. “Meanwhile, if I don’t get Jessie back, the state’s going to stop sending me my checks. I need that income. I can’t work, you know. I have gout.”
Too bad being an asshole isn’t a job, you’d be world-famous
“I’ll go talk to him,” Bruce said.
“I want more than talk, young man, I want action.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
When Bertha finally decided to waddle off and ruin someone else’s day, Vanessa came in and sat in the chair the old woman had so recently occupied. “Oh, my God,” she said, “that was intense. I was this close to radioing in a 1015.”
1015 was code for officer down.
“Funny,” Bruce said without a trace of humor. He had kids going missing, a dead guy someone moved around like a goddamn Barbie doll, and now this. What next, hemorrhoids?
“What do you think? Code 1 or code 2?”
Code 1 meant top priority. Code 2 meant not a top priority. Bruce thought for a moment. It didn’t sound like Jessie Henderson was in danger. It sounded like she met a guy - granted, one too old for her - and decided to hide out with him from her psycho grandma. Maybe it could be something more, but he had a gut feeling that it wasn’t…and his gut feelings were usually right. “2,” he finally said. “I got shit to do.”
By shit, he meant “Talk to the families of those missing boys again.” He’d been interviewing them for two days looking for clues, but there was nothing. It’s like they just vanished. Bruce didn’t like this. He didn’t like it at all.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” Vanessa said and slapped the desk.
When she was gone, Bruce sighed.
Never a dull moment, he thought.
***
Ed Harris - no relation to the Hollywood actor - had been the medical examiner for the City of Albany since 2002, and in all that time, he had never seen anything quite like this.
It was Wednesday evening and Ed was locked away in the cold, sterile space beneath the city offices that comprised his domain. With its puke green tiles, harsh lights, and cloying smells of disinfectant, the .coroner's office creeped most people out, but not Ed. He was at home here, as comfortable surrounded by toe-tagged bodies as a cactus was surrounded by desert. A thin man in his fifties with curly, steel gray hair thinning in the middle, he wore a white smock, blood stained over his clothes that made him look like a butcher instead of a low level government functionary. He had a dark and dry sense of humor, but then again, so do all people who play with dead bodies for fun and profit.
The coroner’s office was a vast, utilitarian vault segmented into multiple different rooms. Here, where the magic happened, three stainless steel tables stood in a row; a bank of refrigerated drawers kept watch, making sure nothing funny happened. One of the cold fluorescent lights overhead flickered with a hum of electricity, and water dripped rhythmically from a faucet. It was a cold, eerie place, but to Ed, it was home.
On most nights, only one of the tables was occupied, but tonight, two were. On one lay an old lady who died of what appeared to be cyanide poisoning. On the other was Dominick Mason.
Naked save for a white cloth draped over his groin to protect his dignity, Dom was the most corpsy corpse you’d ever hope to see. In fact, if you looked up dead guy in the dictionary, you’d see a picture of him. His body was pale and sunken, one side covered in purple splotches where his blood had pooled, and his eyes were closed. His abdomen was slightly distended with the expected build up of gas, and his flesh stuck fast to the bones beneath. In other words, he was text book. A normal corpse.
Mostly normal.
As men of his trade are wont to do when strange bodies mysteriously appear, Ed had opened Dom up, making a Y shaped incision from his neck to his groin. He hummed to himself as he did so, his hands wielding his sharp and shiny tools with the deft assuredness of a seasoned surgeon. Done cutting, he dipped his gloved hands into the cavity and started removing organs. A spleen here, a liver there, nothing Dom would miss. When he got to the heart, however, he stopped.
There was something…off…about it. At first glance, it was black and withered like an oversized raisin. An odd and putrid odor emanated from it and though he was familiar with the various smells and stenches the human body produced after death, this wasn’t one of them. Try as he might, he couldn’t place it, couldn’t even compare it to anything. Plucking a magnifying glass from the metal cart next to the table, he peeled back part of Dom’s chest and examined the heart closer.
That’s when things got really weird.
Dominick Mason’s heart was, indeed, shriveled, but it was not black. Instead, it was almost entirely covered by an interlacing crisscross of what appeared to be black mold. Here and there, Ed could glimpse flashes of the heart beneath: It was wrinkled and a sickly gray color. “What is this?” Ed asked himself at length. He grabbed a pair of tweezers from the tray and carefully, very carefully, attempted to remove a piece of the mold for analysis. The moment the cold metal tips touched the heart, it gave a violent spasm that sent Ed falling back with a shocked gasp, the tweezers falling from his hand and clinking to the tiled floor.
The heart began to pulse like an alien egg sac, slowly at first, then more rapidly. For a moment, Ed was frozen in place, unable to comprehend what he was seeing. Once you die, your heart ceases beating. That’s that. Only living hearts beat, and Dominick Mason was certainly dead. He was dead from the moment Ed first laid eyes on him earlier that day and he was dead now. Yet there was his heart, beating anyway.
It could be a muscle spasm. They usually aren’t that violent and consistent, but dead bodies sometimes do strange things. As he watched the blackened muscle expanding and contracting, however, Ed had the most eerie feeling. He went to rub the back of his neck, realized he was still wearing blood soaked gloves, and stripped them off. He was spooking himself out; he needed a break and a hot cup of coffee. He’d come back fresh and start over again.
With that mold.
Could you really blame him for being creeped out? That stuff wasn’t normal. He’d never seen anything like that before, not even in textbooks. Dom was scrawny and didn’t get enough vitamins in life, but overall, he was healthy; that mold…or whatever it was…had no business being there.
Going over to the coffee pot, which stood in the same room to save travel time, Ed grabbed a styrofoam cup. When he was done here, he planned to go home and -
A terrible, metallic clatter rang out, and Ed jumped. He turned around, and when he saw Dominick Mason standing next to the table, hunched slightly over and staring at him, an electric burst of fright shot up his spine and exploded in his brain, so strong it made the edges turn gray. Pale, hands hooked into talons, and the flaps of his chest hanging open to reveal the cavity beneath, Dominick Mason looked for all the world like a boy who’d been caught sneaking out to meet his girlfriend. A weak, involuntary, “Oh, God,” slipped from Ed’s trembling lips, and the spell was broken. Dom came alive and ran toward the door leading out to the parking lot. He slammed through it, and the sound of it crashing open and then falling closed again echoed through the empty chamber.
Shaking, panting for air, and soaked in piss, Ed sank to the floor in a sitting position, his eyes wide and staring like those of a soldier returning damaged from the front.
It was a long time before he composed himself enough to call the police.
***
Dazed and caught in a nightmarish twilight realm where nothing made sense, Dominick Mason limped painfully down the sidewalk, a stranger lost in a strange land filled with danger and hostile creatures. Barefoot and shrouded in a white sheet, he trembled with cold and struggled to ignore the dark, threatening shapes looming from the fog in his brain, shapes that would turn into unspeakable truths if he let them.
Passersby openly stared at him, their expressions either morbidly curious, disgusted, or alarmed. A man put his arm protectively around his girlfriend; a woman pulled her little boy to her breast, and another man sneered at him, his nose crinkling. Dom, his glazed eyes narrowed against the harsh glare of the many street lamps, headlights, and storefronts, lumbered headlong toward nowhere, his fear growing until he was shambling. He imagined he could hear every cough, every whisper; smell the odor of every unwashed body. Each car horn was deafening, every whiff of ass or armpits sent his stomach churning. The rustle of a passing pedestrian’s jacket jammed into his ears like icepicks, and the approaching globes of LED headlamps burned his eyes. He gritted his teeth and groaned against the pain.
The dense mist wrapping his brain made it hard to think. Like a frightened animal, he made his way on instinct alone. Home. He needed to get home. Out here, on the street, he was exposed. At home, locked away in his small apartment, he would be safe.
A car passed in the street, bass heavy rap music blaring from its open windows, and Dom’s brain exploded with agony. He threw himself against a street sign and held on for dear life, his legs weak. Dizziness overwhelmed him, and he almost went down. He was also cold.
So, so cold.
People around him quickened their step; they never took their eyes off him, as though he were a venomous snake that would strike at any moment. He needed to get away from them. They were going to hurt him; people always hurt him.
Pushing away from the sign, he began to hobble once more toward home, wherever home was. He looked over his shoulder several times as he made his way down Central Avenue, and each time, he saw that no one was following him as he had feared.
No one, that is, except for the man in sunglasses.
Tall and lank with curly hair, he wore dark Aviators and a leather motorcycle jacket over a button up shirt. His hands were thrust deep into his pockets and his face showed no expression. He was always there, always a few steps closer. Outside Capital Fried Chicken, a group of people openly stared at him, He heard their whispers as he passed. What’s wrong with him? Dude’s straight tweakin. And the one that struck him the most. That guy looks dead.
