My current trip to see S. hasn't proven to be a photographic one, save for a very cool exhibition in Manhattan I'll tell you about presently. But I had to show you this mansion in her little New York State town...the site of the locally notorious "Pine Street murder."
The outline of the story as I read about it is that the owners of the house decamped to warmer climates many years ago, and for whatever reason declined to put their former home on the market. As it sat empty year after year, eventually local teenagers found their way inside and began to use the premises for what a police Lieutenant called "certain activity" [sic]. The police began visiting regularly to answer complaints of trespassing, vagrancy, vandalism and the like.
Then, to the shock and scandal of the normally peaceful little town, the body of a 28-year-old local man was discovered stuffed into a cabinet, dead, his skull bashed in with a fireplace tool holder. Two local college-age men were arrested, pleaded guilty, and are currently serving long jail terms.
No motive has ever been offered by the perpetrators, which has left the town guessing: drug deal gone bad? Turf battle? A psychopath who lost control? Lord of the Flies in an abandoned mansion? No one really knows. One killer tried to claim self defense (negated because he did not retreat to safety but kept up his attacks even after the victim was incapacitated), and forensic evidence suggests that the victim, who was apparently homeless and living in the house at the time, was probably lying down when he was killed.
Local police and prosecutors evidently handled the case well.
Meanwhile, the big old house sits dark and empty, slowly going to seed, its absentee owners apparently still unwilling to part with it.
Mike
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