Anderson looked at the clock which was mounted on the brick wall beside him and sighed. In another hour it would be sunrise and most likely is wife had all ready left at least three messages at the desk upstairs, asking whenever he was coming home or not.
Rubbing his tried eyes he thought of Sally and how he rather be snuggled up close to her in his bed when sitting down here trying to figure this shit up.
He had stacks of files around him and it just seemed until now he was starting to link things up. Writing down notes in his notebook he kept tapping his pencil against his lips trying to figure out what he was thinking went somewhere.
He knew it all circled around this Freddy Krueger character.
Murdered twenty-three kids to be exact around the years 1960 to 1966 when he was arrested. Flipping through never ending clippings of the trial and case he frowned at all the ageing photographs of children that would have been in their late twenties now…the thought of Sally and him all ready talking about starting a family sent chills down his spine. What if they were married back then, what if their child got killed?
Shaking his head he wrote down another line of notes with his felt-tip pen and kept reading.
One of the sealed records he was now able to read showed that Krueger had been married to a young waitress named Loretta Wood. She was only thirty when they raided Krueger's home and found her decomposing body hidden in the basement.
His daughter, Kathryn who was only six at the time was seized and taken into foster care where she was adoption only a month later. As in where she was now…well those files were kept private at the agency where she was taken to. Anyways Anderson knew more then likely she wouldn't even want to help of the chance was offered to her.
The trail lasted for almost five months straight, when the courts found that a search warrant was not signed correctly when they raided his workshop at the power plant and with very little help from the judge, Krueger was released.
He then disappeared and later was said to have died in a fire which broke out on a small part of the power plant, where he was last seen a week or so after he was released.
After that, almost like magic Anderson noticed a huge rise in birth announcements in the old newspapers that carried the remains of what happened to Fred Krueger. Most of them being the parents who had lost children due to these crimes.
"It was as if they wanted to start over…get a fresh start." Anderson thought as he found Lt. Thompson's daughter's. Nancy Lynn Thompson, born on July 1st, to Marge Thompson and Springwood's Lt. Thompson of the Springwood police department. Mother and child are doing fine. Anderson looked at the young baby's photo and then went on to the next file.
Things seemed peaceful for almost fifteen or so years when the murders started…
Tina Gray, age fifteen…murdered in the spring of 81 by her boyfriend Rod Lane, age sixteen. Anderson remembered that mess…it had been the first murder since the whole Krueger trial and stunned the small town. Less then a week or so later Mr. Lane killed himself in his jail cell…he was there when that happened to.
On paper it seemed almost like it had happened before, in fact just a simple case of a young person's love gone wrong…even in small towns it could happen. But then at the end of the week it happened.
Glen Lantz, age sixteen…murdered.
He hadn't been there that night, but he had heard the stories. From what the file said perhaps a homeless person, or maybe someone who had a few drinks in them downtown had broken into the Lantz's household while the parents were in the den having coffee. It was around midnight when this happened and Mrs. Lantz went to go check on her son when she found the entire room covered in blood. In her own words on the statement before she had a nervous breakdown, she told the police it was like a geyser of blood spraying up from her son's bed.
The police couldn't find anyway how this person broke in, since the father stated his son's door was locked from the outside, and all the windows were shut and locked hours before hand. Also the fact that a young boy who worked out from sports was murdered without any form of struggle?
They found his body, drained of blood and from the morgue's report they stated that four long claw marks where found on the boy's chest…as if something tore him to shreds.
The police hadn't ever seen anything like this before.
The Lantz's put their house up for sale soon afterwards and were never heard from again.
Very little about Lt. Thompson's daughter made it into the papers. Anderson could see why they wanted to cover that up. Around that time his daughter Nancy, who was somehow stuck in the middle of all this had a mental breakdown.
Her best friend was Tina Gray, in fact her and her boyfriend Glen Lantz were sleeping over the night she was murdered…they were the ones who found the body.
She was there yet again when Rod Lane killed himself, and kept swearing to her father that he was innocent and claimed that a man by the name of Krueger did it. Anderson heard very little about what happened but knew his daughter pretty much drove herself crazy and witnessed her boyfriend's murder from across the street through her bedroom window. Her father tried to question her about it but by then she was gone to far, and sent out of state when her mother committed suicide a month later from an overdose in their living room.
He knew she was treated at some care center, and the house was put up for sale…before the end of the year Lt. Thompson quit the force.
The next clipping he found was almost five years later…five whole years of peace. Finally 1428 Elm Street had been bought by a nice family by the name of Walsh. Rumors went around that their teenage son Jessie was suffering from the same nightmares Nancy Thompson had. In that month there had only been two murders.
