MURDER

       I wrote the last post for my friend, Bob. He commented that we had taught together in the same school for 24 years and he didn't know the story of my first year teaching. So,  I was trying to explain how Bob could find more about me. 

       I thought I'd have some fun with Bob and ask him to search for murder on my blog. To be safe I checked it out myself. I was very surprised that the story I was looking for was not there but there were five other stories.

     So that gives me my topic for today. 

     Many times I've told you of teaching in a very isolated northern community. I have no idea how close the nearest road came to me. I know that I was 300 miles from any service like medical and air transportation. Flights into the community were only occasional.

    Did I say this was supposed  to be about murder? Well , yes, but I had to set things up. 

    I was working for the federal Government. I was in the province of Quebec so there was some friction between the two governments. 

    One early Sunday morning, when we were still in bed, one of the people came and said, "Alisi's baby not good." The Micro Manager had been treating this little girl so she quickly got dressed and on her way to check on the baby. 

    To The Micro Manager's horror, when she got there, the little girl was dead. Furthermore, it was very obvious that the little girl had been beaten. The MM hurried back to the house to take the next steps in the case.

    The Quebec Govt. looked after justice matters. So off to the Quebec administrator we went. Al, The Quebec administrator, radioed the only police man within 300 miles. Horror of horrors. There were no airplanes to bring him to our settlement. He  said it could be six weeks before he got in. So , over the radio , he told us what he wanted us to do. We were to collect the body. That was the Al's  job but he asked me to go with him. The MM was to make a sketch showing the injuries. It was gruesome There were many burns and bruises. 

    Now, I was a naive prairie boy, who never ever dreamed that I would find my self looking after such  situation. We were to put the body in a box and keep it in the Al's garage. It was late Sept. so the garage would be cool. Now we were pretty nervous as neither one of had any experience with bodies. We went down and Al   picked the little girl up in his arms. After we said we should have taken the box and carried her in the box. 

    Fortunately the police man who was younger than Bob and I came in 5 days later and took the body and mother. Oh, I didn't say that it was obvious the mother had beaten the child. What did we do with the murderer those 5 days? We couldn't arrest her. We could not hold her in custody.  Her niece said that she would stay with her aunt and they carried on with daily life. The lady was seriously mentally ill and was not likely to harm any one else. 

   So again, I never thought I would be in such a situation. I'm sure that no other criminal situation would have been handled the way Al and I looked after it. 

    I haven't had to look after another case since!.