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I give a slight gesture toward the list she’d made when she asked me which of the records and periodicals I wanted to see. “I just need anything you have that will give me thatinformation.”
She looks down at the paper like she forgot she was holding it.
“Yes. These. Of course. I’ll be right withyou.”
She hurries off and I stand waiting, peering around the quiet building. It’s an old library, full of the smell of many-times-read books and kept at dim lighting to protect the pages. Heavy wooden tables positioned around the floor where I’m standing feature green lamps that provide illumination without being disruptive. Upstairs there are small study rooms where devoted students lock themselves away to do their homework and projects where they can’t be interrupted.
In the middle of the summer break, the library is full of children and teenagers escaping the heat and entertaining themselves when the novelty of being out of class has worn off and they feel like they’ve done everything else they possibly could have during the first few weeks of their summer break. This continues on until right around now, when staring down the barrel at the new schoolyear makes them realize they need to milk the rest of summer for all it’s worth.
Today, I’m one of only a small handful of people in the library. One is sitting in a corner in one of the very large, winged chairs designed for comfortable reading. Another is by the window, going through a cycle of lifting her glasses off her face, putting them back on, lifting them off, scowling at the book in front of her, leaning more into the sunlight, putting the glasses on, and flipping a page. She is going to read that book no matter how hard the challenge is for her eyes.
The librarian returns with the microfilm and uses a key to let us into a small, dark room. She sets up the first roll and instructs me how to use themachine.
“Is there anything else I can help you with?” sheasks.
I shake my head. “No, I think this is it for now. Thankyou.”
She gives a nod and walks out, closing the door behind her. The image of the front page of a newspaper I‘ve never heard of appears on the monitor. It looks like a small publication, possibly for just a neighborhood, or maybe even a high school or junior college.
At first it doesn’t look like there’s anything on the page referencing the camp, but just before I’m going to change the page, I notice a small article tucked in among the others.
“Girl Still Missing After Nightmare CampMurders.”
The article, written several days after the massacre, gives only a few brief details of the tragedy, focusing mainly on Mary Ellen Conner’s disappearance. The writer was careful not to sound like they presumed her dead or were making any guesses as to what might have happened to her. Instead, they used optimistic sentiments like “searchers remain hopeful,” “her parents want Mary Ellen to know they love her very much,” “they look forward to the family beingreunited.”
They are the same kinds of things tacked onto articles even today. There’s something uncomfortable about the platitudes. It’s the opposite of the sensationalist reporting designed to shock people and appeal to their morbid fascinations. It’s almost pandering, like they need to make the story gentler and less difficult to hear by creating a false sense of positivity around it.
They knew she was gone. When the person who wrote the article sat down to start it, they knew Mary Ellen was dead. They didn’t need to have her body. I believe strongly in hope and the need for people to hang onto it to help them get through. And there have been cases of people getting abducted and returning years later. But those cases are very few and far between, and none of them involve mass murder to the scale of the Camp Hollow massacre.
The words were added only to provide a layer of softening for people already so traumatized by the events that have unfolded.
The next article is from a larger newspaper I remember still being in circulation when I was younger. Rather than just being a tiny column hidden off to the side, this article was the main headline. The upper half of the page is dominated by an image of what I recognize to be the grounds of Camp Hollow, the backs of several people visible as they walk in a line toward the woods. The inclusion of at least three small children shakes meslightly.
“Volunteer Groups, Including Victim’s Family, Search CampAgain”
There’s a lot in that title. It might not jump right off the page or have anything in it that is immediately shocking or compelling. It’s straightforward and to the point, which, in a way, makes it more chilling. The matter-of-fact way the situation is presented forces readers to contend with reality. This is happening, the article says, there’s nothing you can do about it.
The mention of the victim’s family also cuts deeper than it may seem to on the surface. It might be the federal agent in me, my compulsion and instinct to evaluate everything through that filter, but I see the implications behind the title. Volunteer groups made up of hurting, terrified, angry family members and friends doing their own investigation and doing impossibly difficult tasks because they aren’t getting the results they want from the police investigation. There is no police presence here, which means investigators have disengaged. The urgency and determination of the initial push is gone. They didn’t get the answers they were looking for immediately, or they took the answers given to them and accepted them even if they couldn’t be proven, and are no longer guarding all elements of the case.
Not that volunteer-based search parties are completely unheard of in abduction and other missing persons cases. But even when they are manned by volunteers, they are generally controlled and overseen by investigators, particularly when they involve searching crime scenes. Parents and siblings are usually discouraged from participating because of the possibility of discovering something they don’t need to see, and small children should never be allowed to be a part of it.
But the impact of the headline goes beyond that. It makes a point to specify that this is not the first search. This group is searching the campagain. It has already been out there. It has already walked the bloodied grounds in a desperate attempt to locate Mary Ellen. Determination and hope are not the same thing. They aren’t out searching the grounds for the second or more time, because something tells them they really will find her out there if they just keep walking over their same steps over and over again. They’re doing it because they can’t allow themselves to stop trying to find her and have run out of other ideas.
Determination is there. But hope is dying.
The next article that mentions the case is from a year later. Either there were no developments during that time, or it simply wasn’t reported on in Sherwood. This article appeals to the readers to take a moment to mark the anniversary of the deaths, naming out thirteen victims, including Mary Ellen. An italicized note beside her name specifies that she is still missing. This is the first time I’ve seen a list of the victims’ names alongside images of them. It seems the most accurate account of the dead and gives a face to each of them. It’s exactly the kind of impact an article like that is meant to have: Stark. Breathtaking. Reminding people as time passes and the sharp edge of the tragedy blunts that this horror happened. That thirteen young people lost their lives in a gruesome, terrifying fashion, and one of them was still missing. The person responsible was still notfound.
“Iwas working at the camp thatsummer.”
The unexpected voice in the quiet of the room startles me. I look away from the screen to find the librarian has come back in. I don’t know how long she’s been standing there watching me go through the articles and that sets my nerves onedge.
“I didn’t realize you were there,” Isay.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you,” she says.
Shaking my head, I look back at the screen. “It’salright.”
“I was the nurse in theinfirmary.”
