From Tom via my inbox: This, my friends, is a test case for deadline narrative. Here we have a story — a first-day exclusive story, no less — that delays its gruesome punchline till the fourteenth paragraph. The question before you today is whether it should have given readers the gold upfront, or whether its timing was just right, or whether, as my colleague Michael Kruse has suggested, the punchline actually came too soon.
This is what appeared before the jump in today's St. Petersburg Times:
The headline: She was reported missing, but she never left home.
The subhed: A 38-year-old woman vanishes. Her family searches for days. Then, a macabre discovery.
NEW PORT RICHEY — Mariesa Weber vanished…
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