What I’m about to tell you never made it into the media and is possibly one of the biggest cover-ups in American history. Fifteen college kids all murdered and not one article ever written. A night that was deleted out of the history books. Gone. Forgotten.
Over the years it made me think a lot about the other stuff that could be out there, hiding away in the FBI closet. More than just skeletons. I was a state trooper in northern Florida for over forty years. Yes sir, on the job since the day I turned twenty-one years old, and to date, those murdered college kids were the darkest thing I’ve ever seen.
It was mid-week sometime in late November. I don’t remember the actual date, but it was sometime near Thanksgiving. I got the call at 0100 hours when I was patrolling I-75 just south of Lake City. The dispatcher told me they’d received a distress call from a group of college kids out in a cabin in the woods, and that even though it was out of my jurisdiction, I was the closest law enforcer nearby, and would I go take a look?
Sure mam, I said, and set out down the highway towards the location.
It ended up being quite deep inside Colombia County, down some rural back roads far out in a forest. I must admit, I thought it was just going to be a routine call. No more than telling a party to pack it up and hit the sack. We get a lot of Gainesville college kids heading up this way in the fall to party it up in a rental cabin, where they can get away with a lot of things they wouldn’t otherwise. Back in the day I’d say they were more frequent, but now and then they still took place.
It was a moonless night, the kind that engulfed the entire countryside in darkness, so that when I was driving along those rural back roads, I felt like I was the last person on earth. Hell, that night I might quite have been the last person on earth. Sure felt that way as I turned off onto a dirt road in the forest.
I remember stopping at the beginning of the track and just waiting. I didn’t know what I was waiting for—just had a feelin’ that there was something down that road that was evil. I can’t explain it. I opened my window and over the soft hum of the engine, there was no noise. Nothing. Normally the woods are crittering with insects, but tonight, you’d have heard a whisper a hundred meters away.
I remember unholstering my gun and placing it on the passenger seat. Somehow I knew I was gonna use that thing—yet even then I could not quite imagine what lay down that path.
Finally, after waiting for what seemed like an eternity, I summed up the courage to start the engine and slowly make my way down.
I found the first body a little past the first turn. The girl was strung by her feet, dangling upside down from a branch that hung over the road.
She was naked, and in the bright headlights her pale body shone. Athletic and flawless.
Her face had been painted like a clown—so it looked like she was smiling upside down. Hell, my flesh broke out in goosebumps at the sight of that body dangling there, grinning at me.
But it wasn’t the smile, nor the makeup that was the most terrifying part. No. It was the eyes. Her eyes reflected the headlights, the pupils’ little yellow balls as if she was still alive.
Before I got out the car, I tried to radio for back up. There was no signal, of course—there never is when you most need it. I got out, anyway, and walked down the dirt road and stood beneath the dead girl. I just wanted to cut her down, but the rope was high up and there was no way that I could get to it.
Meanwhile, those eyes seemed to follow me as I went back to the car and tried to radio again. I think I might have been crying at this point. Don’t really remember. I do remember grabbing my gun, though, making sure the safety was off. By this point I had gone from thinking I was gonna use it—to wanting to use it.
Whoever did that to that poor girl was gonna pay.
I guess I would have the chance later, after all.
I got back in the car and proceeded down the dirt road, making my way underneath the hanging girl. Shit. I was either one brave motherfucker or one stupid son-of-a-bitch. And I think I know which.
The dirt road soon opened up into a small clearing where the cabin was and that’s where I found the rest of them—or most of them, anyway. There are some things in this world that should not be even imagined, let alone seen. And I guess those college kids in front of that cabin were one of those things.
There were thirteen boys and girls, no older than twenty-one, all naked, dead around a table. When I say dead, at first, I didn’t even know they were dead. The bright headlights illuminated them there, and I thought they were ghosts. Pale wraiths that had emerged from the forest to dine at night.
A boy with long hair stood at the end of the table had been propped up by ropes that hung from the trees. A rope had also been attached to one of his hands, which allowed him to hold a cup of wine, like he was making a toast. Upon his head was a crown of thorns.
The rest of them, the college boys and girls, had been placed around the table, watching the one with long hair. Each one naked, their face’s pale and blank and content on their leader.
I just sat there in my car, numb. It took me about a minute to realize it was meant to be the Last Supper. Jesus and his Disciples.
By that time, I was crying. I tried to radio for help, but there was still no answer—and when I was about to turn around and get the hell out of there, a light in the cabin came on.
It was a small cabin, maybe only four or five rooms. Behind the curtains in the window, I could make out the outline of a light bulb. It started to flicker.
I wiped the tears from my eyes and got out the car, gun held in both hands. I found myself inching towards the cabin, every hair on my body erect, my beating heart the only sound in the silent forest.
As I passed the dead bodies at the table, I shivered because I had a feeling that their eyes moved and they watched me pass. I didn’t turn to look, of course. I was too concentrated on the flickering light in the cabin.
When I came to the wooden door, I did not knock, but booted it down with my foot. It gave way and swung back on its hinges … and that’s where he was.
The boy was sat cross legged on the floor beside a Ouija board. Naked like the others.
He looked up at me and grinned.
I put a round of slugs in him.
My colleague told me months later that I arrived back at the station and collapsed in the lobby. He said it took them an hour to get anything coherent out of me—and by that time I was in the hospital.
A week later while still in the hospital ward I got a visit from two men dressed in black suits. They made me sign paperwork that I didn’t even read. They just took my hand and made me scribble on the page. Must have been an entire folder of documents. Then they told me that if I ever spoke about what I saw I would be dealt with.
I never responded, only nodded. At that time I didn’t think I ever could tell anyone, anyway. I knew there would never be a report about it.
Before the two men in black suits left, though, I remember one of them turned to me at the doorway.
He told me I was one lucky son-of-a-bitch to still be alive.