One was a local gym teacher, who was found in the school's locker room. There were no evidence nor witnesses to claim anything. Only that when they searched his apartment down town they found a stash of child pornography. Very little was dealed with that case after that. And almost a week later a young high school student was found murdered his bedroom…no witnesses.
A few high school students started talk of the Walsh kid acting strange, and how they over heard him saying how he dreamed of killing a bunch of kids at a local party that was held. Before the police could ask any questions the bus crash happened. Killing thirteen students when it ran off the road.
The Walsh family moved out by the end of the next year.
That's when it started.
Twenty-nine kids…exact as he read from the numbers were found dead in the years of early 1986 to 1987. Twelve of this teenagers were suicides. Police began to suspect maybe a cult or a drug problem starting. Most of these kids all suffered from the same thing….They were all scared to fall asleep and would do anything to stay awake.
Ten of the teenagers were ruled as accidents. This meant car crashes, accidents at home, either drowning in their bathtub, falling down the stairs, ect. Were all written off as nothing more then bad luck.
It seemed like a virus that spread around the town…all claiming the same thing. That a man in their dreams were trying to kill them. The town did as much as they could…which meant locking them away in Western Hills.
They were treated, and two were dead by the end of the first month as accidents in the hospital.
Then came the scandal. Five dead at Western Hills.
Nancy Thompson had moved back to Springwood a few years before the suicides started up. She kept a low profile but had gone off to school and was now doing an internship at Western Hills for the remainder of the year. She had gone off to become a grad student and seemed to be doing from what one clipping said, ground breaking research on pattern nightmares.
She was working on a special wing which focused on a small group of youths that were all suffering from the same symptoms. Three of them being Kristen Parker, Roland Kincaid, and Joey Crusel.
In just one week there had been two deaths.
Both were ruled as suicide.
Then on the 11th of that month, the Crusel boy went into a coma.
Anderson did his reading of Crusel and he found that earlier that year he had began to suffer the same pattern nightmares and was ruled autistic when he entered the hospital for the program.
The coma was ruled as the direct result of the use of Hypnocil, an experimenter drug which wasn't even released on the market to suppress dream activity in the brain. The head doctor on the staff Dr. Neil Gordon and Nancy Thompson had subscribed the drug to the kids.
Both were relived of their duty for the time being at the hospital…and the next morning it happened.
YOUTHS FOUND DEAD IN WESTERN HILL
The headline read, Anderson read further as he found out what had happened less then a year or so ago.
One of the staff members found Nancy Thompson dead in a room with two other teenagers. The cause of death was written down was heart failure. Most people said Nancy had killed the two teens and then herself as a mass suicide.
Only Roland Kincaid survived, and claimed that Nancy had nothing to do with the deaths, in fact she was there to help them. He of course was brushed off as some crazy kid looking for attention. That same day Crusel woke up from his coma.
They stayed in Western Hills only a month more before they were finally ruled out as sane and around that time the deaths had stopped. Anderson could see that Western Hills had a great deal with covering the whole thing up. But as simple as it was, they said Nancy was the cause of all of this, and was sent down to her grave at the age of twenty-two as a murderer.
Her father, a man who Anderson had looked up to his whole life was found dead in a local junk yard a day or so later.
They said he must of gotten himself into a drunken brawl and got killed. Due to all the heat the hospital was getting that was matter was buried faster then he was.
Then that was it. Parker, Kincaid, and Crusel were sent back to their normal life's. And everything seemed okay.
Now somehow, it seemed to have started up again.
Kincaid was dead, and so wasn't Parker.
They all claimed that the same person was trying to kill them, they had stayed at Western Hills together, they took the same drug, and they had survived.
Four deaths in less then a month…as much as the department wanted to rule it out as accidents Anderson knew it wasn't.
Why was Crusel still around, and all ready his mother had filled out a report claming her son hadn't come home in weeks now. A few changes of clothes were missing from his room and she said most likely he stopped by the house whenever they weren't home.
She was starting to worry to now.
His car had been seen around, but even now his highs cool reported that he hadn't been to class since this all started.
His mother was worried sick that something was going on between all of his friends. Anderson knew Jarvis, and just about everyone else were raising their eyebrows and now leaning towards him as maybe a reason some of these things had happened.
He had been in a mental hospital…and he was now losing his friends like flies.
Jarvis told the boys to keep an APB on him in case he was seen anymore around town.
Anderson looked at the clock and sighed again before taking a final sip of his sour teasing cold coffee.
The Crusel boy had to be connected to what was happening, he knew it.