Bulwer-Lytton Contest Inspired Story

Finding the identity of a headless corpse is like finding a particular blue fin tuna that was caught the day before but was released because it had this scary gash in its side, but your engagement ring was lost and perhaps this tuna got a hold of it and you need to get it back; fortunately, this was not going to be like this because she had her driver's license with her.

It is really hard to match a driver's license photo with a person without a head, but with a record of height and weight and home address there was a place to begin for getting a proper identification of the person although she probably lied about her weight and perhaps even her height because that is what people do, but without the head perhaps they were in the ballpark on the weight.

After a few days of investigation, they were sure it was Mary Ellen since she missed a few days of work, she did not show up at her apartment ,and the fact that her parents positively identified her from a scar on her left side she got as a teenager backing into their 1976 Sea-Island Green Mercury Comet's car door which was slightly rusty, and she had to get a tetanus shot, so they went to a fancy sweater boutique and got her a nice sweater with puppies on it.

Like putting together a Great American Puzzle Factory 550 piece jigsaw puzzle of dogs playing with a football under autumn leaves, the police investigators were beginning to get the picture as to what happened to Mary Ellen, who was the girl who liked a sweater with puppies upon it which was quite ugly in the opinion of all of the police personnel who saw it.

Like in the 15th century when there was an unknown continent between Europe and Asia and some person convinced the Queen of Spain to provide provisions to sail west to get to the east and finds North America which was named after a map maker rather than this Italian sailor, the affair between Sam and Mary Ellen was bound to be discovered by the authorities.

The good cop / bad cop interrogation technique, where one cop acts all friendly with the suspect and the other acts mean, is an effective method for finding out information on criminal suspects but was completely ineffectual on Sam DeLaney because he was so frightened and distraught that all he did was wail like a spoiled child whose parents have decided to not give into the tantrums so the child gets increasingly louder until the parents give in.

The police investigators had more luck with Mrs. Sam DeLaney as she went on and on like the same spoiled child explaining the proper tantrum technique to the kids on the playground and how it worked the time a highly sought after "Tickle-Me Elmo" was obtained, and fortunately for her she had an alibi at the time of the crime because she was at the emergency room of the local hospital with what could be called a bad case of projectile vomiting.

From interviewing some of the individuals Mary Ellen's work, the police discovered the relationship between Easton Leuer and Mary Ellen, and when they went to his place to ask him a few questions, they discovered the shrine of Mary Ellen in one corner of his room where he hung photos taken with his Nikon D-60 digital SLR camera with autofocus 75-300mm zoom lens and printed on his HP Color LaserJet CP1215 and placed in frames purchased at Walmart for $1.99 plus tax.

Like a Parmigiani Fleurier Kalpagraph with a palladium dial, an 18k pink gold face, oblong watch buttons, and a black alligator band with tongue buckle, the case was ticking along very nicely as they already had three suspects and eliminated one who, as the hospital stated, had a very bad case of projectile vomiting, but the other two had motive and opportunity to do the deed but they wanted to follow up on the 1978 Chevrolet Chevette that she was found in.

Following this particular lead was like driving the 1978 two-tone brown Chevrolet Chevette in question on Lombard Street in San Fransisco with the twists, turns and the bumps in the road which became quite a fascinating journey that led to a certain crime family in New Jersey that for reasons of an on-going federal investigation will not be mentioned here.

The Chevette was formerly registered to a William DeLaney Jr. who, with his brother Lester, run a company that forges manhole covers in Piskataway New Jersey, but he had reported the car stolen several years previously and it was a shame because he wanted to give it to his son on his 16th birthday but instead gave him a used slightly rusty 1976 sea-island green Mercury Comet.

When the classic Chevy Chevette was stolen it had 25,672 miles on the odometer and since it only had 5 digits William DeLaney Jr. explained that it had 125,672 miles on the car and since it had 27,411 miles on the odometer at the time it was retrieved from the river it was either driven 1,739 miles or 101,739 miles in the intervening years; thus, the police concluded that the car was driven to Minnesota and parked for when it was needed.

The long term storage led the police to the previously mentioned crime family and also to Mary Ellen's considerable gambling debts which were aggravated when she placed a large bet on the 13 point favored Minnesota Viking against winless Detroit Lions and while the Vikings managed to win, they only won by 2 points and Mary Ellen was unable to come up with the money she owed the said crime family.

With more investigation, both Sam DeLaney and stalker Easton Leuer were cleared from the murder investigation of Mary Ellen as Orlando "The Flamingo" Jackson confessed to the crime as a part of a greater on going federal investigation in exchange for entering the federal witness protection program and testimony against other members of the flamboyant crime family.