AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No,” she agreed, tearing three sugar packets and dumping them into her coffee. “But someone is attacking and killing kids in wooded areas. Montour County, Lenore County, and now your county.”
Josie mapped the locations out in her head. They were all relatively close to one another, each place only one to three hours from the others. “Tell me about the cases.”
“The first one was in Lenore County. Seventeen-year-old male, Mark Canva and a sixteen-year-old female, Amanda Chavez went into the woods together around eleven thirty on a Saturday night. They told a few friends they were going to spend the night in the woods to see if they could find the Woodsman. The next morning Amanda’s parents saw she hadn’t slept in her bed. Tried calling her. No answer. Mark and Amanda were dating, so Amanda’s parents tried Mark next. Nothing. They called the county sheriff to report Amanda missing. Amanda’s phone was still on and had a charge, so they pinged it. Took some searching since the ping only gave them a three-mile radius to work with but they found her body in the woods. Her head was smashed in. Autopsy confirmed blunt force trauma to the head as the cause of death. No sign of sexual assault. Three hours later, they found Mark wandering around the woods about six miles away. He was in shock. We thought he was catatonic or something, but after a couple of days in the hospital he started talking.”
In spite of the dread she was feeling, Josie’s stomach growled. Heather pushed the bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich closer. “They’re not the worst thing I’ve ever had.”
Reluctantly, Josie opened it, taking a tentative bite. It was cold but her stomach clamored for more. “What did Mark Canva say when he started talking?”
“They were walking around in the woods. It was an area behind some old, abandoned church. No residences for miles. No roads for miles.”
“How many miles are we talking?” asked Josie.
“Maybe ten miles north to south and about seven or eight east to west? They went in closest to the southwest corner. Parked by the church. Mark said they had flashlights with them. We recovered one of them. They also had their phones, like I said. He thinks it was about two thirty in the morning, a little after, when they heard something. Amanda got scared. He said it was probably deer. They huddled by a tree for a while. Didn’t hear anything else so they kept going. Couple of minutes later, he says someone attacked Amanda. At least he thinks that’s what happened. He said she tripped and went down. Her flashlight rolled away. He only saw her feet and then someone came at him from behind. A man.”
“He saw the guy, then,” Josie said. She ate the last bit of the breakfast sandwich and pulled her coffee toward her once more.
“No, it was too dark. He just thinks it was a man because of the guy’s strength. Mark is six foot two, over two hundred pounds. He said the guy knocked him down, kicked him in the back.”
Josie poured two sugar packets into her coffee and stirred. “Did Mark have any visible injuries?”
“Some bruising on his back,” said Heather.
“What happened after he got knocked down?”
“Mark says the guy kept kicking him, so he ran. He was trying to find help but lost both his flashlight and his phone. Then he tried to go back to check on Amanda but he couldn’t find her. That’s why he was wandering around when we found him. To be honest, I think his biggest injury is the guilt he feels that he couldn’t protect her—or even find his way back to her once he got away from the attacker.”
“You don’t think he did it?”
Heather looked at the television. Kayleigh Patchett’s face was back on the screen. “That was my first thought and I’ve got no proof that he didn’t, but my gut tells me he told the truth about what happened.”
Josie sipped her coffee. It might take a layer of tissue from the inside of her stomach, but it wasn’t the worst she’d ever tasted. “What about the scene?”
“It was a mess. It started pouring rain the next morning while we were searching. If there was anything there, it got destroyed.”
“You said Amanda Chavez died from a blow to the head?”
“Her head was smashed in. Almost like something fell on her. The ME thinks that she was in a prone position when she was struck.”
“She fell or was knocked down and then struck,” Josie said. “Any idea with what?”
“A big rock. We found what we believe was the murder weapon but with the rain, most of the blood and tissue were washed from it. But this guy had to be big to wield this thing.”
“What about the other case?” Josie asked. “In Montour County?”
Heather pawed through the pile of breakfast sandwiches between them before pushing them away. “Same thing. Two kids go into the woods. Only one comes out. Two girls. Sarah McArthur and Dawn Angels. Sixteen and fifteen. They were having a sleepover at Sarah’s house and decided to sneak out in the middle of the night and take a walk in the woods.” She motioned to the television which was showing footage of the line searches. “She lived in an area like that. Home out in the middle of nowhere. Forest all around. These two didn’t bring flashlights, only Sarah’s phone. We know from the GPS on the phone that they were out there for about three hours before anything happened. The younger one, Dawn, says that Sarah got her foot stuck in a hole and she couldn’t get her out. They were going to call 911 but the flashlight app ran the battery all the way down, especially while they were trying to get Sarah’s foot out. Dawn said it was some kind of rope or wire or something. A cable, maybe, inside the hole. They couldn’t get her loose. Dawn left her there to go back to the house and get help.”
“She got lost.”
“Well, yeah, but she did eventually find her way back to the house, near dawn. Sarah’s parents called 911. They pinged the phone. Found Sarah about two miles from the house, no longer stuck, no cable, rope, or wire to be found. She was face down with a fracture to the back of her skull. Autopsy confirmed manner of death as blunt force trauma, same as the other case. No sign of sexual assault.”
Josie swirled the dregs of her coffee around in the bottom of the cup. “He struck her from behind.”
“Looks that way. We also think that the place she was found is not where she got stuck. We couldn’t pinpoint that location. It was dark when the kids went out. We did line searches of the area, but we didn’t find much. We could not locate the place she got her foot stuck—or anything that it may have gotten stuck in. But Dawn was right.”
“What do you mean?”
Heather leaned forward, putting her elbows on top of the table. “Sarah McArthur was wearing sweatpants and sneakers. Around her ankle were ligature marks. Thin.”
