Chapter 2: The Last Family Supper

College students were a rare breed in the '90s, especially out in these parts.

Most kids around here went straight to work after high school, or sooner. If you went off to college, your name was bound to come up at the gas station every time you came home.

So our bosses told us this case had to be worked top to bottom—no mistakes.

This wasn’t just about justice. It was about the town’s pride, its reputation, and the hope that maybe, just maybe, one of their own could make it out.

But there was also the brutality of the crime.

Nobody in the sheriff’s office had seen anything like it—not even the oldest hands. It was the kind of thing you only read about in big city papers.

All three victims had been hacked to pieces, barely any skin left untouched.

The reports were dry and clinical, but nothing could prepare you for the real thing: violence so raw it felt almost like a message, like the killer wanted to erase them from the earth.

After torturing them, the killer even cut off their heads and set them on the family’s old oak dining table—facing the wall covered in family photos.

That table had been the heart of the Mitchell kitchen, hand-carved by Harold’s granddad. Now it was a gruesome altar, the family’s faces staring at their own memories, as if demanding some reckoning.

It made you wonder what kind of sins could bring that down on a family—or if it was just plain madness.

Even worse, nobody found the bodies right away. The killer left the door unlocked, so stray dogs and cats wandered in and chewed the victims’ bodies to pieces. The scene was beyond words.

Even for old-timers, the sight and the smell haunted their dreams for weeks. Some talked about bringing in grief counselors, but most folks just kept quiet or drank a little more.

The neighbor who called it in said the Mitchells farmed at home, but there were really four in the family.

The Browns, who lived just down the gravel road, were the first to notice the buzzards circling. Mrs. Brown called the sheriff, her voice shaky over the static-filled line.

There was also a younger son—the only college student in town.

People talked about him with both pride and jealousy: the boy who got out.

His name was Kevin Mitchell, twenty-two years old, just about to finish college.

Kevin was the town’s claim to fame, the one everyone pointed to when they needed proof that not all the kids got stuck in the holler.

So while the bodies went for autopsy, we got in touch with Kevin’s school.

That meant calling up the state university’s registrar, hoping for a clue.

That’s when we found out—

He’d taken leave from school two weeks earlier.

Not just skipping class—he’d signed out official-like. That got people talking.

Through his advisor, we learned Kevin had taken leave to bring his girlfriend home to meet his folks.

Word was, the Mitchells wanted to meet her before Kevin graduated and moved off to the city. It was a big deal—the kind of family get-together reserved for graduations, funerals, or holidays.

At the same time, we got another name—

Emily Carter, Kevin’s classmate and girlfriend.

Emily Carter. Nobody local knew her, but soon her name was on everyone’s lips.

She was also the main suspect in the massacre.

The idea that a quiet, smart girl like Emily could do something so vicious made everyone’s skin crawl. It didn’t fit any story people wanted to believe.

Why’d we finger her so quick?

The evidence pointed that way from the start, even if it didn’t sit right with anyone.

Because on the second day after the murders, when we combed through the house—

We found Kevin, locked up and half-dead in the storage room out back.

He was half-starved, wild-eyed, clutching a ratty old blanket. The smell of old grain and fear stuck to him like sweat.

What Kevin told us about those days at home was even worse than the murders themselves.

His account peeled back the normal-looking surface of the Mitchells, showing us something rotten underneath.