How It Changed Them

Oliver Mackson: ONE OF THE WORST THINGS EVER to happen in the placid village that the locals call "Slow-Motion Goshen" occurred on a sunny afternoon on June 4, 1991. Two girls, best friends, went exploring off North Church Street, near where the village gives way to the more woodsy, spread-out Town of Goshen. One girl was 14. The other was a month away from turning 14. They were curious about an old hotel, tumble-down and vine-strangled, fallen into decrepitude long before they were born.

They were poking around the crumbling foundation of the building when they were confronted by a tall man, 6-foot-3 before you counted the pile of his reddish-brown afro. He carried a long knife and a…