This mystery remains unsolved.
The clouds hung ominously low in the sky as a hard-boiled gal emerged from the ironically-named Fresh Grocer with two bags of provisions. Her name was Hesta, and she headed north, on foot, toward headquarters, the frigid wind beating rotten leaves against her spats. She couldn’t help but notice this part of town had seen better days. When she reached the corner of 40th and Spruce, she came upon a strange and chilling scene. Just outside the Mexican Cantina, on the colorless sidewalk, lay a severed, russet-brown braid. It was a human braid. Coolly, she shot one glance up and another glance down the street, but she appeared to be the first on the scene. Hesta had known she’d rue the day she left her camera and evidence kit at the station, but she had had no choice as toting them to the grocer would have caused a stir—and the dicks back there wanted her famous hot apple crisp, bad. Thinking fast, she made a sharp, expressionless volte-face and headed toward HQ. Without uttering a syllable to the boys, she dropped the goods inside the compound, snatched her tools and scuttled back to the scene.
The corpus delicti was still there when Hesta returned. She maintained her sangfroid, though never before had she encountered mayhem of this degree. Placing the camera beneath her billowing coat, she snapped a few shots of the gruesome mess, a few of the environs, and then fled the scene before anybody could bat an eye.
Hesta knew this perp was good—too good. Aside from the chopped hairy plait, the malefactor left not a shred of evidence behind. The only thing Hesta knew for certain was that it took a sick, criminal mind to commit an iniquity this heinous and it was only a matter of time before the killer would trim again.
WARNING: The crime scene photos below depict material of a graphic and potentially disturbing nature.
Below: The environs. 40th and Spruce. 3:06pm.
Below: Approaching the scene.
Below: Close-up of the massacre.
2 comments:
Thanks for the heads up. I think I will buy some dippity do and glue all my hair flat to my head so the perp cannot cut any off. It sounds like everyone should do this, don't worry dippity makes a stylish do!
I love that you have brought up this topic of severed braids. For the longest time, when I had resided in Philly, I thought to myself, is this a joke? Am I the only pedestrian stumbling onto these braids on the sidewalk? Doesn't anyone else find these macabre scenes too disturbing to ignore, or does one simply become desensitized to these gruesome crimes after living here for X amount of time? Indeed, after a period of time, I fell into the latter of the self-imposed questions and no longer notices the braids. Sometimes out sheer annoyance or brashness, I would kick the braids onto the street and watch the Septa buses run them over. Desensitized or not, I still followed the exact prescription that Katie mentions in her comment and began to apply Liquid Nails to my head in order to lessen my chances of becoming victim of such senseless crime.
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