Dom hobbled faster, as if to outrun the realization that he was, in fact, dead. The man in sunglasses was closer now, his footsteps so loud that Dom winced. He turned around, and the man was impossibly in front of him. Dom ran into him and bounced backward, going ass over tea kettle and landing on the former. They were in front of a church on a darkened corner, the lights here either burned out or shot out - you could never tell in Albany. Even though it was dark, Dom could see everything with crystal clarity. Dom tried to scurry away, but he was too weak to escape. Right there and then, he decided to give up. Come what may, he just wanted this nightmare to be over.
The man stared down at him, emotionless, unspeaking.
Dom squirmed.
“You’re real lucky I came along,” the man said. His tone was flat, even.
Dead.
“Get up,” he said, “I’ll take you home.”
Home?
Yes.
Dom wanted to go home.
The man helped him up, and Dom followed him into the night.
***
Bruce Kenner stood in the middle of the medical examiner’s office at half past nine that evening with his hands on his hips and stared doubtfully down at Ed Harris. The lonely cavern was alive with activity as cops went over everything, all of them looking either bemused or a mused. Bruce was neither. He’d been at home, sitting in his chair and having a beer in front of AEW Dynamite when Vanessa called. “You might wanna get down here,” she said, sounding confused, “something really strange is going on.”
Ed Harris - no relation to that one guy - sat in a straight back chair beside his cluttered desk and gripped a styrofoam cup of coffee in both hands, putting Bruce - for some reason - in mind of a monkey. When Bruce came in, the old man was white as a sheet and shook like a leaf. In the last half hour, little had changed.
“Tell me again,” Bruce said.
He and Ed were pretty good friends. He knew that Ed knew standard police procedure. Cops don’t ask you to repeat your story a thousand times over because they’re forgetful fucks, they do it because telling it again and again helps to jog loose details that you might have forgotten. Ed, therefore, did not protest. “I turned my back,” he said and chopped the chair like Jackie Chan, “and I heard the noise.”
His voice was thick, unsteady, and halting. He sounded as squirrely as he looked…and he looked pretty damn squirrelly right now.
“I turned around…and he was looking at me. He was standing there and he was looking at me.”
This was the fourth time he’d had Ed go through the story, and nothing had changed. Bruce felt something stirring deep inside his gut. It was either disquiet…or he had to fart. He opened his mouth to speak, but sighed.
“You don’t believe me,” Ed said.
“I dunno, Ed. Dead bodies don’t just get up and walk away.”
Ed flashed. “I know that, goddamn it, but this one did.”
Bruce glanced at Vanessa. She looked uncomfortable.
“Are you sure he was dead?” Bruce asked.
Ed opened his mouth, closed it again, and said, “I did the autopsy.” His voice broke on the last word, and he sounded almost like he was pleading. “His fucking liver’s on the floor. He stepped on it. The man has nothing in him. I-I’m telling you, there’s no way he’s alive.”
During the autopsy, Ed had sat Dominick Mason’s organs on the little tray table where he kept his pointy things. Mason knocked it over while getting up. Indeed, there were human organs on the floor, and one of them did look kind of squished. Bare, bloody footprints led to the exit door, up a set of concrete steps, and then disappeared in the alley behind the office.
“You said you left his heart,” Bruce said.
“And his brain,” Vanessa helpfully added.
Ed pinched the bridge of his nose like a put upon professor dealing with two particularly stupid students. “Even with his heart and his brain, he’s dead. You saw the livor mortis. He was cold, he was stiff. His heart wasn’t beating, he wasn’t breathing. He was in one of those drawers for nine hours, not breathing, no blood flow - it’s impossible. It’s just…it’s impossible. I don’t care what you think, he was dead. And even if somehow he wasn’t, I cut out almost everything. I opened his stomach, I took his spleen - you don’t just get up from that. You don’t walk away from that, much less run.”
Bruce chewed the inside of his bottom lip because he didn’t have a Twix. He didn’t look like the smartest man in the world…and he wasn’t…but he knew a dead body when he saw one, and the body they took out of Dominick Mason’s apartment was D.E.A.D. And like Ed said, even if by some freak fluke of nature he wasn’t, he couldn’t just get up and go about his day with no liver, spleen, or kidneys. Hell, Bruce had his gallbladder out and he couldn’t even walk away from that.
“You said there was something funny about his heart,” Vanessa said.
Ed finished off his coffee. “Yeah. It was…moldy. I-I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Is it possible that…has something to do with it?”
“Unless the rules of biology have changed overnight, no,” Ed stated.
While Ed poured himself another cup of Joe, spilling some because he was still shaking, Vanessa took Bruce aside. “So what do you think?” she asked. “Is he telling the truth?”
For that, Bruce did not have an immediate answer. All else aside, he was a cop. He followed the evidence - and his gut instinct - wherever it led him. Ed was a sober man - he was not a drunk, insane, or stupid - and no man on earth could fake the look of trauma in his eyes. Bruce’s eyes went to the bloody footprints leading away from the exam table and his stomach roiled. It might be cliched, but there had to be a rational explanation. “Yeah,” he finally said. “The kid got up like he said, but there’s no way he was dead. Maybe…I dunno, he had a surge of adrenaline or something. I’m not a doctor.”
“That’ll only get him so far,” Vanessa said. “We’ll probably find him on the street somewhere.”
He went back to the purple splotches on Dom’s face, to his cold stiffness. There’s no way he was dead?
Bruce was confused, and he hated being confused.
“I dunno,” he said, “maybe.”
But he had the gnawing feeling that they wouldn’t. They would never find him…and Bruce would be confused forever.
Goddamn it, Mason, he thought, where are you?

Updated with autopsy results.
Morphew Case Map - Google My Maps - Barry's iPhone Data - Google My Maps - Barry's Truck Events - Google My Maps
August 5, 1994 – Suzanne Moorman marries Barry Morphew The Alexandria Times-Tribune Alexandria, Indiana 05 Jan 1994, Wed • Page 4
December 1999 – Barry and Suzanne Purchase 26040 Cal Carson Rd, Arcadia, IN This is the house where he dug a hole in the yard and buried everything he didn't want to move to Colorado. (AA ft 55 page 53)
November 2013 – Suzanne Inherits $208,000 upon the Passing of her Mother. MB provided documents that Suzanne inherited approximately $208,000 in 2013 at the passing of her mother.
August 2016 – Suzanne inherits $217,000 upon the death of a grandmother. Suzanne’s grievance list included multiple references to Barry controlling the finances.
April 12, 2018 – The Morphew’s Purchase 19057 Puma Path Barry and Suzanne Morphew purchase 19057 Puma Path for $1,575,000.
June 1, 2018 – The Morphews move to Colorado. (PH – Harris) SA Harris: Yeah, they moved in 2018. I believe they left around June 1st, 2018. to move to Colorado. So roughly a year and a half of the time is what Sheila originally said in that.
September 2018 – Suzanne sends “Howdy stranger” message to JL First contact since high school.
Fall 2018 – Libler’s daughter sees messages from Suzanne on his phone. Libler breaks it off.
Thanksgiving 2018 – Barry obsessive/possessive. While Suzanne was at the Oliver’s house, she had stepped away from her cell phone to use the restroom, and Barry tried calling her several times within a few minutes, then tried calling Sheila, then tried calling Darin.
Holidays 2018 – Suzanne finds Libler’s LinkedIn Page. Relationship Rekindled
January 2019 – The Mexico trip where Barry took Suzanne’s phone Mexico trip mentioned in the grievances list where Barry took Suzanne's phone.
February 11 – 14, 2019 – Suzanne in New Orleans with Libler Barry admitted to questioning Suzanne about the New Orleans trip, further evidence he suspected the affair.
April 2019 – Suzanne meets up with Libler in Indiana She does not see SO on this trip.
July 2019 – Suzanne and Libler meet up in Michigan Barry called SO while Suzanne was in MI visiting her fatheJL, wanting to know why Suzanne wasn't returning his calls.
September 2019 – Barry stalks Suzanne and Shelia Oliver, creeping through woods. Barry stalked Suzanne and Sheila at the Puma Path house in September 2019. This is upon his early return from a trip to Arizona.
October 2019 – Libler and Suzanne in Dallas Suzanne and Libler spend two nights at the Galleria.
September – November 2019 – Barry aggressively pursues KW around Salida. From the first time KW met Barry, she said it felt like "he was putting his tentacles out."
Holidays 2019 – Suzanne and Libler stop talking on the phone because she is afraid Barry will find out. They shift to more covert ways to communicate. Barry's second device makes its first appearance.
January/February 2020 – Suzanne in Florida, gets spy pen, sees Libler Suzanne in Florida, SO gives her the spy pen during this trip. Suzanne records a conversation with Libler on this trip.
