There were no murders in Springfield in July. I was away for 10 days in Spain, perhaps that explains the lull. Rather than moving on and reporting on other things one local reporter took it upon himself, perhaps at the urging of his editors, to publish this:
It includes a review of the murders which have taken place already this year. The wording in the story is wonderful: no “reported” murders. The reporter lives in hope that perhaps the body of a brutally raped and murdered (in July!!!!!) octogenarian might still be found in a crawl space in a house in Sixteen Acres; hope springs eternal. And despite the slowdown, we might still break a record…if we really put our minds to it!
Also of note, two very positive stories about economic expansion in the city were not posted to the Springfield section of Masslive while at the same time two crime stories with no connection to the city were!
And the pièce de résistance, this story:
You thought I was kidding about these stories, didn’t you? It amounts to “police find a piece of metal in the street”.