Serial Killer

In late August of 2026, I was investigating with my partner Detective Greene. We joined the police force in 2004 at the age of 20, and in 2010 we became detectives as a pair. We are investigating a case of a missing person’s report on a young girl, about the age of 17, known by the name of Aurora Aspen. Miss Aspen was last seen on March 2, 2024. She was believed to have been walking her dog in Dawson City, Canada when she suddenly disappeared.

Dawson City is a small town with a very close-knit community. Everyone knows who everyone is, everyone is family. This left the community in fear, it could be your neighbour or even your brother many of them said.

We had no solid leads, searching for about two years with no way of knowing who had kidnapped this girl. About two weeks later we got our first solid lead, a small farm on the outskirts of town. We had received a call that a dog had found the remains of a young girl. I remember jumping into my car and calling Detective Greene to rush over to this address hoping to find some sort of evidence.

When we arrived at the scene, I remember looking over at my partner. He had a questioning look on his face. This was no usual farm, it smelled sweet, almost like honey, but was covered in forest. Thick pine trees covered the area, they were tall and the forest was eerily silent. Together we walked up the long gravel driveway, watching out for one another. The driveway was not maintained and when we got to the end we found a cabin. The door was slightly propped open and there was smoke coming out of the chimney, a thick, almost black smoke.

We approached the cabin slowly, time seemed to crawl. Our hearts were racing, it seemed like at any moment our hearts could stop or something would jump out, like one of those scary movies or even a haunted house.

Upon reaching the door we stopped, in the window, we could see a man in, his late 60s, asleep by the fire his dog lying loyally at his feet. I knocked on the door and startled the man. The dog, who appeared to be a bull mastiff, immediately got protective of his owner and came barrelling at us through the door. Detective Greene and I were terrified. Within seconds our lives flashed before our eyes, and we thought for sure the mastiff was going to eat us. We then heard the man call out, breaking the silence, “Mercy” and the dog stopped, turned around, and laid down beside him.

My partner then spoke up, “ I am Detective Greene and this is my partner Detective Riley. We’re here from the Dawson City Police Department, coming to investigate the remains of a young girl found on what we believe to be your property” The man then spoke up again, saying it was he who called the police after his dog had found what he thought was the body of a young girl.

I remember asking him politely to show us the direction the dog had come from, he then told us he had followed the dog back to where the body was found, and offered to show us. As we followed him deeper into the forest, Mercy leading the way, we began to smell the smell of decomposition. The fruity, sickening smell of death had set in throughout the forest, the sickening smell became stronger as we approached.

After what had felt like hours of being on edge, we arrived at the scene where a young girl’s body was laid to rest. She was face down with her hands tied behind her back, blood pooled around her. As my partner and I crouched down and turned her over we recognized the striking features of what was left of a young Aurora Aspen.

We called the department and told them we had found the body. I remember that was the hardest thing to say over the phone, all of us were so hopeful that this young girl would come home safe. This was one of the hardest things to tell the family. Their 17-year-old daughter had been murdered, the only question left was who killed young Aurora Aspen and how.

The department was quick to send over someone to recover the body. After recovering the body we had to determine the cause of death, we discovered that she was raped, beaten, and then suffocated before being dropped off in the woods an hour outside of town. No DNA was able to be collected.

They had kept her alive for over two years, which was extremely unique and connected to the murder of another girl, Lizzy Summers. Lizzy disappeared the same day as Aurora and her body was discovered a week prior, in about the same location only two miles up the road. She was found in the same position, her hands behind her back with blood pooled around her.

We now knew that this killer was targeting young girls, about the age of 17, keeping them alive for two years and then brutally killing them. We now also knew that this killer was male, considering the semen that was found in the bodies of both girls. They were both unidentifiable so we had no links to anyone.

In April of 2026, we created a tip hotline for the murders of both girls offering 2 million dollars for whoever was able to tip us in the right direction of Aurora and Lizzy’s killer. We were swamped with tips but none led us in the right direction, most were just people desperate to find answers, just like us. Making up tips to try and get us to investigate random people.

At about noon that day, we got a call from a teenage girl. She was roughly 16 and said she had received a call on her cell phone that was oddly suspicious, telling her they should meet up and go to a party together. We immediately told her to come down to the station so we could talk more with her and protect her from this man, in hopes of saving her life and many others. When she arrived she was nervous, this was to be expected, it’s nerve-wracking to be 16 and know your life is in danger.

I remember sitting down with her in a white room, she told me she was scared and started to tell me what had happened with that phone call. She told me “ He said he was about 18 and that he was just looking to have a good time. He called me pretty and said that if I were to come to parties with him and go back to his place after they would have a good time” At this moment I could see the panic set in, she looked as if she was going to cry from the stress of the situation. I then walked her back to a room to let her get some sleep and have some time to herself, reassuring her that it was okay and that she was safe.

I remember later that afternoon, I tracked the cell phone from the call. It was located at an unknown address and I called Detective Greene to back me up, not knowing what could be at this address. We got to that location. It took an hour. We spent that hour singing along to our favourite songs when all of a sudden a man was standing in the center of the road. We slammed on the brakes, stopping the car as fast as possible.