Late February 2020 – Suzanne in Florida, sees father and Libler. Suzanne skips out on time with her father to see Libler. Barry goes to Florida.
March 2020 – Spy pen records argument between Suzanne and Barry. “It’s money. It’s about money.” “… I have lived for years being told how I should feel, how I should act, how I should look, what I should drink, what I shouldn’t drink, what I should put in my body, what I shouldn’t put in my body … ”
March 20, 2020 – Jekyll and Hyde text exchange between Suzanne and SO, MM2 suggests restraining order. "It’s Jekyl and Hyde again … Pretty much told him I can’t be healthy and stay in this."
March 22, 2020 – Spy pen records Barry listening to Forensic Files episodes, call with Suzanne on drive to Pueblo Coincidentally one of the episodes involved a woman "disappearing" after a bike ride.
April 21, 2020 – Messages between Suzanne and Libler “I want to be with you,” “I can only be me with you,” I love you,” “I need you.” “You know I was born to love you.”
May 4, 2020 16:05 – Barry makes 3 second outgoing call to Suzanne This was the first logged call in Barry’s phone to or from Suzanne since February 7, 2020.
May 5, 2020 – Suzanne drives MM2 to Gunnison Suzanne drives Macy to Gunnison, CO to meet MM1 for a road/camping trip through Utah and Idaho with MM1's best friend.
May 6, 08:44 – Suzanne sends MM2 a text “Good morning! I miss you already!”
May 6, 10:13 – Suzanne: “I’m done. I could care less what you’re up to and have been for years.” From 14:43 to 17:00 Barry replied, “When I’m dead,” “Going to see my savior,” and “This life on earth is a mear (sic) grain of sand compared to eternity.”
May 6, 2020 – 14:43 – From Barry to Suzanne: “I’m sorry if things went the way they did. I have a problem dealing with the way you accused me of hiding checks. If you think I’m as terrible of a person to hide our accounts and have ones you don’t know about you don’t know me. All I do is for you and the girls. All. When I'm dead, which won't be long, you guys will be taken care of. Please stop being angry. If I can control my hurt heart I think I can overcome your distant unlovingness toward me. Honey, I swear it's the hardest thing I've had to do. I love you I always will.”
May 6, 2020 – 15:51 – Barry to Suzanne: “I promise you were wrong about all the crazy thoughts about me. I have always been faithful. Always. Why would I ever want another when I'm married to the most beautiful, sweet, kind, loving, woman as you? Only a fool would stray from an angel like you.”
May 07, 2020 – Suzanne messages Libler about how magical past days had been. Barry wants a new truck. 16:43 - “Been studying all afternoon. I’m gonna bike now. I’ve got veggie soup on for supper.”
May 7, 2020 – SB puts new tires on Suzanne’s bike Bike mechanic was interviewed by law enforcement.
May 7, 17:13:52 – Barry Works Out at GD’s House Truck log files place Barry at GD's home at 5:13 pm.
May 7, 2020 23:00 – “I finally got the job” text from MM1 goes unanswered. Q (Lindsey): Anything on May 6th that didn’t seem normal? Was there a text from Mallory to Mr. Morphew? A (Grusing): I believe that’s the night of May 7th. Mallory, Macy, and their friend Holly are out on a trip towards Utah and Mallory is sending pictures to both Suzanne and Barry but I was ... Read more
May 08, 07:03 – The Grievance List: Suzanne’s phone backs up a list of 50 reasons why she wanted to leave marriage on “Notes” Not safe alone with you. Can’t be trusted - Oppressive - Slam on brakes when angry - Threaten to jump out of car - Gun ...
May 08, 08:43 – “I will continue to do your invoicing when you need to.” "When FBI Agents showed Barry these texts during interviews in 2021, he said he did not think Suzanne was serious."
May 08, 09:28 – Suzanne texts sister about Barry’s abuse. “It’s hard dealing with the harsh abrasiveness and having to show respect. He’s also been abusive, emotionally and physically. There’s so much … I went thru a period of acceptance and I feel more angry now. Anger at what I’ve allowed.”
May 08, 10:55 Barry: “I Love You, Suzanne.” “But, in the afternoon, it (the text fight) was like it never happened. She texted me back and it was just like, ‘Hey, what time are you coming home? Hey, this or that. Just pick this up or pick that up.'”
May 08, 13:18 – Barry texts Salida Stove and Spa about getting the hot tub fixed. "Asking when he could come out to the home."
May 08, 15:43 – Barry’s iPhone receives an SMS message associated with the unknown device This second device was first used on November 30,2019 and was associated with Barry’s iPhone 91 times since then, compared to 1,701 associations with the primary User ID since November 2019.
May 8, 19:06 – Moonlight Pizza and Phone Calls Barry convinces Suzanne to meet him at the Tailwinds site before going to pick up Moonlight Pizza together.
May 08, 21:04 – 20 Facebook friend requests, 3 men named “Jeff.” Barry’s lurking at the River. Barry was asked about his phone pinging down by the river during the Facebook posts on Friday night and asked if he was outside. Barry said, “I could have been. I don’t remember. I chase critters around the house all the time.”
May 09, 00:02 – Incoming call on Suzanne’s phone (PH CAST) Incoming call on Suzanne’s phone (PH CAST)
May 09, 02:07 – Outgoing call on Suzanne’s phone (PH CAST) 02:07 am outgoing call on SM’s phone (PH CAST)
May 09, 06:00 – Barry’s phone received call (PH CAST) 06:00 am BM’s phone received call (PH CAST)
May 09, 06:46 – Barry’s phone registered “Power On” Comes out of Airplane mode.
May 09, 07:19 – Barry’s cell received signal (PH) Barry’s cell received signal (PH)
May 09, 07:22 – 07:39 – Barry at “Tailwinds” worksite Barry’s phone registered locations at his “Tailwinds” work site near Poncha Springs.
May 09, 07:35 – Suzanne texting SO Discussing Sheila's daughters wedding on Sunday.
May 09, 08:00 – MG was with Barry working on the rock beach site until 10am(?). Gentile: “He said that he had to go make the wife happy – do some hiking or biking.”
May 9 – Morning – Suzanne messaging Jeff “He’s still wanting Arizona.”
May 09, 09:50 – Barry to Suzanne: Want to go on hike? *Text Exchange\* Barry to Suzanne: Want to go on hike?
May 9, 2020 – 11:14 – Suzanne received a second password reset message from Facebook Previous reset was while Barry was down by the river on the evening of the 8th.
May 09, 11:15 est. – Barry tells Morgan Gentile he could “bury a body” and it “would never be found.” Gentile: “He seemed stressed. He definitely seemed weird on Saturday.”
May 09, 11:55 – Dead Turkey Hunt or Barry Takes Down His Trail Cameras Barry said he was looking for a turkey that Mallory had shot previously with a bow, but they had never found.
May 09, 13:35 – Barry leaves home again. Checked on job at Kim Gyms
May 9, 13:40(?) – Suzanne texts Libler Guess who is alone again?
May 09, 13:46 – Barry and the backhoe After texting, Barry drove by TK's house to see the backhoe, but did not get back in touch to buy it. In 2018, Barry used a backhoe to dig a large hole in his front yard, fill it with items to include furniture, and cover it over, planting alfalfa on top.
May 09, 13:51 – 14:13 – Barry at DSI, replacing Bobcat blade He was wearing a blue t-shirt and khaki shorts.
May 09, 14:03 – Suzanne sends sunbathing pic to Libler, last proof of life. “Well, look at her. She’s obviously drunk. Look at her eyes. Do you know what drunk eyes look like?
May 09, 14:11 – Suzanne sends last LinkedIn message to Libler: “I’m on wa.” Libler sent response messages at 2:39PM, 2:46PM and 2:47PM that Suzanne did not answer.
May 09, 14:26 – Barry texts Suzanne, “Done headed back.” He texted Suzanne that he was done and was headed home.
May 09, 14:31 – Barry texted Suzanne, “Did you leave.” At 2:31 PM, Barry texted Suzanne, “Did you leave.”
May 09, 14:39 – Libler messages Suzanne, she does not respond. First unread. Messages from LinkedIn show they were talking about how Suzanne is in love with Jeff before she went missing.
May 09, 14:43 – Barry’s phone and F-350, per telematics, arrive at the Morphew residence. "The photo is shown in the courtroom, Suzanne smiling. Truck GPS coordinates show Barry’s truck goes into park at 2:43:59. Phone coordinates show he walks around the house. You can hear a pin drop in the courtroom as tension is high." - Carol McKinley, PH Tweet
May 09, 14:44 – Shooting Chipmunks? Barry had a .22 in the moments when Suzanne ceased the communicate with everyone she loved in the world. Shooting Chipmunks? Barry had a .22 in the moments when Suzanne ceased the communicate with everyone she loved in the world. (See: https://www.reddit.com/SuzanneMorphew/comments/17lfboz/barry_and_the_chipmunks_aa_excerpts/ )
May 09, 14:46 – Libler messages: “Hey … your weather looks great” Second unread. No response from Suzanne.
