Murders in a Small Town

A true story from about 30 years ago.

            Murders in a Small Town

 

By Elton Camp

 

            Decades have passed since the frightening events of that summer day.  The names of the ones involved have faded beyond retrieval, but their faces and that instant in their lives are still vivid in my memory.  A series of decisions put us at the exact place and time to become unwilling spectators at the “story of the year” for our tiny burg. 

 

            My wife and I were living considerably below what we might have afforded, if “afford” is defined as taking on what seemed to me monumental debt.  At that time, a nice brick house with three bedrooms and two baths cost a staggering $20,000 to be paid over twenty years or longer.  An ordinary new car was a scary $4,000.  I had always hated the thought of debt.  To survive in the rural South, a car was essential.  A house was not.  Especially when an alternative was readily available. 

 

            Our area was, at that time, one of the centers in the nation for construction of house trailers.  Seemingly designed to strengthen stereotypes of southern poverty, the flimsy structures were built of two-by-twos held together unsteadily by staples.  The exterior was covered by the cheapest grade of aluminum siding and the barely-slanted top protected by metal so flimsy that it rumbled in response to wind.  Most were ten feet wide and less than fifty feet long. 

 

            Interior walls, reeking of formaldehyde fumes, were of the lowest quality “paneling.”  To remove an electric plug from its socket required using one hand to hold the wall in place and the other to extract the plug.  The “fully-furnished” dwellings contained poorly-constructed furniture slapped together from materials that looked well enough, but fell apart after being used for a couple of years. 

 

            It was in such a structure that we lived, only a short distance from a widow and her teenage son whose ancient trailer made ours look like a mansion by comparison.  The two lived there, not by choice, but out of necessity.  She being unable to work, her son had recently obtained employment at a Chevron gas station where we usually bought fuel. 

 

            A rather striking looking woman and a man whom we assumed was her husband were the operators of the station.  This was long before paying at the pump with a credit card was an option.  Customers filled their tanks, went inside to surrender the credit cards, saw them disappear from view behind the counter, and signed the embossed receipt that emerged from the card-stamping machine. 

 

 

            Two days before the murders we received a disturbing call from the woman.  “You failed to sign one of your charges and we need you go come by and do it so we can get paid.” 

 

            The transparent lie annoyed and angered us both.  She had secretly stamped a blank charge and was attempting to cheat us.  While a fill-up in those days was less than ten dollars, it wasn’t insignificant compared to our take-home pay. 

 

            “How stupid does she think we are?” my wife fumed.  She made a regular practice of keeping the receipts for gas for comparison to the bill when it arrived.  It was impossible that we had failed to sign for a charge. 

 

            I agreed, “I won’t pay it and furthermore, that’s the last time they’ll see us in that place.  The nerve of trying to swindle regular customers.”  How true that would prove to be on both counts, I didn’t know. 

 

            A few minutes before the murders, we pulled from our driveway and turned left toward town.  To our surprise, we saw our neighbor’s son accelerating toward their house at a high rate of speed, something he never dared do in their shabby old car.  At his driveway, he slowed just enough to turn in.  Gravels flew in all directions as the car lunged from side to side.  The youth brought the vehicle to a skidding stop, leaped out, and ran at breakneck speed into their trailer.  He left the car door open and the motor still chugging out black smoke. 

 

            “What in the world is wrong?” my wife gasped.  She looked back as we passed, but could tell nothing more.

 

            “Something terrible has happened for sure,” I agreed.  “School is out and he should be working.  I hope nothing is wrong with his mother.”  Our concern, however, didn’t extend far enough to go back and check. 

 

            When we reached the intersection, we saw black smoke billowing up to the north, apparently alongside the main highway.  Several sirens announced emergency vehicles on the move.  We were intending to go in that direction anyway, but even if he hadn’t, the temptation to see what was going on would have been too great to resist.  Did it have anything to do with our neighbor’s strange behavior?  

 

            Fire trucks, police cars, and ambulances had converged on the Chevron station that was engulfed in flames.  We “rubber-necked” as we passed, but didn’t join the dozens of drivers that had pulled onto the shoulder to watch the excitement. 

 

            “Those gas tanks could go off like bombs,” I ventured, although not at all sure that was even possible.  “We better get out from here.”

 

            On our way to complete our shopping mission, we decided that the fire had scared our neighbor away.  “I sure hope he didn’t do anything to cause it.  There’s no way he can pay for damages,” I ventured.  For him to lose his new job would be a financial catastrophe. 

 

            “Well, something sure scared him,” my wife added.  “Guess we’ll find out what happened later.”

 

            The astonishing facts emerged by the time we returned.  The couple operating the Chevron station weren’t man and wife, but wife and boyfriend.  Her husband, having learned of the relationship, made a stop only minutes before the fire. 

 

            As he paid for the container of gas he had purchased from a competing station, he remarked to the attendant, “I’m gonna burn up a couple of sons-of-b*****s.” 

 

            The clerk only smiled in disbelief at the statement as he accepted the cash and placed it into the register.  “Thanks, and come again.” 

 

            “I don’t expect that will happen,” the customer replied in a mumble as he stalked to his truck and plopped the gas can on the passenger seat.  He didn’t care that some of it sloshed out onto the upholstery as he accelerated toward his destination. 

 

            He burst into the station, a pistol in his right hand and the can of gas in his left.  “You thought I was so stupid I wouldn’t find out what’s going on,” he raged.  “You’re both gonna die.” 

 

            He glanced at the teenage clerk placing stock on the shelves.  “I’ve got nothing against you.  Get out of here right now,” he ordered.  “And fast.”

 

            As the boy fled in panic, he took careful aim and without another word shot his competitor and then his wife as they cowered in fear and begged for mercy.  “Make a fool out me, will you?” he muttered as he poured the gasoline over their limp bodies and set them ablaze with a Bic lighter. 

 

            The flames roared upward and ignited first the counter and then the ceiling.  Smoke filled the small room and billowed through the doors and then the windows as they cracked from the intense heat.  Satisfied at a job well-done, he placed the pistol to his temple and pulled the trigger. 

 

            The gutted station, surrounded by a yellow police ribbon, remained unused for many years. As I had proclaimed, the operators never saw us again and the bogus bill, consumed in the conflagration, remained unpaid.  Two small children lost both parents in that gruesome incident. 

 

            I still think of that horrifying day when we pass the place, now in use as a flower shop.  In all these years, nobody has again been willing to operate it as a gas station.  Memories fade slowly in a small town.