When we got out of the car we were extremely careful. As we approached the man Detective Greene called out “ I would like to know your name, and I'm going to ask you to put your hands in the air. after the boy had done this we continued to approach him. There was blood streaming down his face from his forehead and you could see the blood pouring out of his side as he walked. I took a few steps closer and watched as the boy collapsed in my arms.

Meanwhile, Detective Greene radioed the station calling for backup. When backup got there the boy had already lost too much blood, we lost the boy before we could save him, so our teammate took the boy back to the station hoping to ID and locate the boy’s family.

We then continued our way to the unknown address, taking us back to that cabin in the woods. We then walked up that same road again, and Deja Vu was present. Somehow it felt as though we knew what was going to happen. As we approached the cabin, we found the same dog. The dog, Mercy, remembering us from earlier, came and greeted us sweetly. His owner was nowhere to be seen.

Slowly walking around the property we found the man from earlier, he was sitting in a rocking chair, rocking back and forth slowly. He looked to be resting from some event. There was blood on his shirt, it looked like he had got into a fight. At this point we were suspicious, we slowly approached the man yelling for him to put his hands in the air and turn around slowly. Once he did so we could tell he had been on the winning end of the fight, busted lip and a black eye. We told him it was best he cooperated with us as we only wanted to ask him a few questions. He complied.

Getting him into the station was one of the easiest things I have ever done. He walked right into the station like it was his own home. As we got closer to the interrogation room he started to act strange, it was almost like he had been here and knew exactly what was going on he walked into the room before we even told him what room, and this made our suspicions arise even further. What person gets arrested enough that they know what room they use?

He seemed oddly comfortable in the room. We got right down to work. We asked his permission to record it and he complied. We asked him where he was the night of the murder and if he could prove it he said he was with mercy but had no way to prove. We then got down to the basics, just asking about his property. He slowly started to talk about all the campers and ATV trails back there. We asked if he had cameras like the law required. He said “ Well of course I have cameras I wouldn’t want to break the law.” we asked him to check his cameras with us.

He said “ I will stay here, you can go check them. Here are the keys to the footage.” he pulled a silver key out of his pocket and handed it to Detective Greene. We headed back to this farm, finding the loyal dog in its normal spot near the crackling fire. The sweet, honey-like smell was gone, like it had never been there. We found this odd. We called Mercy and he came trotting up, his tail slowly wagging. We all walked off into the forest, Mercy saw the keys and seemed to know what he was doing, leading us to every camera. On the fourth camera, we found something.

On the exact date of Aurora’s death, there was a man and a dog, walking along the trail. The man had something wrapped in his arms. We watched as he placed the blanket down and took off the blanket, revealing Miss Aspen’s nude body. We watched her struggle to get free of the ties before being shot. The dog watched and waited patiently for his master to be finished, got up, smelled the girl, and walked off with its master. We then recognized the dog’s trot and slow tail wagging, it was none other than Mercy. We looked closer at Mercy and could then see the blood on his nose and fur. We had now caught Miss Aspen’s killer. He walked right into our hands knowing he was already caught.

After calling more team members and animal control to the scene to take the dog away, we said our goodbyes to the sweet dog, hung our heads and slowly worked our way back to the station. It was a shame Mercy would have to be put down, but considering how he had been exposed to human flesh and blood, he was a danger to whoever would adopt him.

Upon arrival at the station, something was odd. The lights were out. What is going on? I thought to myself. The station’s lights are normally on 24/7 as we both work nights and during the day. We approached cautiously unsure of our surroundings. The parking lot was empty and dimly lit by just a few street lights that were being blocked out by the overgrown brush.

As we got closer to the door we were able to determine that people were in fact inside the building, making this even more strange and intriguing. We could hear sirens in the distance, they sounded like police cars. We thought nothing of it and continued to work our way to the door. That is when Detective Riley noticed. A man, dressed in jeans and a hoodie, with a gun held to another person’s head. We froze, it’s a hostage situation, and those police cruisers were on their way here.

Hurriedly we crouched down and tucked ourselves against the cool brick wall of the station. We switched our radios over to a separate channel where we could hear a terrified dispatcher hurriedly calling for all available units to be dispatched back to our station. With a strong and reassuring voice, I heard my partner call over the radio "Detective Riley and Greene already on scene, in position, and at your service. "

It felt like forever until the dispatcher replied, " Wait until more units arrive on the scene, they will be arriving without sirens and lights, do not panic, hold position and they will cover you while you attempt to negotiate. " Taking a deep breath we glanced at one another, silently praying it wouldn't be too late.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity the parking lot was flooded with police cars, there had to be about three dozen appear out of nowhere. Throwing the door open Detective Riley and I barged our way in, shouting " This is the police, we order you to place your weapon on the ground slowly and turn around with your hands in the air! No one has to get hurt."

The man turned around, Laughed loudly and then spoke. " Hello, detectives. You thought it would all be that easy? You could just walk onto my property and solve your little mystery. I think not". It was Aurora's killer. Another team of police burst through the door, and while he was distracted Detective Riley quickly dove for the gun.

With a loud bang, the gun fired, nearly hitting me. Quickly dodging it and running towards Detective Riley I was able to grab the gun and safely put our murderer in cuffs. Taking a glance over my shoulder I was able to determine the bullet had not hit anyone, just a few near misses and a broken window. Our killer was captured and would be locked away for a long time.