The following section of Murder in a Small Town: The Tragic Death of Stacey Burns was written over one year ago. It appears on page 108 of the first draft of the manuscript. The reference to the investigation being in its third year is incorrect, as it is now in its FIFTH year, amazingly enough!
“Alibis can be everything or they can be nothing. With the investigation now in its third year, the one thing that should be certain is that alibis will not have changed since the beginning. However, what may happen could be called an erosion of an alibi. While the police wait for someone to remember something or for someone (like the killer or a friend of the killer) to finally cave into the truth, the erosion of alibis could be occurring. The alibis of (two “persons of interest”) must withstand the most demanding analysis, or at least one would hope they would be subjected to that level of analysis. The real danger with the erosion of alibis over time is that the arduous examination of them will fall victim to the same erosion. This is how people get away with murder.
So ends Chapter Thirteen. Chapters Fourteen and Fifteen attempt to answer the standard investigative question asked of any suspects to establish their alibis. In this case, the question might be phrased like this. “Where were you on the night of May 10, 2009 between the hours of midnight and 5:00 a.m.?” The real question in June of 2013 is whether the alibis have eroded since the murder or has the analysis of those alibis eroded?
Duke
