Will Stacey Burns’ murderer ever be caught? I’m not usually a pessimist but the reality of this situation can drive the optimism out of even the strongest believer in the “glass half full” philosophy of life.

Four years and eight months is more than enough time for witnesses to have their stories muddled, for evidence to be compromised, for urgency to turn to stoicism, for passion to turn to numbing acceptance.

Will Stacey’s friends and family have to wait another five years, or another ten, or fifteen, or forever?

I’ve just finished a book in which a private detective is hired seventeen years after a murder to try to find a suspect in the crime other than the one the police have in custody. Granted, this is fiction, but the elements in the story are quite real. Imagine, in May, 2026, a private investigator trying to reconstruct the murder of Stacey Burns. To me, that is not an appealing sequence of events yet time moves inexorably on, seeming to gain momentum with each passing day. Urgency to solve this case somehow has to be regained.

Duke