The Case of Travis Prescott

This casefile was compiled by Alva Keel through witness interviews and observations conducted by SQ.

      Mr. Callan and I were discussing medium Sara Hume over a game of chess when we received a phone call in the Sodalitas Quaerito office. The caller promptly hung up. Ms. Santos informed us that someone had been phoning and hanging up for a few hours already. As if on cue, the telephone rang again. A rather deep voice on the other end asked for our expertise in sorting out some prophetic dreams he'd been having - he claimed to have dreamed about obliterating people, and when he awakened, these dreams had come true. He mentioned a "Mr. Bass" and a "Miss Jenson" as having been previous victims.
      When asked where he lived, the caller responded that he resided in "Red Deer," and then threatened to commit suicide before he caused anymore deaths. Mr. Callan attempted to dissuade him. The caller's panicked response was to hang up. The things he said gave us enough clues to connect the phone call to a series of murders in Red Deer, Michigan, that had been attributed by the tabloids to Bigfoot. The names in the newspaper matched the names the caller had given us: Mr. Wendell Bass and Miss Denise Jensen. Their demise were described as maulings.
      Upon arriving in Red Deer, we found out that Mr. Bass had been the local scoutmaster, and Miss Jensen, the high school nurse. Another murder had taken place the previous night; a local minister, Reverend J. Grafnuller, had been brutally mauled like the others. We headed for the high school to meet with the sheriff of the town, Mr. Edward Prescott. The boys were having wrestling practice in the gym, and Mr. Callan seemed to sense something from one specific teenager.
      The sheriff did not have any particularly helpful information, only that these local people had been killed within the last two weeks. We did, however, receive a note on our car windshield from the boy Mr. Callan had singled out. He asked us to meet him at the downtown library. While Mr. Callan and I went to look into that, Ms. Santos ventured over to the morgue to see if she could view the latest murder victim.
      At the library, we met Travis Prescott, a quiet 13-year-old boy, who informed us he had been trying his best to stay awake for the last two weeks, since the murders started. (These two weeks coincided with his thirteenth birthday.) He thought himself responsible for these deaths as he had dreamed about the killings before they happened. In fact, the boy had even been causing himself bodily harm in the form of pinpricks to avoid sleeping.
      Eventually, Travis had to leave, but not before we asked him a few more questions about his dreams. We were able to almost rule out complex partial seizures as a possibility for how the boy could be committing these horrific crimes and not being aware of it. Our primary focus then shifted to that of the dreams and how they could tie in with local legend. One interesting thing we found out as Travis left is that the sheriff we met, Sheriff Prescott, was his father, as he picked him up from the library.
      The body of the reverend revealed several important clues to us. Besides the massive lacerations that looked as if they'd been made by a wild animal, he also had multiple broken bones, some of which were crushed into fragments. The most telling detail about the man's body is that he was missing part of his right tibia, which clued us in to more possibilities dealing with local legend.
      At this point, we split up to follow different leads. Mr. Callan performed a stakeout on the Prescott home to rule out the partial seizure theory. Ms. Santos returned to the high school to question Travis' guidance counselor, Mr. Fred Norris. I went to a local drinking establishment to question the clientele about these local legends.
      Ms. Santos spoke with the counselor, where she was given the distinct impression that Sheriff Prescott beat his son to keep him in line. Mr. Norris seemed to think that these beatings were a good idea, to make the boy "a man." Mr. Norris also told Ms. Santos that Mrs. Prescott, Travis' mother, had died, so there apparently was no one left who was able or willing to protect Travis. Perhaps, until now.
      For my own part, I interviewed a Chippewa Elder at the local bar. He told me the legend of the spirit that steals bones. This legend comes from an ancient tribe that was in the area long before the Chippewa, a tribe that considered twins a monstrosity. When twins were born, one would be left in the woods to die. The surviving twin would reach puberty, and at this point, the spirit of his dead sibling would become his spiritual "double," protecting him in battle. The double was referred to as "the one who scatters the bones of his enemies."
