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As I grew up in Muncie, the only place my parents told me never to go to was Westside Park after dark. My folks, like many local residents, were horrified at the 1985 murders of Kimberly Dowell and Ethan Dixon in the park that fall. In the 1990s, when I was old enough to bike and later drive around our fair city, I avoided Westside Park after sundown, recalling my parents’ injunction against it.
But I don’t remember the actual murders, as I was only 5 at the time. Nevertheless, I do remember the stories that followed. By the time I was in high school, I’d heard a dozen different theories about, opinions of, and supposed insider information regarding the real story of the killings. These near-folklorish accounts of the tragedy, as ridiculous as they were bizarre in retrospect, became the narratives of the homicides. Much to my chagrin now, I accepted some of these bogus renditions as fact, falsely embracing them as accurate explanations of what happened so