The Deadly Diary

Sometime, way back when, people got it into their heads that writing a daily diary was a good thing. Therapy. Collecting and organizing thoughts, etc. Some parents encourage their kids to write diaries - then the kids - realizing that parents are sneaking peeks - hide them.

In a tragic story I was recently told, I was given cause to wonder if keeping a diary is really such a good thing or even a safe thing. The person who told me this story is in the murder business. He investigates murders for a living. He used to work for the state, but now he has his own shingle and works for lawyers who defend murder suspects.

It seems that several years ago that there was a young girl that was murdered. It seems these days that young girls get murdered all the time. In this case, the young girl kept a diary. Whether mom knew about the diary, we'll never know. However after her daughter was brutally murdered mom "found" the diary. While reading her murdered daughter's diary, she made a starting discovery. Her young girl was socially very active - if you get my drift. She told of her experiences and mentioned names. Sometimes the names of prominent young men in the community. Distressed and devastated the mom did what she thought was the right thing to do. She gave the diary to the head police official investigating the murder.

The head police official - not a very straight up guy - recognized many of the names in the diary and realized the value of the book was much greater for himself than using the book to solve the young girl's murder. He took the diary to the person who would be most threatened by its contents. That person asks him - What are we going to do about the mother who gave this to you? The high police official - who is now a conduit - shrugs and says this is not his problem.

Finally it is decided that it would be much better for the interested parties to "buy" the mother off than use the diary as evidence in a murder trial. That's the way it came down. The rather humble and semi-impoverished mom and dad, get a nice house and piece of property out of the deal, the diary disappears, and the prominent well-connected murderers and accomplices never make it to trial - all because of a diary and a naive mother who thought the high police offical would do the right thing.

Did this really happen - or is it my friends imagination?