Circumstantial Evidence (2014)
The haunting, female vision had been frightening visitors to Kendall State Park in Gold Crest, Alaska for as long as Sheriff Edwin Gable could remember so it doesn't surprise him when he’s called to the park after a camper falls off the trail and claims he saw a ghost. Everyone calls her Sandy after the girl in the movie “Grease” for her resemblance to that iconic figure. No one knows where she came from or who she is, but while interviewing the injured camper, Edwin hears something he’s never heard before – Sandy spoke.
Three thousand miles away in Pennsylvania, an inmate named Harold Bender is telling a young man named Corey Arner that the girl he was accused of murdering in 1957 came to him in a dream. Corey, who came to interview Harold as part of his sentence on a drug charge, is the grandson of the man who defended Harold and lost. Harold tells Corey he believes she’s alive and begs young Corey to find her.
When Corey leaves the prison and tells his grandfather that Harold thinks the girl is alive, Jonah Gordon tells Corey the story of Brenda Stern, an eighteen-year-old former beauty queen who disappeared while on a date with Harold. Brenda’s father, the town sheriff, believed Harold murdered her, and despite the fact that there was no body and all the evidence in the case was circumstantial, used all his connections in the justice system to put Harold away.
Fifty-seven years later, Harold is still sitting in Black River Prison, and now Jonah is determined to clear his name once and for all. While they search for clues as to what really happened to Brenda, an old friend of Harold’s dies in a multi-car accident. His name was Gary Bronson. He was a greaser in the 1950s, and Jonah always thought he had taken Brenda. As the police examine Gary’s burned out car, they discover something in the trunk that will lead Jonah, Corey, and a young state trooper named Ben, on an odyssey to Alaska where Gary went in 1957 – just three days before Brenda disappeared.
Three thousand miles away in Pennsylvania, an inmate named Harold Bender is telling a young man named Corey Arner that the girl he was accused of murdering in 1957 came to him in a dream. Corey, who came to interview Harold as part of his sentence on a drug charge, is the grandson of the man who defended Harold and lost. Harold tells Corey he believes she’s alive and begs young Corey to find her.
When Corey leaves the prison and tells his grandfather that Harold thinks the girl is alive, Jonah Gordon tells Corey the story of Brenda Stern, an eighteen-year-old former beauty queen who disappeared while on a date with Harold. Brenda’s father, the town sheriff, believed Harold murdered her, and despite the fact that there was no body and all the evidence in the case was circumstantial, used all his connections in the justice system to put Harold away.
Fifty-seven years later, Harold is still sitting in Black River Prison, and now Jonah is determined to clear his name once and for all. While they search for clues as to what really happened to Brenda, an old friend of Harold’s dies in a multi-car accident. His name was Gary Bronson. He was a greaser in the 1950s, and Jonah always thought he had taken Brenda. As the police examine Gary’s burned out car, they discover something in the trunk that will lead Jonah, Corey, and a young state trooper named Ben, on an odyssey to Alaska where Gary went in 1957 – just three days before Brenda disappeared.
Cover by Amy Jambor