      Mr. Callan's surveillance lent credence to this theory, as Travis left his house to spend the night in a small, abandoned hut, and Mr. Callan was able to speak with him further. The boy now sported a black eye, which he claimed he'd done to himself, but this was doubtful. Travis told Mr. Callan about his best friend, "Jimmy," who purportedly attended reform school in nearby Medicine Hat, Michigan. Jimmy would not come around most people because he did not like "the way they smelled;" he disliked perfumes and colognes. This could indicate a non-human, perhaps even animal quality to this "Jimmy." Mr. Callan kept watch over Travis all night to prove that he wasn't the one who was killing these people. He noticed that, at times, the forest seemed to reverberate with a phantom rattling sound, much like the rattling of bones.
      That night, Mr. Norris, the counselor that Ms. Santos had previously spoken to, was the next murder victim. Travis reported that he had experienced another violent dream, but he had slept within the hut all night. We split up again, so that Mr. Callan could continue his survelliance of Travis, Ms. Santos could interview Travis' maternal aunt, and I could check out Medicine Hat.
      Travis' aunt told Ms. Santos that his mother, Janeane, had been pregnant with twins, one being Travis. The twins were fraternal, meaning that they had separate amniotic sacs. Sheriff Prescott beat her so severely one night that she miscarried only "Jimmy," which is possible with fraternal twins because of the separate sacs. The mother took the baby's body out into the woods and buried it. This beating and miscarriage seems to have done too much physical damage to Mrs. Prescott, because she then died giving birth to Travis. The aunt also confirmed for us that the sheriff did physically abuse his son.
      At the same time, I found Medicine Hat to be a ghost town, with no reform school. This led us back to the conclusion that Jimmy was Travis' fraternal twin and spirit protector, and that he was committing these murders against people who had known about Sheriff Prescott's abuse and done nothing to stop it.
      Mr. Callan almost met Jimmy that afternoon, as he approached the hut where Travis liked to go to escape his father. He heard the phantom rattling sound again; then someone ran at him at incredible speed, startling him. The "person" quickly leapt right over Mr. Callan's head and ran away into the woods. Mr. Callan discovered Travis inside the hut; he said that Jimmy had indeed just left. When he investigated Travis' condition further, he found that the boy had a handful of pills, and was planning on killing himself to stop the murders. Mr. Callan promptly halted the suicide attempt. Travis confessed that his father had told him he was "bad" because he "killed his mother."
      Mr. Callan and I planned to meet at Child Protective Services in Red Deer where we could take care of Travis' welfare, but unfortunately, Sheriff Prescott intercepted Mr. Callan and Travis. He assaulted Mr. Callan with his night stick, and took him into custody with no evidence of any crime having been committed. Ms. Santos and I left C.P.S. when Mr. Callan did not arrive and headed for the jail, anticipating the sheriff's interference.
      Mr. Callan tried to explain to Sheriff Prescott the danger he was in from Jimmy, but as could be expected, he did not believe the story. Locked inside a cell, Mr. Callan could do nothing but attempt to convince the sheriff that he needed to do what he could to repent for what he'd done to Travis, his wife, and Jimmy. The fact that Mr. Callan somehow knew so much greatly angered Sheriff Prescott. He unholstered his gun and threatened to kill Mr. Callan. Travis intervened, for which the sheriff shoved him carelessly into the bars of the cell, knocking him out cold.
      It was at this time that Jimmy appeared in the doorway. With Travis unconscious, Jimmy made comments about no longer respecting the love Travis felt for their father. Ms. Santos and I entered just in time to see Jimmy literally disappear, fading from view. Before any of us could do anything to stop it, a strong, invisible force picked up Sheriff Prescott and brutally tossed him about the police station. His head was forced between the bars of Mr. Callan's jail cell; this crushed several bones in the sheriff's skull, causing his death.
      Jimmy reappeared to us, leaving behind a homemade charm bracelet with Travis, and bidding his unconscious brother good-bye. The spirit disappeared again on his way out the door. There was nothing we could do for Sheriff Prescott, as we saw what a force of nature Jimmy was right before our very eyes.
      The killings in Red Deer stopped after that. Although the state police did not seem to believe all of our story, their only suspect is "Jimmy," and so he is still being sought for questioning. I wish them good luck. Travis went to live with his maternal aunt. When she saw the charm bracelet on his wrist, she remarked, with Mr. Callan present, that Travis' mother had owned a bracelet just like it. She was buried with it.
      This case is closed.

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