A MURDER RUNS THROUGH IT
The McStay Family Murder
And why it took so long to solve
One of the problems police encounter when investigating a missing persons or murder case where the body has not been found is this:
The party (or parties) at the center of the investigation are not there to tell law enforcement what happened.
The victims are, in essence, silenced, and those charged with the task of investigating the crime must rely on what the people around the victim have to say. As the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department learned in a very public and at times embarrassing way, not everyone who talks to you tells you the truth.
Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street
This short story by Herman Melville is considered a tour de force of short fiction, and when I was a teenager, it was hard to go through high school without reading this story.
The first time I read it, I was a sophomore. I did not particularly like the teacher who had assigned it as I generally found his choices suspect, but despite my reservations, something about Bartleby stuck with me, and decades later when I found myself in charge of my own class and reading…
