There's a bit of an update (and analysis) on that strange story we had out of E. Ft Myers a while back about eight "skinned" skeletons they found buried. We knew it would take a long time to get official answers because anthropologists are having to study the bones, and you know there's no such thing as a fast anthropologist. In fact I don't think I can even think of slower-paced job than theirs. Brush, brush. Look. Ponder. Reflect. Brush, brush. What we have heard through back channels though is that all the bodies were male, and you know what that means. That's right, it means they found another of the dumping grounds for a serial killer they already caught and put on Death Row and who I knew nothing about 'cause I've been away from home so long.
So we had our first serial killer and I was completely out of the loop. He was not a local boy -- that would be an impossibility-- but rather out of the Carolinas. The quaint moniker for him was "The Hog Trail Killer," given because to a reporter anything in SW Florida that isn't sidewalk must surely be hog trail. Apparently the Amidst The Trees Killer found it convenient to do both his killing and disposing away from prying eyes, and he might have been on to something there.
The Crime Library has a good write-up on the Flora And Fauna Killer, in real life less-colorfully known as Daniel Conahan. The best part of the story: The investigators first learned who their suspect was when they visited a man in prison who had escaped him. He'd escaped Conahan by taking off in The Loden Weald Killer's car at the last minute rather than heading into the woods with him. A stolen-car report was filed and the would-be victim was sent to prison for auto theft.