May 09, 14:47 – Jeff sends another messages to Suzanne with no response. Third unread. Jeff sends last message if the day to Suzanne with no response.
May 09, 16:00 – 17:30 – Defense says Barry was at Salida Stove and Spa Salida Stove and Spa's posted hours have the store closing at 2pm on Saturday. Telematics show Barry's truck in his garage during the time he was supposedly at Salida Stove and Spa.
May 09, 16:44 – Barry parks his truck in the garage. Barry claims to have been loading his truck and cleaning off his workbench. (See: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?hl=en&mid=1FSqlFRrywR8FkytAYkNM-bdSxvKVK5MP&ll=39.173623131314%2C-105.63244&z=8)
May 09, 17:33 – Barry’s truck system manually rebooted Barry attempted to disable the trucks GPS and SYNC features.
May 09, 18:40, 18:46 – SO sends two Snapchats to Suzanne that were never opened SO sends two Snapchats to Suzanne that were never opened
May 09, 21:25 – Barry’s truck goes into reverse, backs 96.8 feet down driveway Barry backs 96 feet out of the garage.
May 09, 22:17 – Barry’s Phone Exits out of Airplane Mode Barry's phone comes out of airplane mode at the Morphew residence.
May 10, 02:53 – Outgoing call on Suzanne’s phone Possible glitch.
May 10, 03:25 – 03:48 – Barry’s truck door opened and closed "SA Hoyland noted over eighty events involving the F350 during this timeframe."
May 10, 03:58 – Barry’s phone moves from home to near where Suzanne’s bike found 3:58 am BM cell moves from home to near 225/50 where bike found Carol McKinley PH Tweets (read from bottom tweet up): 431 am 5/10 Barry’s phone goes back into airplane mode at the his home. 5:37 am – morphew turns into buena vista & heads towards broomfield. 538 he texts his mom “happy ... Read more
May 10, 04:10 – 04:23 – Last Activity from Suzanne’s iPhone Sergeant Mullenax asked dispatch to ping the number given for Suzanne’s cell phone. Dispatch informed Mullenax that the cell phone appeared to be off and last known activity was at 4:23AM on the present date, with a general location about 11.5 miles west of a cell tower in Poncha Springs, CO.
May 10, 04:32 – Barry’s Phone Goes Back into Airplane Mode Barry's Phone Goes Back into Airplane Mode
May 10, 04:32 – 05:14 – Chasing Elk, or Staging Evidence? Barry's trip to Garfield adds an approximate five miles each way to his morning trip, and places Barry and his vehicle in the direction the helmet was discarded - west from the bicycle.
May 10, 05:00 – Morgan Gentile Hears Barry’s Truck on Hwy 50 Gentile stated she did not see the truck but that his truck has a very distinctive exhaust.
May 10, 05:14 – 06:56 – Barry on the road to Broomfield. Barry phone exits airplane mode while heading towards Buena Vista, CO.
May 10, 08:10 – Trash Dump #1 – RTD Bus Stop Hwy 36 Agent Grusing: "Yes. He would have time -- with the passenger door opening and closing -- like it would say passenger door opened at 8:10:36 am and then passenger door closed at 8:12:13 am. So it took about a minute and a half and that trash can is only 10 to 15 steps away from where the truck was parked."
May 10, 08:14 – 08:20 Holiday Inn Express, Broomfield. Trash Dump #2 Grusing: "He said he parked there because he hoped someone would come out and he could go in the hotel before checking in and get a free breakfast." (Note: It was mid-COVID lockdown, building capacities were down to single digits.)
May 10, 08:41 – 08:46 – “I made it to Broomfield call me when you get a chance” Barry texts Suzanne.
May 10, 08:46 – Barry carries items into the Holiday Inn Express “If there’s clothes in my truck, there was probably old clothes I threw away.”
May 10, 10:06 – Barry exits hotel room. He's carrying a charcoal long-sleeved shirt, two white bags, and a pair of boots.
May 10, 10:20 – 10:41 – McDonald’s – Trash Dump #3 SA Grusing said Barry had a small item in his hand and used one arm to push it down, then both to push it further down as Barry was shown the photos.
May 10, 10:47 – 11:18 – Men’s Wearhouse Trash Dump #4 Barry was told he was there for about 40 minutes and asked if he remembered what he was doing there. Barry said, “I think I was still cleaning my truck, umm, yeah, yeah I mean, like I said, I just uh, I would, I was probably getting crap out of my truck like I said, which I’ve done my whole entire life.”
May 10, 11:18 – Barry calls MG "Barry called he was out of breathe (sic) panting but fatigue, kind a like hungover but he doesn’t drink, honestly when I hung up I thought to myself he sounded like he had the worst night of his life.” - MG
May 10, 11:23 – 11:36 – Barry back at the HIE Barry carries in disorganized papers in a binder. Carries out an organized binder.
May 10, 11:57 – 12:25 – Barry at the worksite Barry spent 28 minutes removing a few blocks from the wall.
May 10, 12:28 – 12:41 – HIE Trash Dump #5 A camera recorded Barry throwing away: a small item, one white trash bag, larger in size than the previous bags in one hand, a black container, along with a piece of clothing, possibly a camouflage coat.
May 10, 12:42 – 18:03 – Barry remains in his HIE room. ”At 3:30PM, Barry sent an outgoing message to Suzanne 'Call me'"
May 10, 2020 (Time Unknown) – Libler wishes Suzanne a Happy Mother’s Day Commented that it would be a hard day because she missed her own mother.
May 10, 2020 – 15:30 – Barry texts Suzanne from his hotel room. At 3:30PM, Barry sent an outgoing message to Suzanne “Call me”
May 10, 15:50 – 17:45 – Suzanne is discovered “missing” “I’m just so sad and REDCATED and I texted mom for Mother’s Day and she still hasn’t answered and I’m scared her and dad probably got in a big fight and I don’t even know it just made me want to be gone even more because I don’t want to be around them it hurts me and I know if REDACTED is working I might have to be home a lot more and it’ll probably be the worst summer of my life.”- MM2 text.
May 10, 17:55 – 19:10 – Barry leaving Broomfield 6:10 pm - Barry entered the lobby carrying two shovels and placed them beside the front desk. He made subsequent trips, placing more tools in the same spot.
May 10, 19:31 – Chaffee County finds the bike “Something is up with the front tire,” Deputy Brown
May 10, 20:42 – Barry arrives at CR 255 & US 50 "Barry is heard asking if deputies saw any “cats” on the road and a deputy says not recently."
May 10, 21:37 – CCSO Commander Avila brings Barry into the house for scent items. Barry does not call out or look for his wife in the home.
May 10, After 21:47 – Barefoot prints in the Bobcat Bucket Deputy Brown was walking in the driveway when Deputy Defurio told him that there were barefoot marks inside of the bucket on the Bobcat. Deputy Brown went with him to examine and found that the cutting blade on the bucket of the Bobcat appeared to be newly replaced, along with the nuts and bolts.
May 10, 22:00 – MG and JP smell chlorine and have the wrong tools in Broomfield. “It looked like Barry had removed top caps that was it. We also did not have the tools we need like a packer or gravel.”
May 11, 2020 – First Interviews, Puma Path Searched "On May 11, 2020, at about 7:00AM, Barry called Morgan and said that Suzanne was missing and he thought a mountain lion may have attacked her. Morgan explained that Barry was initially crying but then abruptly shifted to the specifics about the Broomfield job."
May 11, 2020 – 14:47 – Libler sends last message to Suzanne. Wishing her well for her scheduled final cancer treatment that day.
May 12, 2020 – 20:00 – Barry found digging in the trash at Poncha Market “He went to write down a description of maybe what she was wearing,” Butala said. “I just thought it was weird because he didn’t explain what the color of her eyes were or her hair or anything about her, like how tall she was or anything.”
May 13, 2020 – Deputy Carricato took photos of scratches on Barry’s left arm and hands. These injuries appeared to be healing, several days old scratches.
May 13, 2020 – Fundraiser created $33,552 raised
May 17, 2020 – 11:13 – Barry’s “plea” video is released on Facebook. “Oh Suzanne, if anyone is out there and can hear this, that has you, please, we’ll do whatever it takes to bring you back. We love you, we miss you, your girls need you. No questions asked, however much they want – I will do whatever it takes to get you back. Honey, I love you, I want you back so bad.”
