Murder on the Fraser River

[+seneca]

On Sunday evening (June 9) my wife and I went to find a cache at the edge of the Fraser River about 40 minutes away. The last time the cache had been found was June 1. A warm evening and a beautiful spot that I had not been to before. Got to the general location of the cache and began looking, without success. (All of the previous seekers appeared to find the cache easily.) Finally used the clue, but it was not very specific or helpful. However, right at the exact spot where my GPS was showing less than 5 feet away from the cache, I spotted a small remnant of new yellow crime scene tape tied around the branch of a bush. Ah hah!, I thought to myself, this must be the real clue left by the cache hider to mark the spot. I optimistically continued my search, but still no luck! Finally, after scouring the entire area thorougly, and sticking my hand in every nook and cranny, I gave up. Got home and posted the first “unhappy face” for that particular cache.

 

This morning my wife showed me a story in our local paper which was a follow-up to a story I suddenly recalled reading last Friday. This morning’s story was now confirming that the police, suspect foul play with respect to the male body that was found by two children playing last Thursday (June 6) - right at the exact spot where the remnant of the crime scene tape was - and the co-ordinates of my failed cache search! What are the chances of that!! I felt silly for not making the connection beforehand.

 

Now, I am presuming (and almost hoping) that my failure to find the cache was due to the police finding it before me! I am worried however - what if my wife and I were under police surveillance while suspiciously and thorougly searching the area that a murder victim was found!!

 

(Note: I did not post any follow up on the cache logs, but e-mailed the cache owner instead - I didn’t want to ruin his beautiful cache location with such a gruesome story - did I do the right thing?)

 

You may not agree with what I say, but I will defend, to your death, my right to say it!(it's a Joke, OK!)

[+Dan_Edwards]

quote:

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Originally posted by seneca:

 

Now, I am presuming (and almost hoping) that my failure to find the cache was due to the police finding it before me! I am worried however - what if my wife and I were under police surveillance while suspiciously and thorougly searching the area that a murder victim was found!!

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Well I can say I have personal experiance with the police mistaking stuff (not geocaching) for bad behavior. I made the story into a cache with all the details. That is not important here. While I was upset at the time for what happened, I will say that it only took the police a few minutes to figure out that nothing was going on. I would not worry about it too much.

[+VentureForth]

Have you called the police department and asked for the cache container back yet?

 

I hope the victim wasn't a geocacher who got snake bit!

 

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Go! And don't be afraid to get a little wet!

[Licorice]

I'm pretty good about checking my emails and this web site daily to see what is going on, but over the last few weeks I was overseas and couldn't check my email or the web site. When returning home last week I had a good half dozen emails from people regarding the now archived Southlands cache (see http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.asp?ID=23664) and the whole story about a police investigation that somehow involved a 500 mL geocache container hidden underneath a sign.

Apparently the body had washed ashore within about 10 m of the cache location and the whole area was sealed off. It's very likely they noticed that the rocks under the sign had been disturbed and the cache was quickly located and removed for evidence. I'm not sad about the loss of the cache and I definitely plan to rehide a new cache in that area in the near future. If anything, I never would of guessed this to happen to my little cache.

 

I wonder if the Vancouver Police department visited geocaching.com to find out more about the Southlands cache? I personally haven't been contacted by them regarding the container. I really wonder what they did with that cache. The translucent Nalgene container alone is worth about $15. Who knows, maybe cops all over the city have been issued GPSs to do some lite geocaching during their breaks?

 

Steve

http://www.geckobeach.com