Broken Angels

62

The details surrounding the strangulation murders of the three victims found along the banks of the Schuylkill River had leaked, and every newspaper in the city, the region, and the state was carrying the story of a compulsive killer in Philadelphia. The headlines, as expected, were lurid.

A Fairy Tale Murderer in Philadelphia?

A Fabled Killer?

Who is the Schuylkiller?

Hansel and Regrettable? trumpeted the Record, a tabloid rag of the lowest order.

The usually jaded Philadelphia media were off and running. There were news crews up and down the Schuylkill River, doing stand-up shots on the bridges, on the banks. A news helicopter had flown the entire length of the river, taking footage as it did so. The bookstores and libraries could not keep books on Hans Christian Andersen on the shelves, nor the works of the Brothers Grimm and Mother Goose. It was close enough for the sensationalists.

Calls were coming into the department every few minutes about ogres and monsters and trolls following children throughout the city. One woman called and said she had seen a man in a wolf costume in Fairmount Park. A sector car followed up and found it to be true. The man was currently in the drunk tank at the Roundhouse.

By the morning of December 30 there were a total of five detectives and six crime-scene officers assigned to investigate the crimes.

Sa'mantha Fanning had not yet been found.

There were no suspects.