Murder in a Small Town: Walter Krantz

Walter Krantz

 Through her research, Jessica stumbles upon an interesting character by the name of Walter Krantz. Interesting because two weeks after the murders on Hansen’s farm, this man shows up at the Miller’s Farm, some fifty miles away from Lancaster, and gives the farmer a hard luck story about being away in Panama fighting against Noriega in the military. He tells the farmer that while he was away serving, his mother, father, and little brother had been killed in an automobile accident in Indiana. When he returned home, his family was gone and the house he grew up in was in foreclosure. Joseph Miller felt bad for him and agreed to keep him on as a hired hand. “So”, says Swarovski, “where is he now?”  “Well”, says Jessica, “Let me finish. This is what I’ve been able to find out from my research”.

Walter worked on the Miller’s farm for a number of years and married one of the farmer’s daughters. He had two children from this marriage, a boy, Caleb, and a girl, Angela.

His wife died from liver complications when the youngest, (Angela), was ten years old and then Walter died another ten years after that. He is buried in a family cemetery not far from the Miller’s farm”. “Okay”, says Dominik, “What’s the plan now?”

“Right now”, says Jessica, “I am pushing to get his body exhumed for DNA testing. If my theory is correct, he could be the missing link in the Hansen homicides. We’ve already had the little girl’s body, Rachel, from the farm exhumed. Her DNA has been processed and the results are at the Lancaster’s Sheriff’s station as we speak.

However, Walter Krantz was never a suspect in the slayings and there is a point of contention: That of “desecrating” his interred body- and it isn’t sitting well with his children. The motion for exhumation is being challenged by them and the local Judge refuses to sign off on it. But I have another idea that will be just as good if they continue to refuse”.

“Well, I have to admit that when I first met you at the station, I had my doubts about your ability to do anything with this case. Now I’m beginning to see what you’ve been up to these past few weeks and I must say… I’m impressed,” says Swarovski.

Jessica looks at him and smiles. “Thanks Dominik”, she replies and for the first time in her career, Jessica feels a genuine camaraderie with a fellow coworker. Maybe she had been wrong about him after all. “But this thing is far from over”, she thinks. “Now I have to get a sit-down with one of the Krantz kids. How hard could it be, right?”