Regarding a Murder - Part 4

Regarding a Murder

Part 4 of 4

By Stan Morgan

Private Investigator

A True Story

A private investigator revisits an old murder, one that impacted him directly when he was a child.

“It was November 18, 1947. I had just turned eight and was in the Third Grade at Wayside Elementary School in the southern edge of Bakersfield. 

Every day, my younger brother and I walked the three-quarters of a mile from our house in the Southgate area to the school. To avoid walking along the busy Casa Loma Highway, we crossed the irrigation canal on a narrow cement bridge, a hundred yards south of the Highway. It was near there that the grisly event occurred. 

A kindergartener, a five-year-old girl was murdered the night before, battered innumerable times, the radio said, with a hammer.  Every time the radio re-told the story, a new set of shivers would go up and down my spine. I was afraid, pee-in your-pants afraid.

To make matters even more fearful, she was murdered in our pretend ‘pirate’s cave’ just steps from the concrete bridge across the irrigation canal which we used everyday on our way to school. 

We had played in it often, sometimes spending all day there.”

This is a true story using original source materials which may be graphic in their content. Listeners are encouraged to use discretion.