Chapter 16
Thirteen victims, all young women between the ages of twenty-two and twenty-nine years old. All single, all Caucasian, all on the slimmer side.
That was the profile of Matthew Nelson Neil’s victims.
It wasn’t much to go on.
The first confirmed victim was a 24-year-old waitress from Los Angeles named Marcy Long. She was a local, born and raised, with jet-black hair and high cheekbones. She served Matthew at her diner, and he waited in his car for her to finish her shift.
What happened next was anybody’s guess.
A recreational hiker found Marcy’s body three days later in Santiago Oaks Regional Park. She’d been strangled to death and buried in a shallow grave. It was so shallow, that the wildlife had gotten to the corpse before they did and took a particular liking to one of Marcy’s legs.
Buried with the naked body had been a single item: a pillow.
The second victim was found two months later, also a waitress. Twenty-nine, thin, with a nasty meth habit. Deborah Bright.
Same MO. Manually strangled, this time buried in Antelope Valley.
Also with a pillow.
Because the first murder had occurred in Orange County, the FBI had immediately been called in to assist. After the second murder, this time in Lancaster County, they’d taken over the case.
The unsub increased their activity over the next eight months, adding an additional nine victims to the list.
The pillows and the locations for the body drops, mostly deserts and dry areas, led to the media dubbing the killer ‘The Sandman’ after victim three, Ashley Zella, was discovered.
Despite finding every victim nude there were never any signs of sexual assault. Using eye-witness accounts, they came up with a probable description of their unsub. White, between six-three and six-six, north of two-hundred and fifty pounds. Aside from his immense size, the man had an average face. No distinguishing birthmarks or tattoos.
But when Con saw the video tape of his sister from the gas station, he knew he was looking at The Sandman.
FBI facial recognition software revealed the man’s name to be Matthew Nelson Neil.
Con was nearly done the bottle of bourbon now. His vision was blurry, and his shirtless chest was slick with sweat.
The cigarette burn glistened beneath the harsh kitchen lights.
His eyes kept going back to Valerie’s driver’s license.
Con and his sister were identical twins, which was exceedingly rare for siblings of different sexes. Something about two different sperm fertilizing one egg, which Con wasn’t sure he ever truly understood.
When they were babies and Val had short dark hair, people often mistook them for twin boys. As they aged, their looks diverged somewhat.
Valerie was undoubtedly the better-looking of the two, but Con was far from an eyesore.
If he had been, there was no way he’d be able to bag someone like Beth.
Colin leaned back from the table and took a large haul from the bottle.
Beth…
Con pulled out a worn map of Orange County and the surrounding areas. It curled at the edges, threatening to roll back up, so he placed empty coffee mugs on the corners to make sure they stayed relatively flat.
All of the locations where the victims had been found were marked with red circles. There were other annotations, as well, including the diners that Marcy and Deborah worked and the last known locations of the other victims.
A much larger red X showed where The Sandman had been captured.
All blue markings represented Valerie’s movements. She was seen at a bar in the heart of Orange County the day she disappeared, and she’d used her debit card to withdraw a nominal amount of cash near the bar the following day.
Valerie’s car was found in a then-abandoned real estate complex, which has now been developed into a pricey townhouse subdivision. The gas station where she’d been caught on video was a good two-hour hike from the complex.
No one knows why she left her car where she did or why she’d gone to that particular gas station.
Con connected his cell phone to the wireless speaker in the kitchen before turning his attention to his laptop.
He wasn’t sure why he began playing the Gold Rush audiobook before watching the footage, but that’s exactly what he did.
And the second he heard Matthew’s face, his jaw clenched.
Why won’t you tell me? Why the fuck won’t you tell me where you buried her?
For months, the FBI—and later Con alone—had searched all the locations where the previous victims were found, using heavy machinery to dig far deeper than what even someone as large as The Sandman would have been capable of reaching to bury a body.
But they’d come up empty.
Still, Con knew the odds. A person went missing for a day and the chance of them showing up somewhere was high. By a week, the odds dropped precipitously.
But Valerie Striker had been missing for eleven years. Eleven. And during that time, outside of the bar and ATM on days one and two, the gas station was the only record of his sister having been seen anywhere.
She was dead.
Con was sure of it.
When they’d been kids, they liked to tell people that they had a special connection, that they could feel each other’s pain even if they were separated.
That was a lie, though.
And the reason he knew that Valerie was dead had nothing to do with twin intuition.
It had with the facts.
And all Con wanted to do was find her and finally put this nightmare to rest.
The video was only twenty-eight seconds long. It showed Valerie, her dark hair hanging in front of her face, entering the gas station, and heading to a rack of potato chips. She looked tired, worn. Her shoes were dirty as were her jeans.
Valerie decided against the chips and went to the fridge to grab a bottle of water instead.
When she placed the bottle on the counter and pulled out a grimy five to pay for it, her head tilted upward just enough for her face to be captured by the camera.
Con paused the video and he stared into his sister’s eyes.
“Where are you buried?” he whispered.
Con wiped tears from his cheeks, swigged more bourbon, and pressed play.
As Valerie collected her change, someone else entered the store.
He stood about four feet behind her and yet he still towered over Valerie.
As Con’s sister turned, her eyes seemed to meet The Sandman’s for a split second. Then she was gone.
Matthew left shortly after, buying nothing in the store.
The video ended.
With Matthew Nelson Neil’s voice droning on about the California Gold Rush in the background, Con repeated the same words he’d been saying for more than a decade.
“Where the hell are you buried, Valerie?”