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house. They had a place out in the country around here—sold and gone now, as far as I know. Anyway, I guess he butchered his own livestock. Add a guy with an odd family, who kept to himself and always had blood on his clothes, and well, he made for an easy target, I guess.”
    “So basically, this guy doesn’t fit into the social norm, and they accuse him of dismembering people?” I asked. “Seems kind of like a stretch to me.”
    “The word is that when they brought him in for questioning, he just clammed up,” Whissell said. “Never plead innocence or anything like that, so they figured they had him. But then more bodies were found in fields that had just been tended. Can’t dump bodies when you’re sitting in a holding cell.”
    But someone else can do it for you. “Any physical evidence found pointing to this man, or was it all just hunches?” I asked.
    “The department went through everything of his: house, barns, vehicles. They never found anything that suggested he did it.”
    “Could have done it somewhere else,” I said.
    “Nothing was ever found that suggested he did.”
    “Where is this guy now?”
    “Matheson disappeared right after the original murders in the eighties,” Whissell said.
    “Disappeared? Doesn’t that kind of raise a red flag?”
    “Probably not the way you are thinking. Again, I only know the stories, so take them for what they are. I guess after he was released, there was still quite a number of people that were pretty damn convinced of his guilt. With that, a makeshift mob kind of formed, and well, one of two things happened. One of the townspeople, um, made him disappear, or he fled to avoid being the victim of the mob. Either way, he was never seen or heard from after. We kind of lean more toward someone around here killed him, though.”
    “Was it ever investigated?” I asked.
    “That I couldn’t tell you.”
    “So you believe a murder happened but never looked into it?”
    “Way before my time,” he said.
    I rubbed my eye. “No cold-case division here?” I asked. “I would think that this would be the number-one priority.”
    “We don’t really have the manpower for working thirty-year-old cases, and these new ones are the FBI’s now, as far as I understand.”
    I didn’t respond.
    “Wife and sons?” Beth asked. “Do you know what happened with them?”
    “Moved along,” Whissell said. “Not sure if anyone knows where they went. I can’t imagine that it was comfortable for them to be around here after.”
    “Don’t think there’s a sliver of a chance it was this Owen Matheson and he came back?” I asked.
    “He’d have to be pushing eighty if he was alive. Pretty damn doubtful that he’d be out doing this.”
    “One of the sons, maybe?” I asked. “You said the one was off. How?”
    “Some kind of mental problems, I heard,” he said.
    “Developmental in nature?”
    “Again, no first-hand knowledge of that. But, as far as I know, he also hasn’t been seen or heard from around here since he and his mother left. Who knows what happened with the other.”
    “Do you know what the wife and son’s name were?” I asked. “Has anyone ever tried to track down these two?”
    “I don’t know the names, no. I could ask around. We have one or two guys that were around back then still floating around the station. As far as anyone ever trying to track them down, I don’t think so.”
    The reason whoever was committing the crimes had never been found was becoming clear to me.
    “Yeah, I’d appreciate if you can get me that information and maybe put me in contact with the deputies,” I said.
    “Sure thing,” Whissell said.
    “Okay. Back to the physical evidence on these new bodies. All we have is the forensic evidence in the files? Nothing more?”
    “Yeah, no prints, no murder weapon, no saw that was used to remove the limbs. We have knife wounds consistent with a big hunting knife and the saw marks on the bones of the remains found. The