May 19, 2020 – Interviews, Pneu-Darts, Range Rovers "CCSO Deputy Scott Himschoot was present during the search at 19057 Puma Path, in the laundry room, and was asked to collect a “pneu-dart box, empty,” one plastic hypodermic cover, one Pneu-dart book from safe in garage, one dart from box under bench in garage, among other items. The plastic cover was located by evidence search teams in the dryer, inside of the sheets belonging to REDACTED bed." (At some point we had confirmation of a to-do list Suzanne left including MM1s bedding in hopes that the older girls would spend the night. Cannot remember the source.)
May 20, 2020 – Spy Pen found. "The pen was located in a cloth bin amongst women’s bras. The cloth bin and pen were inside the walk-in closet in the master bedroom, located on the ground level of the residence. Detective Hysjulien located, with the pen, the controller and headphones for playback and a USB cable."
June 1, 2020 – Barry files for guardianship. Within a month of Suzanne’s disappearance, Barry began to liquidate assets.
June 1, 2020 – TD interviews Barry on camera. "So, uh -- we uh --. We had two daughters that were coming home from a trip. And I got a job in Denver that I wanted to get started on on Sunday. Set it up for my work because my rookies are coming in Sunday night. (Unintelligible) Monday but I, being the owner, I wanted to get everything lined up so that (Unintelligible).
June 6, 2020 – Barry closes on IN home. Pockets $750,000
June 25, 2020 – Barry purchases the Longhorn Ranch property for $165,000 Property Address 8366 LONGHORN DR
July 13, 2020 – Barry sells Suzanne’s Range Rover. Leaves Suzanne's sunglasses in the car.
Aug 20, 2020 – Lauren Scharf Interviews Barry “People don’t know the truth, so they’re gonna think what they’re gonna think.”
October 05, 2020 – Barry lists Puma Path home for sale. Originally listed for $1,759,000.
November 2020 – Barry Commits Voter Fraud Barry filled out Suzanne's ballot and mailed it in.
February 17, 2021 – Barry Sells Longhorn Ranch property for $150,000 A $15,000 loss. Same property sold on 04/21/2021 for $175,000, indicating Barry needed the money fast.
March 3, 2021 – 19057 Puma Path sells for $1,625,000. Barry and Suzanne Morphew purchased the home on April 12, 2018 for $1,575,000.
May 4, 2021 – Warrant Issued for the Arrest of Barry Lee Morphew CRS/CHARGE: 18-3-102 (1), (a) Murder in the First Degree, a class 1 Felony, 18-8-610. Tampering with Physical Evidence, a class 6 felony, 18-8-306, Attempt to Influence a Public Servant, a class 4 Felony.
May 5, 2021 – 09:15 – Barry Lee Morphew Arrested for the murder of Suzanne Renee Moorman Morphew "Morphew was arrested around 9:15 a.m. on Wednesday, May 5 near his home in Poncha Springs. FOX31 News has obtained video of the arrest, which shows his truck stopped on the side of the road near several police vehicles. He can be seen standing just off the road with an officer." AA: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21065843-21cr78-morphew-redacted-affidavit
August 9-12, 2021 – Preliminary Hearing. Day One: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15wZ86C3zQ6kh9VGOUCJcr0ipCoFeaXkdowmwyaruiIQ/edit?usp=drive_link
Day Two: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QKa1jcH2dAqe9Wezew-KbLCDuicrm1HgfwC4oGwM8Dg/edit?usp=drive_link
Day Three got corrupted so it's gone.
People's exhibit images: https://imgur.com/a/hgvlBUt Defense exhibit images: https://imgur.com/a/VC3ZfUZ
April 19, 2022 - Case against Barry Morphew Dismissed Without Prejudice. Prosecution asked for the case to be dismissed.
May 2, 2023 – Barry files $15,000,000 lawsuit against Chaffee County, et.al. https://www.9news.com/article/news/local/barry-morphew-lawsuit/73-3cea50c2-cdae-4338-8de9-9e113d33db6c
May 8, 2023 – Fraud Lawsuit filed against Barry in Indiana. Property dispute. https://denvergazette.com/news/courts/barry-morphew-sued-fraud-allegations-land-dispute/article_1c7cd90e-f4f5-11ed-9778-47c9c303d16d.html
September 22, 2023 – Suzanne's Remains Found Near Moffat in Saguache County While SCSO was searching for another (unrelated) missing woman. https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/suzanne-morphew-remains-found-colorado-missing-mother-barry-chaffee-county-disappearance/
Sept. 27, 2023 – Autopsy Completed. Awaiting Toxicology. https://cbi.colorado.gov/news-article/suzanne-morphew-autopsy-results-cbi-update-0https://www.cbsnews.com/colorado/news/autopsy-complete-remains-missing-colorado-mom-suzanne-morphew/
April 29, 2024 – Toxicology finds BAM in Suzanne's bone marrow. “Homicide by undetermined means in the setting of butorphanol, azaperone, and medetomidine intoxication.” https://www.scribd.com/document/727780041/Suzanne-Morphew-autopsy-results https://www.cpr.org/2024/04/29/suzanne-morphew-died-by-homicide-with-tranquilizer-chemicals-present-in-body-according-to-autopsy-report/
Complete Case Overview (Official News Reports and Documents)
What Suzanne Left Behind (PH Exhibits)
Suzanne's Texts with SO Sept 2019
Barry's Unstableness: Suzanne's Text Conversion with SO September 1 (PH Exhibits)
Where was Barry on the 9th - Preliminary Hearing Exhibits
Barry and the Chipmunks (AA Excerpts)
Barry's dirty truck and poorly maintained rifle. PH Exhibits
Suzanne's Last Days - Timeline - May 4th - May 9th, 2020
Barry Buries a Body - May 10th, 2020 - Timeline
Barry Busy in Broomfield Part One (Preliminary Hearing Exhibits)
Barry Busy in Broomfield Part Two (PH Exhibits)

I'm rather new to Doctor Who and going in I heard a lot of bad things about the Chibnall run and the 13th Doctor, how its nowhere near as good as previous seasons, but I'm absolutely loving it! Full disclosure, my last episode was Fugitive of the Judoon so maybe it gets worse, but...
I think Jodie's take is a fantastic Doctor and very reminiscent of the best traits of Smith's and Tennant's while adding her own, very unique and iconic, little spin to it. To me, she encapsulates that light-hearted "Doctor energy" very well.
I'm loving the educational aspect of it and as someone who has worked with, and studied edutainment for a while I don't think it's forced at all and I believe they touch on some very interesting and varied topics. I especially adored both the Rosa Parks and Partition episodes.
And Graham's arc? Oh man, what a blast! He's such a sweet yet complex character, his grief is so well portrayed, and Bradley Walsh is such a good actor.
I also love the new monsters and aliens they face. Tzim-Sha specially gave me such a well done scary 80s movie villain vibe (and the Pting reminds me of my dog) . The new places they visit are just as interesting as older ones and the twists just as fun. Oh, and Alan Cumming as King James was an absolute treat.
If I do have one criticism is of the makeup department, I feel there are a lot more of aliens that are just people, with very little differing characteristics, or just plain lazy (Hyph3n come to mind), but nothing other seasons aren't guilty of as well. And also, on the other hand, we got some amazing prosthetics like with the Dreg and Thijarian, and the CGI is also really good for television.
So am I missing something? Does it get worse or is the fanbase just overreacting? What do you guys think?

An hour after getting back from the Mason apartment, Bruce Kenner had the distinct misfortune of meeting Bertha Henderson.
A plump, gaudy woman with wrinkles and sun beaten skin only an alligator could love, Bertha Henderson wore bright red lipstick, bright red rouge, and way too much mascara. Her tangled hair was a dull red color and her clothes - pink pants and a white floral top - stretched tight across her bulbous frame. She looked like the kind of woman who lived in a trailer with velvet pictures of Elvis on the wall and pink flamingos in the front yard.
She acted like one too.
From the moment she stormed into his office, she hadn’t shut up once. She scolded, chided, accused, and badgered, sometimes even wagging one fat finger in his face like he was a naughty little boy. Ten minutes into the dressing down and Bruce was beginning to fantasize about police brutality.
It took him another ten minutes to find out what the hell she even wanted.
“It’s my granddaughter,” she shot back, “she’s missing in your town.”
My town? Lady, this is barely my office. I share it with three other people.
“Well, if you’ll calm down, maybe I can help.”
Jesus Christ was that the wrong thing to say. She hit the roof and didn’t come down again until Bruce was this close to arresting her for assault on a police officer. “Young man, I do not appreciate the way you’re talking to me. My tax dollars are the only reason you have a job. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be working at a car wash.”
At least I wouldn’t have to deal with you.
Bruce took a deep breath and held his tongue in check. “How can I help you?” he asked.
“I told you, my granddaughter is missing. If you listened to me, you’d know this already.”
