Un long read pubblicato su The Atavist Magazine racconta come l’utilizzo di Internet per fini investigativi – affiancato a quello delle più moderne tecnologie di indagine scientifica – sia stato fondamentale per la soluzione del caso di una ragazza scomparsa ad Holland, in Michigan, nel lontano 1989 e per la determinazione dell’identità di un serial killer.

For most residents of Holland, Michigan, there was nothing remarkable about March 11, 1989, a Saturday. Frost on the ladders of the city’s water towers thawed in the sun—spring was just over a week away. Mothers poured milk over cereal for kids watching back-to-back episodes of their favorite cartoons. Fathers who worked weekends drove pickup trucks to industrial jobs at local automotive and concrete companies. But all was not well in the house on the corner of Lincoln Road and 52nd Street. It belonged to Dennis and Brenda Bowman, a married couple with two children. For the Bowmans, March 11 marked the last time they saw their 14-year-old daughter, Aundria, alive.

Dennis quel giorno al ritorno dal lavoro chiamò per primo la polizia per denunciare la scomparsa della figlia adottiva.

Dennis was the one who contacted the police. He told them that he’d come home from his job as a wood machinist to find Aundria missing, along with some of her belongings and $100 from his dresser. Dennis described Aundria—whom he and Brenda had adopted when she was an infant—as a troubled teenager who frequently fought with her mother and had run away to a friend’s house once before.

La mancanza di una somma di denaro che si trovava sul cassettone di Dennis fu sufficiente per accusare la ragazza di furto ed etichettarla come una fuggiasca.

Dennis agreed to call around to the homes of kids Aundria knew to find out if anyone had seen her. But his wife soon took over as the family’s point of contact. It was Brenda who called the police regularly, and Brenda who corrected the amount of cash missing from her husband’s dresser to $150. That was enough for police to issue a warrant for Aundria’s arrest for larceny; the warrant listed Dennis as the victim of his daughter’s alleged crime.

Ma le cose erano andate diversamente.

A sketch artist and a grieving mother set out to solve a cold case. The more they dug, the more terrifying the truth became.

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