August 15

Every choice I had made in my life has led to this exact point where I was hiding a dead body. Who knew that August 15 was about to change my life forever. It all started when my father got diagnosed with stage 4 Alzheimer’s. He started forgetting small things at first, but then it became worse. He started forgetting his name and the surrounding people. A few years ago, when my mom had died in an accident, his mind was shattered, which made him mentally unstable. My father was a well-known man in the society, they knew him for his work in the criminology department and he also wrote many murder stories. He was an inspiration to many people. When my father’s Alzheimer’s started getting worse, he started writing words and scribbling pictures of axes on the walls. My thoughts had led me to go see a specialist doctor in Virginia. It was August 13 when I left. My father stayed in the local care home with a close family friend. The doctor I had gone to meet mentioned details about the drawings. He said people with Alzheimer’s write things to help themselves remember. My mind was at ease, but I knew that something was out of place. It was August 15 when I returned. My father was missing. He wasn’t at the care home and no one had seen him. I searched for him everywhere until I realized it was the 15th I went to my father’s house. My father’s Alzheimer’s only allowed him to remember stuff. Every year on August 15th he would go back to his house because that was the day my mom had died. I entered the house, and I was very shocked. I found him unconscious next to a dead body, and a blood-filled axe. I was very confused, but I had the same questions as you. A murder? Who is this person? Why is my father next to the body? Why would my father kill this person? What is the connection? I had so many questions, but I had no time. I had two choices. I could leave out the front door and get the cops or leave out the back door and hide this murder. If I go to the cops, everything my father worked for would have been gone in a second. They would have branded him a murderer. I was not about to let that happen after all; he was my father. It was exactly 12:01 am August 16. All I could think about was hiding this body. My father’s fingerprints were all over the body. I needed to cover it up. I dragged the body outside and gathered all the paint I could find from my basement and poured it all over the body to erase all prints. I moved my father out of the house and went back to gather the body in my car and headed to the nearby river; I dumped the body and headed back to my house. [day 1] It was the next morning, the murder was all over the news. My father didn’t remember anything that happened last night. The words on the walls finally made sense, He wrote words like “kill” “stab” and “murder”, I didn’t want to believe it but all the evidence were against my father. [day 4] As days passed the police were closer to finding out the murderer, I needed to solve this case before they did. I was also a criminal psychologist like my father and the way this person was murdered was very similar to these other murders. Three stabs on the center back and an axe on the forehead. The town we live in is known for these types of mysterious murders and tracing back all these murders have the same pattern. The pattern was that they would go missing for a week and end up dead. Over the past few years, a teacher, a policeman, and a plumber were murdered but the dead lady found in my father’s home was a doctor. All these people lived in the same neighborhood, one person all these people had in common with is the mailman. I went through the old case files again in case I missed something, and I was right I did miss something. The mail man everyone was supposed to have a connection with only has been the mail man for this town for the last 2 weeks. There was no way he had murdered those people, theoretically it was impossible even undercover. My theory was that whoever planned this murder knew that my father would be in his house only on that date, which allowed him to perfectly frame my father. YES, it was all clear now. My father was mentally unstable which is very common in people who commit murders. As more days passed, someone my father was close to approached me at my workplace. They said they knew about everything that happened that night. I knew exactly what he was talking about. He said that as he knew my father would go to his house only on the 15th and decided that he would go see my father as he knew I was out of town. As he was headed to the house, he saw a suspicious figure dressed in black come out of the house. He followed the person until he headed into an abandoned warehouse and lost him. He said that he went back over to the house and found my father unconscious on the floor next to a dead body, he ran off because he was scared but he said as he ran out, he found an ID card on the floor. He handed the card over to me. When I turned it over and looked. I was more than shocked, I was shaking. It was one my father’s oldest friends. Ever since they were young, he had always been jealous of my father for his achievements because he had always received more attention. When my father got his criminal psychology degree, he was more than angry he wanted to hurt my father. Which now makes sense of why he thought to frame my father for this murder. I HAD SOLVED THE MURDER. I had all the proof and evidence I needed. I headed to police station and said I found the ID card near by the riverbank. A few days later, my fathers so-called friend was arrested. All those other mysterious murders that happened in this town remained unsolved at the end of the day, but I had a chance to prove my father innocent at the end of the day and I am definitely thankful for that. I am 22-year-old, Catherine Campbell and that was my story. That day I chose to go through the second door which today proved my father innocent, if I had got the police, I would have never been able to get justice for my father. I made the right choice for my father in that position. Believe it or not, this has changed my life forever.