"he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him."

—Revelation 12.9 (KJV)

GRAND AVENUE, GOTHAM CITY.—Theatregoers were shocked Wednesday night when they discovered many of the posters surrounding the theatre district had been defaced during the eight o'clock show. Every poster bearing a face on the street was painted with spray paint to resemble the Joker. Below each defaced image was the simple tagline "Free Joker," written in black paint.

Police officers who were on duty believe that the vandals acted during a fifteen minute period, starting at 10:00 p.m., when the streetlights in the district blinked out and they received several false 9-11 calls. Gotham City Police Department is currently investigating the crime and is unsure whether the events are connected to the Joker, who now resides permanently in Arkham Asylum, or if it is a group of well-organized vandals who wanted to breed fear in Gotham City.

"These vandals will be brought to justice," Commissioner James Gordon said in a statement to the press. "We are taking this matter seriously, as we do all incidents that appear to be related to the Joker. We are not treating this crime as a simple act of vandalism, not with the long history this city has had with that maniac."

"I fully trust the G.C.P.D. will bring these fear-mongers to justice," Mayor David Hull said in a statement from City Hall. "Gothamites should continue business as usual. We will not live in fear."

Martha Burnan, who was attending a performance of Les Miserable, said, "We were having such a good time. The show was beautiful, and then we walked out and saw that horrible smile staring at us from the poster across the street. I physically shook the whole ride home. You know that monster killed my niece two years ago when he escaped from Arkham."

Many theatregoers who were interviewed shared the same sentiment as Mrs. Burnan. "I'm going to stay home for a few weeks," reported Ms. Rose Woodson. "One cannot be too careful in this town."

—The Gotham Gazette

GOTHAM SQUARE, GOTHAM CITY.—Christmas shoppers in Gotham Square were frightened Thursday night when all of the advertising screens surrounding the square suddenly changed to a mugshot of the Joker with the phrase "Free Joker" written below in block letters. The screens remained on the image for five minutes as technicians tried to override the system to no result.

...

"Our Cyber Crimes Unit is on the case," Commissioner Gordon commented. "I cannot say much about our progress in in the case because it may harm the investigation, but I want the people of Gotham to rest assure that we will find the perps soon and bring them to justice."

"This is bad for business," Mr. Joseph Rosenthal, an owner of a boutique on Gotham Square, said. "After the incident, our store emptied out. We barely saw a customer for the rest of the night. If this continues, I'm afraid this may hurt our Christmas sales."

Ms. Janis Werther, owner of Werther Electronics and Entertainment, across the street said, "We depend on the holiday season to make it through the slower parts of the year. G.C.P.D needs to act quickly. We cannot afford for this to continue."

—The Gotham Gazette

Operator: Gotham Emergency Services. What is your emergency?

Caller: My son is missing. Please send someone now! I think he has been kidnapped [Sobbing].

Operator: What is your address?

Caller: 1430 Crest Hill Avenue. Oh my God, oh my god, oh my...

Operator: We have dispatched an officer to 1430 Crest Hill Avenue. He should arrive in a couple of minutes. What is his name, and how old is he?

Caller: John Winter. He is only four months old. We just recently moved him to the crib in his room. I woke up this morning, surprised to not hear him cry. When I went to check on him, his crib was empty.

—Transcript of 9-1-1 Call, Friday, 8:00 a.m.

We were married when I was twenty, and she nineteen. It was a different time then. People married young and stayed married. It was our dream to have a large family. We both came from large Catholic families, and we could not imagine any other life. Then, we discovered that we could not have children. I still remember seeing the first tear streak down her face as the doctor broke the news. It was translucent, but the second one brought a black tinge with it from her mascara. I put my arm around her shoulder to comfort her. I did not know what to say.

When we returned to our apartment in the Village, she was the first to break the silence. She said, "Tom, if it is not in God's will for us to have children, then he must have other plans for us. Maybe, we can serve the church in ways that other families cannot." From that day forward, we used the extra time that the absence of children provided to work at the church.

I often think back to that day because it is an exemplar of my wife's strength and resolve. When I was broken and speechless by our worst nightmare, she stared into its face and found life and purpose. On Friday, we faced a nightmare beyond imagining, and again, she demonstrated her strength.

On Friday, we went to St. John of Cross Catholic Church at seven to help Fr. Lewis set up for morning mass, as was our routine. When we approached the door to the sanctuary, we noticed that it had been left ajar. We assumed Fr. Lewis forgot to close it, but, as we came to the door, we heard the wailing of a baby. I pushed the door open and…

—Frank Sullivan's Journal

Frank turned. His face was a ghastly pale. He fumbled in his pocket for his inhaler and stumbled to the bench outside of the church. I watched him take a seat and inhale the mist, but I could not stand behind with the cry of the child inside. I turned and rushed into the sanctuary. I froze for a moment. In place of Christ on the cross, I saw a body hanging. His arms were tied to the horizontal posts with blood streaming from his pierced hands. His face wore the dreadful smear of white makeup with a gruesome smile painted in red on his agonized face. His eyes were hollow with death, and I realized that it was the face of Fr. Lewis. At his feet, a baby had been placed on the communion table.

I rushed to the table. It was wrapped in a white cloth, bespattered with blood. Its face—those monsters—was painted in the same style as the Joker. I turned and hurried back to Frank who had recovered and had called you. Who would do such a thing? What has the world come to? Did...did he do this?

—Mrs. Dorothy Sullivan's Statement to G.C.P.D.

The body has been identified as Fr. Lewis. When we arrived at the scene of the crime, he had been hanging from the cross for six to eight hours. The blood that ran down the cross and splattered the communion table was already dried, and the blood from his wounds was congealing. The perps appear to have attacked him sometime around midnight. From the lacerations on his back and a rope we found thrown into the pews, it appears that they first bound him to the communion table, cut open the back of his frock, and lashed his back with a corded rope.

After they beat him, they removed the mold of the crucified Christ from the cross, bound his wrists to the horizontal bar, and his feet to the post of the cross with black nylon cord. The then pierced his palms with rudimentary batarangs. Compared to batarangs we have recovered from other crime scenes, these do not appear to be the make of the one's used by Batman. They then smeared his face with white grease paint, pierced his left side with a seven-inch blade. The perps pushed the blade up into his left lung. They then used the blood from the wound to paint a Joker grin on his face. Upon his chest, they carved the words, "He shall rise again. HAHAHA!"

—Excerpt from Investigator's Report on the Crime Scene