Bertha produced a picture and slid it across the desk. Bruce studied it. A girl, roughly sixteen with black hair, blue eyes, and dimples smiled back at him. “She;’s with that Rossi man, I just know it,” she said bitterly.
“Who?” Bruce asked.
Rolling her eyes like he was stupid, the old woman told him the story. Jessie - the dimple faced girl - had the rotten luck of having to live with Grandma Bertha after her parents went to jail on drug charges. They lived in Sand Lake, a little town in the mountains outside Albany, where Bertha was no doubt loved and admired by all. One day, Jessie, who her grandmother lovingly described as “A little troublemaker”, ran off. Bruce didn’t blame her. He’d known Bertha for half an hour and he wanted to run off. Bertha did some snooping on Jessie’s laptop and found that the “little whore” had been chatting with an older man, Joe Rossi. Rossi, or so Facebook said, lived in Albany and worked at Club Vlad.
“I want him arrested for pedophilia,” Bertha said and crossed her arms defiantly over her chest. “He’s a dog just like all men. She’s probably pregnant already. Another mouth I have to feed.”
Behind the old battle ax, Vanessa appeared in the doorway and lifted her brows as if to say What a piece of work. Knowing her, she’d probably been standing just out of sight this whole time with McKenny, the elderly evidence clerk, and snickering into her hand like a little girl. LOL she called him young man.
Bertha noticed him looking over her shoulder and started to turn. Vanessa’s face went white and she ducked out of the way, narrowly avoiding detection. “I’m glad you think this is funny,” Bertha said to Bruce. “Meanwhile, if I don’t get Jessie back, the state’s going to stop sending me my checks. I need that income. I can’t work, you know. I have gout.”
Too bad being an asshole isn’t a job, you’d be world-famous
“I’ll go talk to him,” Bruce said.
“I want more than talk, young man, I want action.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
When Bertha finally decided to waddle off and ruin someone else’s day, Vanessa came in and sat in the chair the old woman had so recently occupied. “Oh, my God,” she said, “that was intense. I was this close to radioing in a 1015.”
1015 was code for officer down.
“Funny,” Bruce said without a trace of humor. He had kids going missing, a dead guy someone moved around like a goddamn Barbie doll, and now this. What next, hemorrhoids?
“What do you think? Code 1 or code 2?”
Code 1 meant top priority. Code 2 meant not a top priority. Bruce thought for a moment. It didn’t sound like Jessie Henderson was in danger. It sounded like she met a guy - granted, one too old for her - and decided to hide out with him from her psycho grandma. Maybe it could be something more, but he had a gut feeling that it wasn’t…and his gut feelings were usually right. “2,” he finally said. “I got shit to do.”
By shit, he meant “Talk to the families of those missing boys again.” He’d been interviewing them for two days looking for clues, but there was nothing. It’s like they just vanished. Bruce didn’t like this. He didn’t like it at all.
“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” Vanessa said and slapped the desk.
When she was gone, Bruce sighed.
Never a dull moment, he thought.
***
Ed Harris - no relation to the Hollywood actor - had been the medical examiner for the City of Albany since 2002, and in all that time, he had never seen anything quite like this.
It was Wednesday evening and Ed was locked away in the cold, sterile space beneath the city offices that comprised his domain. With its puke green tiles, harsh lights, and cloying smells of disinfectant, the .coroner's office creeped most people out, but not Ed. He was at home here, as comfortable surrounded by toe-tagged bodies as a cactus was surrounded by desert. A thin man in his fifties with curly, steel gray hair thinning in the middle, he wore a white smock, blood stained over his clothes that made him look like a butcher instead of a low level government functionary. He had a dark and dry sense of humor, but then again, so do all people who play with dead bodies for fun and profit.
The coroner’s office was a vast, utilitarian vault segmented into multiple different rooms. Here, where the magic happened, three stainless steel tables stood in a row; a bank of refrigerated drawers kept watch, making sure nothing funny happened. One of the cold fluorescent lights overhead flickered with a hum of electricity, and water dripped rhythmically from a faucet. It was a cold, eerie place, but to Ed, it was home.
On most nights, only one of the tables was occupied, but tonight, two were. On one lay an old lady who died of what appeared to be cyanide poisoning. On the other was Dominick Mason.
Naked save for a white cloth draped over his groin to protect his dignity, Dom was the most corpsy corpse you’d ever hope to see. In fact, if you looked up dead guy in the dictionary, you’d see a picture of him. His body was pale and sunken, one side covered in purple splotches where his blood had pooled, and his eyes were closed. His abdomen was slightly distended with the expected build up of gas, and his flesh stuck fast to the bones beneath. In other words, he was text book. A normal corpse.
Mostly normal.
As men of his trade are wont to do when strange bodies mysteriously appear, Ed had opened Dom up, making a Y shaped incision from his neck to his groin. He hummed to himself as he did so, his hands wielding his sharp and shiny tools with the deft assuredness of a seasoned surgeon. Done cutting, he dipped his gloved hands into the cavity and started removing organs. A spleen here, a liver there, nothing Dom would miss. When he got to the heart, however, he stopped.
There was something…off…about it. At first glance, it was black and withered like an oversized raisin. An odd and putrid odor emanated from it and though he was familiar with the various smells and stenches the human body produced after death, this wasn’t one of them. Try as he might, he couldn’t place it, couldn’t even compare it to anything. Plucking a magnifying glass from the metal cart next to the table, he peeled back part of Dom’s chest and examined the heart closer.
That’s when things got really weird.
Dominick Mason’s heart was, indeed, shriveled, but it was not black. Instead, it was almost entirely covered by an interlacing crisscross of what appeared to be black mold. Here and there, Ed could glimpse flashes of the heart beneath: It was wrinkled and a sickly gray color. “What is this?” Ed asked himself at length. He grabbed a pair of tweezers from the tray and carefully, very carefully, attempted to remove a piece of the mold for analysis. The moment the cold metal tips touched the heart, it gave a violent spasm that sent Ed falling back with a shocked gasp, the tweezers falling from his hand and clinking to the tiled floor.
The heart began to pulse like an alien egg sac, slowly at first, then more rapidly. For a moment, Ed was frozen in place, unable to comprehend what he was seeing. Once you die, your heart ceases beating. That’s that. Only living hearts beat, and Dominick Mason was certainly dead. He was dead from the moment Ed first laid eyes on him earlier that day and he was dead now. Yet there was his heart, beating anyway.
It could be a muscle spasm. They usually aren’t that violent and consistent, but dead bodies sometimes do strange things. As he watched the blackened muscle expanding and contracting, however, Ed had the most eerie feeling. He went to rub the back of his neck, realized he was still wearing blood soaked gloves, and stripped them off. He was spooking himself out; he needed a break and a hot cup of coffee. He’d come back fresh and start over again.
With that mold.
Could you really blame him for being creeped out? That stuff wasn’t normal. He’d never seen anything like that before, not even in textbooks. Dom was scrawny and didn’t get enough vitamins in life, but overall, he was healthy; that mold…or whatever it was…had no business being there.
Going over to the coffee pot, which stood in the same room to save travel time, Ed grabbed a styrofoam cup. When he was done here, he planned to go home and -
A terrible, metallic clatter rang out, and Ed jumped. He turned around, and when he saw Dominick Mason standing next to the table, hunched slightly over and staring at him, an electric burst of fright shot up his spine and exploded in his brain, so strong it made the edges turn gray. Pale, hands hooked into talons, and the flaps of his chest hanging open to reveal the cavity beneath, Dominick Mason looked for all the world like a boy who’d been caught sneaking out to meet his girlfriend. A weak, involuntary, “Oh, God,” slipped from Ed’s trembling lips, and the spell was broken. Dom came alive and ran toward the door leading out to the parking lot. He slammed through it, and the sound of it crashing open and then falling closed again echoed through the empty chamber.
Shaking, panting for air, and soaked in piss, Ed sank to the floor in a sitting position, his eyes wide and staring like those of a soldier returning damaged from the front.
It was a long time before he composed himself enough to call the police.
***
Dazed and caught in a nightmarish twilight realm where nothing made sense, Dominick Mason limped painfully down the sidewalk, a stranger lost in a strange land filled with danger and hostile creatures. Barefoot and shrouded in a white sheet, he trembled with cold and struggled to ignore the dark, threatening shapes looming from the fog in his brain, shapes that would turn into unspeakable truths if he let them.
Passersby openly stared at him, their expressions either morbidly curious, disgusted, or alarmed. A man put his arm protectively around his girlfriend; a woman pulled her little boy to her breast, and another man sneered at him, his nose crinkling. Dom, his glazed eyes narrowed against the harsh glare of the many street lamps, headlights, and storefronts, lumbered headlong toward nowhere, his fear growing until he was shambling. He imagined he could hear every cough, every whisper; smell the odor of every unwashed body. Each car horn was deafening, every whiff of ass or armpits sent his stomach churning. The rustle of a passing pedestrian’s jacket jammed into his ears like icepicks, and the approaching globes of LED headlamps burned his eyes. He gritted his teeth and groaned against the pain.
