So I lost Ramsey's cell number when my phone broke a month back, and I started missing the booger, so I called the 800 number for the Times Herald-Record, where my boy handles night cops. I got excited when the automated answering system patched me to the tips line.
Posted below is Ramsey's next-day inter-office memo noting leftover breaking news items from the night before:
*Marlboro. Firefighter injured, but it sounded like it happened in the fire house. Couldn't raise the chief last night.
*Cross dressing robber arrested. Brief in paper. He's in court today.
*And this little gem: Bat phoner. Guy calls and asks if we do stories about murdered cows. I say I don’t see why we wouldn’t. He says he’s got a pretty good hunch that his neighbor has been shooting his cows. I love this story already. He says his neighbor drives around with rifles and has been “eyen” the cows. The police won’t do nothin’ unless they see it. I’m thinking: His voice sounds funny. He’s a little too country, even for Pa. He says the neighbor had a thing with his aunt, but they split after she accused him of molesting her daughter from another marriage and now he swears the neighbor is killing his cows. OK... He says five have been shot, four dead, in the last two days. This week, I’m thinking, excellent. Still, this isn’t right. Too perfect. Cow murderer. And that voice. I ask where he lives. He says West Hartford. Where? Is that Connecticut? And in my mind, I’m starting to picture a face. It’s in Pennsylvania, across from the river from Sullivan County. OK. That’s our area. But I can see this face clearly now in my head. I get his number. It starts with 813. Not from around here, I know. Nowhere close actually. Still, I want to believe there is someone with a high powered rifle taking down cows over some incestuous grudge. And what’s your name, sir? “Ben... That mother f’r. ....Montgomery.”
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