Murder in St. Simon, Florida

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The town of St. Simon sits on a small coastal nook about an hour's drive away from Tampa.  Surrounded by marshes and groves of palms, it's one of the Florida's best kept secrets.  Driving past the exit on the highway, one would likely assume that the town is abandoned, overgrown by nature, or maybe even non-existent.  Despite the privacy, however, St. Simon is not a small backwater comparable to most of the rural small towns in the south.  It is almost a miniature city, one that exists in its own world.  It has major roads and businesses, libraries and parks and public works, neighborhoods and apartments.  The world may have left St. Simon alone, but it went diligently to work creating its own.

This morning, at about 2:11 AM according to the police, the body of a young woman washed up on a stretch of the beach near Dexter's Park.  A ranger on night duty caught movement as a wave appeared to almost toss something onto the shore, and when he got closer he could see it was a body.  There was no identification on the woman and police say that she has no major distinguishing features.  She appeared to be in her mid-twenties and in excellent health.  According to the police, she had been stabbed in the back and drowned in the ocean.  They're keeping their leads to themselves at the moment (read: they don't have a damn clue where to begin).

Who am I, and why am I posting about this?  My name is Callie Forrester.  I've lived in St. Simon my whole life.  The most that's ever happened here is robberies, or so I thought.  Thing is, nobody seems interested in acknowledging this new incident.  The information that I have from the police comes from a cousin on the force.  There has been no press conference.  No media is reporting on the event.  When I asked my cousin if I could talk to somebody involved in this investigation, he became very tense and told me to drop the subject.  That he was only sharing it with me to vent and nothing more.

If there's been a killing in our town, people have a right to know about it in case the murderer intends to strike again.  If the police are keeping it a secret intentionally then there might be something with huge implications for our residents.  The people of St. Simon deserve to be safe.

To that end, I have started this blog to keep track of any events I manage to find out about.  I don't know if anybody from town will even find or read this, but I need to try.  I can't imagine that Trent, my cousin, will be all that thrilled to share anything else with me, so I'm going to be doing some digging of my own.  This weekend, I'm going to see if there's anything interesting in Dexter's Park and if I can figure out who that ranger that reported the body is.  Maybe they'll talk to me, if I help them realize that it's about safety.

Don't leave the edge of your seats, dear readers.  More information on the goings-on in this town will be available soon.

-Callie