Until 1989, few people even from New York State itself had heard of a sleepy little town called Dryden.
With a population of 14 thousand inhabitants, it was rather considered a large village, where no one locked the doors and everyone knew each other well.
And then, as if someone had cursed the inhabitants of Dryden, and now it is often called that - "Village of the Damned".
Dryden is located in a very picturesque place, next to a beautiful lake, at the sight of which you just want to buy a house here and live the rest of your life raising children and grandchildren.
But all this is deceiving.
On December 23, 1989, police discovered the Harris family brutally murdered in their own home. Before his death, someone tightly tied with ropes 39-year-old Warren Harris, his 40-year-old wife Dolores and their two children, 15-year-old Shelby and 11-year-old Mark.
Pillowcases were put on their heads, and then they were shot point-blank in the back of the head. Then they tried to burn the corpses.
At first, robbery was considered the motive for the murder, but then ominous rumors about the maniac spread. Panic was growing in the town. Previously, people who had not locked their houses began to buy reliable locks, were afraid to let their children go outside and tried not to go out themselves.
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The police attacked the trail of the alleged suspect, whom they believed to be 33-year-old Michael Kinge, but he died during the arrest, without having time to tell.
Then it turned out that not even his fingerprints were found at the crime scene, but the prints of his … mother Shirley Keidge. However, Shirley was not found guilty and the case of the murder of the Harris family remained unsolved.
Even several years after this crime, the previously quiet and peaceful town could not accept such a thing.
According to journalist Russell Mines, “For Dryden, it was like the 9/11 attacks for New York. This is the closest comparison I can give. People here have never locked even their cars before. They just left their keys at the door. Now this is no longer here."
Dryden moved from the "path of normality" and this was only the first step.
On February 2, 1990, a 2-year-old girl, Eliza May Bush, disappeared without a trace right from her home. And when the police began looking for the child, suggesting that she left home on her own and got lost in a snowstorm, the girl's mother received an anonymous parcel by mail with the girl's mitten.
However, the version with the maniac also failed. Later, the mother admitted that she herself had killed and buried the girl somewhere in the snow, and then sent a package to confuse the police.
Once again, the town was shocked. Two frightening violent stories just two months apart, when no one here remembered anything like this for decades.
And then outbreaks of violent violence began to occur here on a regular basis. In the summer of 1993, a guy named Paul Jackson brutally attacked and killed 26-year-old Scott Hume. Hume died right in front of his friend Kristen Clarke, who had serious mental problems on this basis.
On December 24, 1994, popular local soccer coach Stephen Sarr was killed by his daughter's ex-boyfriend Jonathan Merchant, who burst into his house in a flash of intense rage and shot his family with a gun.
The merchant wounded his family members and killed Sarah, and then went to the cemetery and committed suicide there by shooting himself in the head.
In September 1996, there was another tragedy related to football. High school football star Scott Pace died in a car accident, and a year later his brother Billy will die in a similar car accident.
In the same month, a representative of the local Chevrolet branch, Robert Bergman, will be brutally killed. The murder will be committed by an employee of his company, Ed Bailey.
By now, the city of Dryden and its almost mystical string of deaths has attracted a lot of attention in the American media. Many frankly call the town the "Village of the Damned", because the mysterious brutal violent murders here seemed to grow like a snowball.
In October of the same 1996, two local cheerleaders, Sarah Heini and Jennifer Bolduk, disappeared without a trace. Several signs indicated that they had been abducted and that an active search for the girls had been organized.
Soon, dismembered parts of female bodies began to be found in various parts of the town within a radius of 30 miles. It was recognized that these are the remains of Sarah and Jennifer. Police arrested a certain John Andrews, who allegedly pursued the girls before, but it remains unclear whether he killed them or someone else.
In recent years, it has been quiet here. Has the curse gone from Dryden or is it just waiting for a new cycle?