The dense mist wrapping his brain made it hard to think. Like a frightened animal, he made his way on instinct alone. Home. He needed to get home. Out here, on the street, he was exposed. At home, locked away in his small apartment, he would be safe.
A car passed in the street, bass heavy rap music blaring from its open windows, and Dom’s brain exploded with agony. He threw himself against a street sign and held on for dear life, his legs weak. Dizziness overwhelmed him, and he almost went down. He was also cold.
So, so cold.
People around him quickened their step; they never took their eyes off him, as though he were a venomous snake that would strike at any moment. He needed to get away from them. They were going to hurt him; people always hurt him.
Pushing away from the sign, he began to hobble once more toward home, wherever home was. He looked over his shoulder several times as he made his way down Central Avenue, and each time, he saw that no one was following him as he had feared.
No one, that is, except for the man in sunglasses.
Tall and lank with curly hair, he wore dark Aviators and a leather motorcycle jacket over a button up shirt. His hands were thrust deep into his pockets and his face showed no expression. He was always there, always a few steps closer. Outside Capital Fried Chicken, a group of people openly stared at him, He heard their whispers as he passed. What’s wrong with him? Dude’s straight tweakin. And the one that struck him the most. That guy looks dead.
Dom hobbled faster, as if to outrun the realization that he was, in fact, dead. The man in sunglasses was closer now, his footsteps so loud that Dom winced. He turned around, and the man was impossibly in front of him. Dom ran into him and bounced backward, going ass over tea kettle and landing on the former. They were in front of a church on a darkened corner, the lights here either burned out or shot out - you could never tell in Albany. Even though it was dark, Dom could see everything with crystal clarity. Dom tried to scurry away, but he was too weak to escape. Right there and then, he decided to give up. Come what may, he just wanted this nightmare to be over.
The man stared down at him, emotionless, unspeaking.
Dom squirmed.
“You’re real lucky I came along,” the man said. His tone was flat, even.
Dead.
“Get up,” he said, “I’ll take you home.”
Home?
Yes.
Dom wanted to go home.
The man helped him up, and Dom followed him into the night.
***
Bruce Kenner stood in the middle of the medical examiner’s office at half past nine that evening with his hands on his hips and stared doubtfully down at Ed Harris. The lonely cavern was alive with activity as cops went over everything, all of them looking either bemused or a mused. Bruce was neither. He’d been at home, sitting in his chair and having a beer in front of AEW Dynamite when Vanessa called. “You might wanna get down here,” she said, sounding confused, “something really strange is going on.”
Ed Harris - no relation to that one guy - sat in a straight back chair beside his cluttered desk and gripped a styrofoam cup of coffee in both hands, putting Bruce - for some reason - in mind of a monkey. When Bruce came in, the old man was white as a sheet and shook like a leaf. In the last half hour, little had changed.
“Tell me again,” Bruce said.
He and Ed were pretty good friends. He knew that Ed knew standard police procedure. Cops don’t ask you to repeat your story a thousand times over because they’re forgetful fucks, they do it because telling it again and again helps to jog loose details that you might have forgotten. Ed, therefore, did not protest. “I turned my back,” he said and chopped the chair like Jackie Chan, “and I heard the noise.”
His voice was thick, unsteady, and halting. He sounded as squirrely as he looked…and he looked pretty damn squirrelly right now.
“I turned around…and he was looking at me. He was standing there and he was looking at me.”
This was the fourth time he’d had Ed go through the story, and nothing had changed. Bruce felt something stirring deep inside his gut. It was either disquiet…or he had to fart. He opened his mouth to speak, but sighed.
“You don’t believe me,” Ed said.
“I dunno, Ed. Dead bodies don’t just get up and walk away.”
Ed flashed. “I know that, goddamn it, but this one did.”
Bruce glanced at Vanessa. She looked uncomfortable.
“Are you sure he was dead?” Bruce asked.
Ed opened his mouth, closed it again, and said, “I did the autopsy.” His voice broke on the last word, and he sounded almost like he was pleading. “His fucking liver’s on the floor. He stepped on it. The man has nothing in him. I-I’m telling you, there’s no way he’s alive.”
During the autopsy, Ed had sat Dominick Mason’s organs on the little tray table where he kept his pointy things. Mason knocked it over while getting up. Indeed, there were human organs on the floor, and one of them did look kind of squished. Bare, bloody footprints led to the exit door, up a set of concrete steps, and then disappeared in the alley behind the office.
“You said you left his heart,” Bruce said.
“And his brain,” Vanessa helpfully added.
Ed pinched the bridge of his nose like a put upon professor dealing with two particularly stupid students. “Even with his heart and his brain, he’s dead. You saw the livor mortis. He was cold, he was stiff. His heart wasn’t beating, he wasn’t breathing. He was in one of those drawers for nine hours, not breathing, no blood flow - it’s impossible. It’s just…it’s impossible. I don’t care what you think, he was dead. And even if somehow he wasn’t, I cut out almost everything. I opened his stomach, I took his spleen - you don’t just get up from that. You don’t walk away from that, much less run.”
Bruce chewed the inside of his bottom lip because he didn’t have a Twix. He didn’t look like the smartest man in the world…and he wasn’t…but he knew a dead body when he saw one, and the body they took out of Dominick Mason’s apartment was D.E.A.D. And like Ed said, even if by some freak fluke of nature he wasn’t, he couldn’t just get up and go about his day with no liver, spleen, or kidneys. Hell, Bruce had his gallbladder out and he couldn’t even walk away from that.
“You said there was something funny about his heart,” Vanessa said.
Ed finished off his coffee. “Yeah. It was…moldy. I-I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Is it possible that…has something to do with it?”
“Unless the rules of biology have changed overnight, no,” Ed stated.
While Ed poured himself another cup of Joe, spilling some because he was still shaking, Vanessa took Bruce aside. “So what do you think?” she asked. “Is he telling the truth?”
For that, Bruce did not have an immediate answer. All else aside, he was a cop. He followed the evidence - and his gut instinct - wherever it led him. Ed was a sober man - he was not a drunk, insane, or stupid - and no man on earth could fake the look of trauma in his eyes. Bruce’s eyes went to the bloody footprints leading away from the exam table and his stomach roiled. It might be cliched, but there had to be a rational explanation. “Yeah,” he finally said. “The kid got up like he said, but there’s no way he was dead. Maybe…I dunno, he had a surge of adrenaline or something. I’m not a doctor.”
“That’ll only get him so far,” Vanessa said. “We’ll probably find him on the street somewhere.”
He went back to the purple splotches on Dom’s face, to his cold stiffness. There’s no way he was dead?
Bruce was confused, and he hated being confused.
“I dunno,” he said, “maybe.”
But he had the gnawing feeling that they wouldn’t. They would never find him…and Bruce would be confused forever.
Goddamn it, Mason, he thought, where are you?

Hi Everyone!
This is my first write-up of any kind of unresolved mystery, on any platform, so I apologize for any formatting errors and my storytelling ability. Today I would like to hear your thoughts on the very mysterious death of Noah Presgrove, a 19 year old from Comanche Oklahoma. I have tried to be as thorough as possible with the details, but there is a great deal of conflicting information in the news reports, so I primarily used facts stated by Noah's family in interviews. With that said, let's begin...
Noah Presgrove was a handsome, athletic 19 year old from Comanche Oklahoma, which is located just south of Oklahoma City in the middle of the state. Noah had recently graduated high school in the spring of 2023 and was waiting for his cousin to do the same the following year so they both could enlist in the Marine Corp together and serve our country. By all accounts Noah was a ladies man, standing at 6'2" with an athletic build, in high school he was a 4-sport athlete with American Football and Wrestling among them. His family also says he was adventurous, kind and very much a jokester who would happily play pranks on his family. Last Labor Day weekend, the first weekend of September 2023, Noah was deciding between attending Rocklahoma, an annual 3-day hard rock and metal festival held in Pryor, Oklahoma, with family members or attending a 4-day Labor Day weekend bash/22nd birthday party of a friend. Noah considered going to Rocklahoma, but changed his mind when the family members he'd be attending with said they didn't think it was a good idea for Noah's 16 year old friend to join them there, since they didn't know this friend's family and Rocklahoma is big for consuming alcohol. With that, everyone went their own way to celebrate the holiday weekend.
