The Black Tapes · Pacific Northwest Stories

Episode 104 - Turn That Frown Upside Down

June 9, 2015·37 min·3 clips

A 1957 murder where a bullied girl slit a homecoming queen's throat and stitched her face on upside down.

The recording opens in fragments. Alex is still working through the show's machinery when Strand finally returns one of her 11 calls, and he already sounds annoyed. Then Charlesworth takes over. The Maine town has one gas station, one pump, no sign, and a festival built around upside-down faces. Tourists show up masked and ready to drink. The masks turn a local legend into public entertainment, which may be the creepiest part. Alex keeps asking questions anyway. One witness says the ghost is real. Another treats the festival as a practical way for people to gather and drink. The legend has rules: the mouth sits where the eyes should be, and the eyes sit where the mouth should be. Fiona Denevers pulls the case tighter. Her death at the bank sends Alex toward a sister locals describe as knowing everything. Strand wants no part of it. To him, the sister can offer only cryptic attention seeking or a boring medical answer. Alex hears something worth following. Strand hears a town forcing every strange death into the shape it already believes. The episode will not settle the argument. Its last turn leaves Charlesworth and lands somewhere more personal: Charlie Strand showing up a couple of days after her father got back, saying she no longer had a father.

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