TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT (1/11)

It's November again and the Pittsburgh gay community has to prepare itself for the inevitable murder by the Liberty Avenue Strangler.  

The murders had started, in November of 2001, when the strangled body of Jason Kemp was found in the dumpster behind the Liberty Diner by Deb Novotny. In 2002 on the 18th of November another young, blond, slightly built man was found strangled in the dumpster behind a local florist on Tremont.  In 2003 the body was found on the 4th under a pile of scrap lumber on a construction site.  Again the victim was young, blond, and slightly built.  When a body of a young, blond, and slightly built man was found on November 20th 2004 the Pittsburgh police admitted publicly that there was a serial killer loose in the Liberty Avenue community but since the killer only struck once a year it would be very hard to catch the killer unless he made a mistake of some kind.  Every year the body of a young, slightly built, blond man was found somewhere in the community.  Every victim was strangled and most were found in dumpsters but all were hidden to some degree. 

Every year the murder occurred in November but randomly in that month.  After finding a body for the 3rd time, in 2011, in the Liberty Diner dumpster Deb Novotny refused to go to the dumpster for any reason on any day of the year.  In 2012 community leaders encouraged all blonds under the age of 30 to dye their hair.  For the first and only time the killer left a note on the body of the youngster killed that year. BORN BLOND IS WHAT COUNTS.  Based on the note the authorities decided that the killer disliked blonds.  Based on the similar build of all of the victims the authorities decided the killer was trying to punish one particular person but for some reason was unable to actually kill that person and so took his rage out on others with a similar look.  

In 2013 no body was found until December 3rd, the community had thought that the streak of murders was over but the autopsy showed that the victim had been killed at least a week earlier but had been hidden more carefully than in previous years.  The body in 2014 was found on the 1st of November but the autopsy showed that he was killed only a few hours before the body was found and the body was barely hidden under some newspapers.  In 2015 the victim was the oldest yet at 29.  

On Thanksgiving Day 2016 the body of the yearly victim was again found in the Liberty Diner dumpster. Since four bodies had been found in this dumpster but no other site had more than one victim the authorities decided that the killer must have some connection to the Diner.  

In 2017 the victim was not a blond, slightly built, young man but a brunet, 6 foot tall, husky, freshman at the University of Pittsburgh who was found lying in an alley but not hidden in any way.  In addition to this change in the yearly killing there was also a possible witness to the murder, 17-year-old Gus Kinney who was found a few feet away from the body with bruises around his neck and unconscious.  The police didn’t know if the victim had surprised the Strangler while he was strangling Kinney or if Kinney had come upon the scene and was attacked to silence him.  Kinney had been rushed to the hospital and the police were waiting for him to awaken so that they could ask their questions.


TBC