Small Town Crime

Photo of a river taken from a bridge with trees in autumn colors and hills.

Don’t worry, I have not (at least not recently) been the victim of a crime, but I did write about some of my experiences living in small towns in a guest post for the Trace Evidence Blog by Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine called “Small Town Crime” that you should totally check out. On a related note if you have actually seen a copy of the July/August issue of AHMM out in the wild, please let me know. So far I have not had any success tracking it down locally.

If you’re still itching for tales of small town crime, then I have one bonus story for you today. This all took place in the same Pennsylvania town I referenced in the guest post. This story all comes to me second hand (which is true of so many small town stories.) Anyway, a couple of the locals were hanging outside of one of the town businesses sipping some coffee, when they saw two women lugging some large outdoor chairs down the sidewalk.

As they watched, the women transported the chairs across state lines, aka walked across the river bridge from Pennsylvania to New Jersey. It was weird, but hey, lots of things in small towns are weird. They probably wouldn’t have thought too much about it, if another woman didn’t come frantically down the sidewalk about ten minutes later saying that someone just stole the chairs off her front porch. “Have, we got news for you,” said the coffee sippers, or something to that effect.

A little while later the victim took a short drive (I’m talking less than a mile short) and sure enough there were her chairs in plain view now in someone else’s yard. This is about the point when I heard the story, but I believe the police were contacted. There was a brief investigation, and if memory serves, the chairs were eventually returned to their rightful owner. As mysteries go, it’s not exactly true crime podcast material.

It’s a mad, mad world. Be careful out there, friends!

—Alissa