Hill Park Boy Research Paper

On June the 11th, 1989, the body of a boy in his late teens was discovered lying on a bench in Hill Park, in the small town of Lenore, Virginia. He had been killed by several stab wounds across his chest and neck. He was wearing a gray sweatshirt, jeans, and white tennis shoes. The backpack he was wearing contained only a few granola bars, some bottled water, and a notebook. Most of the notebook was written in an unidentified shorthand, probably only legible to its owner. The boy had no form of ID on him, and nobody came to claim the body. He became known as “the “Hill Park boy” and he remains unidentified to this day.

There was an investigation of course, and posters were put up, rewards offered. A few people had seen him around town the day before his body was discovered, but nobody knew who he was. Police figured he was just a drifter, probably hadn’t been in town more than a day or two.
But life still went on, after all, nobody knew him. But still, people talked. For months after he was found, whispers floated around town. Rumors and theories as to who he had been, who killed him, and more importantly, would they strike again. For quite a while, a cloud of gloom and fear hovered over the town. People were more careful, stopped letting kids out after dark. And Hill Park, where I had played when I was a kid, became a morbid blotch in our community. Nobody knows much about the Hill Park boy, nobody except me got even a brief glimpse of who he