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 having been bashed in with a fireplace tool holder. Two local college-age men were arrested and are currently serving long jail terms. Curiously, both offered up confessions when they were picked up for questioning, and both claimed to be the one who had struck the fatal blows.
Local police and prosecutors evidently handled the case well, but no motive has ever been discovered or offered by the perpetrators, which left the townspeople guessing: drug deal gone bad? Turf battle? A psychopath who lost control? Lord of the Flies in an abandoned mansion? No one 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 had apparently had a fight with his girlfriend and was temporarily encamped in the house at the time, might have been lying down when he was killed.
Meanwhile, the big old house sits dark and empty on the hillside, slowly going to seed, its absentee owners apparently still unwilling to part with it.
Mike
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Featured Comments from:
rogerbotting: "Future east coast HQ for TOP? A house with a certain pedigree? Lots of room for each hobby? With a bit of work it could even look like the Munster's house."
Mike replies: I suggested that to S. She gave me that part-skeptical, part-withering look that I seem to have seen from women before, and said, "no."
