On February 2, 1969, Carl Benson took his usual shortcut through the woods off Hatch Rd in Truro to pick up the Sunday paper. Around one of the bends in the narrow, rutted, old fire road, he spotted an “abandoned” VW Bug tucked into a small clearing in the forest.
When he pulled over to take a closer look, the hair on his arms stood up and he felt as if he were being watched. He jumped back in his station wagon and raced out of the woods. When he got home, he immediately called the Truro police. He could not have known that in doing so, he would break a missing persons case wide open.
There is something so evocative and chilling looking at this photo of Patricia Walsh’s car. Where it had just recently been and the horror it was witness to…..the unwitting object that brought her and her friend to their doom. In Costa’s appropriating of it, It brings to mind what Jimmy Stewart said to Kim Novak towards the end of VERTIGO: ” You shouldn’t keep souvenirs of a killing.” God rest them..