The Nine Lives of Don Patricio

We had time to spare during the night shift, but often during the day we newsmen worked flat out often handling half a dozen stories an hour. AP communication in the 1960s was all very primitive but we had a gang of technicians installing a monstrous battery of electronic equipment in part of the Columbus office. Most of it was concerned with switching data from one part of our network to another rather than legitimate computing which had yet to progress beyond the punched-card stage. One evening I got a call from a stringer at the radio station in Steubenville. He was very excited: “You’ll never guess.” “No?” “They found a head.” “Who? Where?” “Guy walking his dog at the dump.” “Name—the guy? Bugger the dog. On second thoughts gimme the dog’s name.” One never knew when that sort of color might be useful—his dog Hengist was horsing around. “I’ll get back to you,” he said. “Town dump?” “Yes. By the river.” “Tell me about the head—presumably human.” “You bet.” “Male or female? “‘Get back to you.” “Black, white, Indian?” “Have to get back.” “Any recent report of a body missing its head?” “Not that I know of.” “How was the head detached? Clean cut or just ripped off?” “I’ll get back” “I hope you’re taking notes. I need this stuff. “Fresh meat or dead for a while? If so, how long?” I kept hoping for an answer. “Get back.” I was spoiling all his fun by looking for facts. This guy wasn’t a digger; not even curious. “Criminal investigation under way? Jefferson County Sheriff or City Police?” “Get back.” “Please do.” I put a brief item on the wire: Human head found on Steubenville dump. Investigation ongoing. The phone rang. My friend from Steubenville with, I hoped, the answers I needed. “You’ll never guess.” “Okay. The head belonged to Jimmy Hoffa, to Khrushchev, to the Pope? “None of the above.” But he was even more excited: “They found another head.” “Really. Male or female, black, white or Indian, clean cut or ripped off, fresh or old, criminal investigation…?” “Don’t have it. Yet.” I put out an update: two heads. Then the phone rang: “You’ll never guess…” “Yes, I know, another head.” “Wrong!” Triumphant. “Two more heads!” “Total of four. Did I get that right? So male or female…?” Same list of questions but not a single answer, and these rip-and-read radio news editors call themselves journalists. I think we were up to six heads and no answers by the time I went home for supper. We were up to nine heads when I went in next morning. I called the Jefferson County Sheriff and the Steubenville Police but neither was much help, although I got an admission, off the record, that there might have been evidence of surgical tampering. They told me that the heads had been shipped to Ohio State University for examination. Interesting. But it smelled anthropological rather than forensic. For a while it looked as if the ‘Heads’ story had legs. But eventually the truth dribbled out. In his young days, early in the 20th century, the Old Doc had been interested in the human brain. He had done a deal with the local undertaker who had agreed to provide him with the heads of any unclaimed bodies that came his way. The Old Doc had enjoyed playing with his heads, cutting them open and messing with the brains. The years passed and he lost interest in his hobby and his head collection was consigned to the basement. The Old Doc died, old and full of years, and his family came to clear out the house. Afraid that he might have been a serial killer in his younger days, and that the heads were his trophies, the family stuffed them into garbage bags and dropped them off discreetly at the municipal dump, where the dogs and local wildlife resurrected them. And that pretty much was the end of the story as all the principals were long dead.