Neg­a­tive Data seemed to define the course of the inves­ti­ga­tion into Chase Andrews’s death in 1969. Sher­iff Ed Jack­son and Deputy Joe Pur­due had just accom­pa­nied Chase’s family—his wid­ow Pearl and his par­ents, Pat­ti Love and Sam—to a clinic’s makeshift morgue, where they were forced to face the chill­ing real­i­ty of their loss. The somber­ness of the scene was inescapable; Pearl and Pat­ti Love, over­whelmed with grief, could only sob qui­et­ly as they were con­front­ed with the life­less body of Chase. The sight was too much for them, and they quick­ly left the room, retreat­ing from the phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al weight of what lay before them. Sam, who had not shed a tear, remained in silence, his sor­row deep and unspo­ken, reflect­ing a pro­found sense of loss that was more inter­nal than out­ward­ly expressed. The grav­i­ty of the moment, jux­ta­posed with Sam’s somber restraint, high­light­ed the over­whelm­ing sor­row that had engulfed the fam­i­ly, mak­ing it impos­si­ble for Sher­iff Ed and Deputy Joe to ignore the per­son­al toll this case would take.

The sheriff’s office, where they spent the major­i­ty of their time, mir­rored the bleak­ness of the task before them. The marsh’s humid and relent­less salt­wa­ter con­tin­ued to invade the office, its evi­dence vis­i­ble in the form of mildew-cov­ered walls and mush­rooms sprout­ing in the cor­ners, sym­bol­ic of the ever-present damp­ness that seemed to per­vade every aspect of their lives. In these con­di­tions, the two men found a tem­po­rary escape in the warmth of bour­bon, the alco­hol offer­ing a brief moment of relief from the unre­lent­ing pres­sure of the inves­ti­ga­tion. The room, heavy with the stale air and the smell of salt, seemed to close in around them as they tried to focus on find­ing some­thing that could help them solve the mys­tery. Their attempts at a break­through felt like a futile effort, as each day passed with­out bring­ing any tan­gi­ble results. The space they inhab­it­ed mir­rored their sense of stag­na­tion, as time seemed to stretch on end­less­ly with­out any progress in their case.

After sev­er­al days of unan­swered ques­tions, a moment of pos­si­ble clar­i­ty arrived when the much-antic­i­pat­ed lab reports final­ly came in. Joe, with a spark of hope, burst into the office to deliv­er the news, believ­ing that the reports might hold some key to the mys­tery. How­ev­er, as they read through the results togeth­er, their excite­ment quick­ly turned into frus­tra­tion. The report offered lit­tle more than a vague time­frame for Chase’s death, leav­ing much to be desired. The term “neg­a­tive data” felt like a fit­ting descrip­tion for the report—there were no fin­ger­prints found at the scene, not even Chase’s own, which sug­gest­ed a cal­cu­lat­ed effort to erase any signs of who might have been involved. This lack of evi­dence only served to com­pli­cate the case, as Sher­iff Ed and Deputy Joe real­ized that some­one had gone to great lengths to remove any trace of their pres­ence. The ster­ile and emo­tion­less lan­guage of the report clashed with the com­plex­i­ty of the case, leav­ing the men feel­ing more con­fused than ever. Rather than pro­vid­ing the clar­i­ty they had hoped for, the report only deep­ened the mys­tery sur­round­ing the case, mak­ing it clear that their inves­ti­ga­tion had hit a road­block. The absence of clues, com­bined with the metic­u­lous effort to scrub the scene clean, left them won­der­ing who had the means and the motive to erase any evi­dence so thor­ough­ly. With each new report and dead-end, the inves­ti­ga­tion seemed to spi­ral fur­ther into uncer­tain­ty, and the real­i­ty of how much fur­ther they had to go weighed heav­i­ly on both men. They were now caught in a vicious cycle, unable to move for­ward and unsure of how much longer they could con­tin­ue their efforts with­out hit­ting yet anoth­er brick wall. The term “neg­a­tive data” was no longer just a descrip­tor for their reports—it had become the harsh real­i­ty they were forced to accept.