Death in the Everglades E-Book

Karl-Heinz Ruester

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 81

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Beschreibung

Three people are missing. Four days later, they're found dead in the Everglades. What happened?

Leseprobe

This is a work of fiction, names, characters, places, and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance of an actual person, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

It became known early this morning, the three people who had been missing for four days have been found deep in the Everglades. According to news reports, the three were found dead. There bodies have since been taken to the morgue. The media continues to report that the three had suffered a horrible death. According to friends, the three were on an Airboat ride from Everglades City towards Everglades National Park for an "exploration", they were accompanied by an experienced Miccosukee Indian. Because they had not returned late in the evening, a major search operation was initiated by the Miccosukee Police department.

The identities of the dead were swiftly determined as two of the dead carried ID cards. The Captain of the airboat was identified as Will (Eagle) Osceola, he was personally known to the investigators. The other two were Chris Apples and Stan McPride.

The FBI was asked for assistance by the Seminole/Miccosukee Police Department because one of the dead was not an American citizen. Stan McPride was English.

My name is Phil Millner, a detective at the FBI Field Department in Fort Myers, and I was assigned to investigate with my longtime colleague Bert Hunt. We immediately started the investigation. Bert and I went to the scene of the accident, where the three were found. The site could only be reached by airboat or helicopter.

It is located about 11 miles southeast of Everglades City.

The Scenic Loop Road Drive, the closest way to meet people, is 9 miles east. To the North, US 41 (Tamiami Trail) is over 8 miles away. The site is in a sense in the midst of the Everglades.

The scene was extremely grisly even to an experienced police officer who has seen and experienced quite a bit. The airboat was about a mile from the spot where the three men had been found. It was overturned in the shallow water. It was very difficult, even from a helicopter, to identify. Two of the bodies were close together, the other about 800 yards away, closer to the overturned airboat.

Two of the dead had to be cut from the swamp, because they had become entangled in creepers and laid in the knee-deep water. Only the heads of the dead still stood out of the clear water, disfigured by mosquitoes and other creatures, beyond recognition. The dead man, who was found closer to the airboat was not as disfigured as the other two but also was littered by innumerable insect bites.

The forensic team noticed a large laceration at the back of his head, and two punctures or bite marks on his left arm, that were very hard to detect. His legs and arms were bitten by insects too, but recognizable. He was later identivied as Will (Eagle) Osceola.

The scenario itself was a bit unreal, the poor visibility and the shimmering heat, and the light mist over the swamp, did the rest. I've never seen anything like it before, they had no chance to escape the swamp. They must have suffered a terrible death.

We both left and talked on the way back to Fort Myers to the Field Department, about what we had just experienced and seen.

“Was it an accident?” I said to Bert, there was no evidence of a foreign influence to be seen.The laceration at the head of the Indian guide may have come from the accident of the airboat. The other two had probably got tangled in the plants and could not free themselves. Had they tried to rearrange the overturned airboat and had exhausted themselves in the attempt, and then were too weak to free themselves from the plants? If they had tried to walk the way back, a difficult task in itself, only the Indian probably had the necessary experience to create a path.

The swamp is a challenge to anyone trying. And I've noticed that the two of them had gone the wrong way out, this would have taken them even deeper into the Everglades because they were heading south instead of west towards Everglades City or east to Scenic Loop Drive.

Will Osceola, the Miccosukee Airboat captain, the one had been found closer to the overturned boat, probably had a snake encounter and that cost him his life, presumably! The punctures on his left arm make it likely.

These are all questions that need to be clarified. I'm curious to see what results the forensics department comes up with. For example, what is the exact cause of death? I’ll have to apply for an autopsy on the men when I'm back in the office. I didn’t have any phone signal out here.

As far as I can judge, there is no apparent reason to suspect foul play in the death of the three men. I think it was a terrible accident. Bert agreed, he too could not see any third-party involvement at this time.

Arriving at the office, we wrote the inevitable report and thought the case was done. The rest is routine and is handled by the individual departments. So our mission was over, we thought.

A few days later, I had a report from the forensics department on my desk. The case was already puzzling me and I began to doubt the cause of death. Was it not an accident, as we first suspected?

The report said: "The Miccosukee Indian died from a high dose of snake venom, but the bite marks on his left arm are actually too small for that. It is thought that they look more like pinpricks ".

How the other two dead people could get tangled up in creepers, even for the forensic specialist, is a mystery. The exact causes of death are still under investigation.

The creepers in the wetlands are not sturdy enough to hold down an adult human. They are to tear with little effort, even a child would be able to pull free. I tried to imagine why the two could not free themselves from the plants. I came to no conclussion. I thought this all is very strange.

I tried to imagine the scenario:

"Kill three people, wrap two of the dead with the creepers, and tie the legs of the dead"? Then inject the third with snake venom,” absurd, I rejected the thought. But why couldn’t they free themselves from the plants? Is there still another possible scenario? At the moment I can’t think of anybody or anything else. "I immediately called Bert to let him know the result.

Bert also had doubts, maybe there is another clue, he said. All of these questions needed to be answered urgently.

Where did the killer come from, if it was murder? The airboat had, according to witnesses, only the three people on board when it left the dock.

The autopsy report of the dead confirmed the first investigations of the forensic staff. The Miccosukee Indian succumbed to a high dose of snake venom found in his body (it was identified as the poison of a Cottonmouth Water Moccasin). But the bite marks on his arm are too tiny for them to come from a snake.

The other two probably died of weakness and the consequences of high temperatures. There were daytime temperatures of over 91 F with a very high humidity for the time of the day. And as always, the mosquitoes appear in myriad swarms.

The Seminole Police Department informed me a day later that the two dead, except the airboat captain, belonged to a consortium based in Miami. According to Seminole colleagues, the consortium plans to build a huge city in the Everglades of Las Vegas style. It was called the Consortium for Development in Southwest Florida called, "CDSF" for short.

Hello, I thought, now things are getting very interesting. Bert said to me, "Have you ever heard anything about this? Plans to build a city in the middle of the Everglades?"

Upon further investigation, we came across links from the Consortium, to the Miccosukee and Seminole Tribes.

“We should visit the Seminole and Miccosukee Tribes, to see how much the clans knew about the disappearance and death of the three men, or about the plan of a city in the Everglades,” I said.

The Seminole Indian Tribe owns a casino in Immokalee. The Miccosukee Tribe maintains a resort and casino in Miami. The tribe also runs gaming casinos on all of its lands. Miccosukee Casino is located on US 41, Tamiami Trail and Krome Avenue. All the casinos were very successful.

Bert said, "We should ask a colleague from the Seminole Police Department for assistance because the 'accident site' falls under their jurisdiction anyway."

I called the Seminole Police Department and we were assigned to colleague Harry (Snake) Cypres.

We contated Harry (Snake) Cypres the next morning and arranged to meet at the Miccosukee Resort and Gaming Casino in Miami.

Snake, as he preferred to be called, was a Special Deputy Officer of the Miccosukee Police Department. All deputies were responsible for crimes committed in the Indian Reservation.

Although there was no concrete suspicion of a crime yet, there should be no possibility left out. I was particularly interested in the connections of the tribes to the Consortium for Development in Southwest Florida, as they called themselves.

Initial investigations revealed that the consortium included some very influential people. Yes, even connections to higher circles in Washington could not be ruled out.

The consortium was based in Miami, at the most expensive location. There were no names yet, but one thing is clear so far, it's a very influential company with a huge financial background. There are some details that there also could be links to the Drug Mafia.

My colleagues from the relevant departments are already working feverishly on that matter.