The Labor Day/Birthday party was for a female friend of Noah's who was turning 22. It had been advertised on Snapchat, even containing the address, so quite a few people were expected to attend. Noah drove himself to the party on Saturday and by all accounts enjoyed himself. He did text his family member who was at Rocklahoma and express regret at not going with them, but it doesn't appear that this put too much of a damper on his attitude at the house party. After spending Saturday at the birthday girl's house, Noah returned home Sunday, probably to freshen up and take care of any outstanding errands or just check in with his grandmother, with whom he lived. Also, Noah's car was leaking from the oil pan, so it sounds like part of the reason to return home was to leave it there so he wouldn't have to worry about it. There are two stories about what happened next: The first is that one of Noah's friends picked him up from his house on Sunday, but took him to a truck stop so he could grab some food from the Sonic there. Oddly, the friend who took him there says he left him there and Noah was then given a ride to the party by the birthday girl, who had to come pick him up. The other story is that his best friend picked him up from his house and took him directly to the party, leaving him in the driveway. Either way, Noah was back at the party on Sunday and according to those present, was very much enjoying himself. There were videos from the party showing Noah and his friends doing "guy things" like the Slap Game, where two people try to slap each other across the face as hard as they can. Just "macho" drunken teenage guy things. There was also video from the party of the guests playing "classic" party games such as beer pong.
With all the drinking going on, some issues were bound to arise. A confrontation happened between Noah and his best friend. Noah had been in a corner with his best friend's girlfriend and apparently they had their backs to everyone else while talking. The best friend took exception to this and an argument ensued. Luckily, it did not become physical and they made up shortly after, but this event with the best friend and his girlfriend is important for later. A second confrontation occurred between Noah and a 16 year old guest that did become physical. The 16 year old accused Noah of hiding his phone, although the reasons why he thought Noah did it have not been stated. During the argument the kid "fishhooked" Noah and Noah returned the favor by biting his finger. It seems like the other people there were able to diffuse the situation and the kid's phone was found underneath another guest who was sleeping on a couch. As the day went on, things continued to become crazier as the people at the party drank more and more. At one point girls at the party started signing their names on Noah's torso and buttocks, writing things such as "Noah's hot!" and drawing a cartoon penis on his rear-end. Noah and the best friend he had the argument with even drove a John Deere "Gator" UTV "Side by Side" around the property, but stopped when Noah scrapped his hand almost flipping it over. Some people even say that Noah was tossed from the UTV, but he was checked out by a nurse at the party and she said he had nothing to worry about. Another event worth mentioning is that the birthday girl seemed to have a crush on Noah. Noah realized this, or was told this, and while talking to her about it called her a "fat, nasty b*tch". I assume that they were close friends and this is just a drunken teen being a drunken teen. An odd thing to mention is that this girl's mother, who also lives in the home, had told Noah's family that she believed Noah wanted her sexually. Whether this is true or not, I have no clue, but it seems a very weird thing to say to the family of a 19 year old your daughter is friends with.
So here's where the mystery comes in. Early Monday morning (September 4th, 2023), after 2:00am, the guests say that Noah was upset about something and that it might have had to do with sleeping in either the birthday girl's or her mother's bed. One of them either heard, or saw, Noah attempting to sleep in their bed and demanded that he go on the floor. This apparently upset Noah so much that he said he needed to go out for a walk, completely drunk, very early in the morning. The guests say Noah was wearing his best friend's shorts (we'll get to his clothes later) and could only find one of his shoes, so he grabbed another shoe lying around the house and took off out the front door. The house had a 1/2 mile long driveway that then went out to US-81, a major North-South highway that runs for 1,200+ miles through the central US. At 3:41am, a friend of Noah's posted a weird Snapchat: a photo of a girl at the party smiling, with the caption "well, Noah's missing". This was the last Snapchat posted by any of the partygoers after days of constant videos and pics. Around 5:00am, a semi-truck driving along US-81 saw something he believed to be a body lying on the shoulder of the road. After driving past, he became concerned and turned around to confirm what he saw. By the time he got back, two other vehicles had stopped in front of the lifeless body of Noah on the shoulder. He was completely naked wearing only 2 mismatched shoes and curled up in a fetal position. He appeared to have blunt force trauma to the back of his head. He had small scrapes on his left shoulder and left hip and his fingertips on both hands were reported as being "shredded", down to the bone. Noah's front top and bottom teeth had also been knocked out and they were found scattered at the scene. There was no blood found at the scene, other than a small amount around Noah's injuries. Very concerning was the fact that there was no writing on his body anywhere. Not on his torso and not on his buttocks. The shorts Noah was wearing were found folded up next him. The people at the party said "They must've been knocked off when he was hit.", which obviously does not make sense.
Around 6:00am, with the police already notified by the people who found Noah, all Snapchat's/social media from people at the party was deleted. His friends and acquaintances at the party say they have no idea what led up to his death and they were unaware of it. The police did not search the house because they said: "Noah wasn't found there.". They did eventually conduct a "mass" interview with all the partygoers. During this interview, Noah's best friend's girlfriend, the one that led to his first confrontation, told police she had never met Noah. She had wiped her phone so completely that even her boyfriend's number had been deleted. When the guests were asked about Noah being naked, the girls said they gave Noah a "shower", but Noah's mental state at the time, whether mildly drunk or completely inebriated, has been an area of dispute among the guests. Some say he was joking around and being himself while being showered, other accounts state that he was barely conscious. Noah's clothing he wore to the party that night has never been located. Police were told that after Noah showered his clothes were dirty, so he wore his friend's shorts. There is a rumor that his best friend's father found Noah's shirt from the party, which was then cut-up and distributed to the party attendees as a "memento". In addition to this event with his shirt, there is also information that his best friend's father had some of Noah's teeth in his pocket. He stated he "accidentally" picked them up from the crime scene. It's worth stating that this particular individual has been on Noah's family's Facebook memorial page for months, arguing with others on there. Just very odd behavior from an adult father who's son's best friend died mysteriously. But, on this same topic, NONE of the partygoers or their families have ever visited Noah's family to express their condolences. Never once.
Since Noah's friends and others at the party said they didn't know what happened, the police had their work cut out for them. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol obtained a "geofence" warrant covering a 1-1/2 mile radius around the party house. What they found was a bit disturbing. Around the time it is believed Noah died, 2 phones were traced as having left the house, heading to the location of his body. After briefly staying there, the two phones returned to the house. People at the party told a private investigator hired by Noah's family that they went out looking for Noah in the UTV/Gator that Noah and his friend had been on earlier. If they had really done this, they would have found him since the phones were at the spot Noah was found. It has not been released who exactly this was. Also revealed when police searched phones was a video of the birthday girl and her sister on their front porch, screaming at each other about Noah leaving the party. It is believed that this could be relevant. The Texas Rangers also became involved, due to the fact that two men at the party were from Texas. It is not known if these men are persons of interest. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol also quietly issued a warrant for a "black pick-up truck" believed to have been used to dump his body, but it is unknown why they are looking for this particular vehicle. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol has unequivocally stated that this was 100% NOT a hit-and-run. They have now also said that this is NOT a murder investigation. The Medical Examiner's report released on Monday, May 13th 2024 stated that Noah died from "Multiple Blunt Force injuries", but list the manner in which this happened as "unknown". His report also detailed extensive injuries to the teen's upper body, including 10 broken ribs, serious skull, neck, and spine fractures, internal bleeding, brain and organ damage, and cuts and grazes all over his body. The autopsy also revealed air in both his cranial cavity and spinal cord, extremely rare conditions only caused by massive head trauma. The family has heard rumors that a golf club from the set in his best friend's truck may have been involved, but nothing else has come of this.
The family has engaged with a private investigator, who did uncover previously unknown information, and gave that to the police. They have also said that there is much more which has not been publicly released and that the search of the phones did uncover good information. Also according to the family, some evidence has been covered-up or lost and that the day after the party, the birthday girl's house and property reeked of bleach. Despite this, his family says good things are going on behind the scenes.
So, with all of the above information, it doesn't seem to be a stretch to say that someone from the party knows something. It is my personal belief that this case will be resolved, but I think three things will have to happen: Time, Pressure and Guilt. At some point in the future, someone from the party will feel guilty, or media pressure will get to them and they will talk. Unfortunately, it may take some time unless the police uncover new evidence sooner. Thank you very much for reading this, but please let me know your thoughts on this case and feel free to ask questions.
Sources:
Podcast (Interview w/ Noah's family): https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jimny-carpenteepisodes/The-Suspicious-Murder-Of-Noah-Presgrove-Part-1-e2dchac
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13421341/Oklahoma-teen-Noah-Presgrove-beaten-death-gang-doctor-claims.html
https://kfor.com/news/local/m-e-releases-more-details-in-19-year-olds-death/
https://www.foxnews.com/us/oklahoma-teen-military-hopefuls-family-cant-imagine-was-murdered-offers-theory-about-last-hours