M. William Phelps

Detective DiBenedetto is back at home base, digging through finances and the paper trail to see if any patterns or information jump out.

Was Schwartz in financial trouble?

Did he somehow get himself involved in a bit of shady business that could have led to his murder?

Could he himself be part of a satanic group nobody knew about?

If there is one thing I have learned about murder investigations of this nature, include every possibility until you can exclude it.

So DiBenedetto began combing through Dr. Schwartz's credit card receipts and bank statements over the previous week to see if that information might tell a story.

For Greg Locke, after leaving the autopsy, like any old school police investigator, he next focused on the most obvious, Dr. Schwartz's friends, family, colleagues, and neighbors.

The chances that anyone in the neighborhood had seen anything were slim.

with the house being secluded, set so far back into the woods.

Being good neighbors and decent people, the couple invited the young guy in.

Anyone who murdered Schwartz would not have visited a neighbor and called the tow truck to pull them out of being stuck in the mud.

But perhaps these people had seen something.

Perhaps they were witnesses and didn't even know it.

Could these young strangers have possibly seen someone at the Schwartz residence?

What investigators do know is that a man was violently killed in his own home as he was cooking a meal for himself on a rainy Saturday night.

that he probably let the killer into his house and had little idea of the horrible fury that would imminently come down upon him that the crime scene was offering precious few clues as to who the killer was and that around the same time as this vicious deed occurred three young adults were stuck in their stationary vehicle just down the road waiting for a tow truck to drag them out of their muddy confinement

As I thought about all of this, something key happy face killer Jesperson once told me years before rang in my ears.

There are no coincidences in murder, only connections.

next time on fatal fantasy investigators deliver the death notification to dr schwartz's family and the search for the three youngsters stuck in the mud produces a major lead she seemed to take a pause for a second and then she didn't look up she didn't gasp she didn't all she said

And a shocking piece of evidence is discovered.