The winter solstice was approaching in the sleepy town of Corvallis, Montana. The snow was starting to fall as the Petersons were sitting in their quiet living room when the evening news came on. The top story was about a creative writing contest taking place in the capital city, Helena. The youngest, Stanly decided that his mother, Veronica should enter, because she had majored in journalism at UCLA. Her husband, Wilbur encouraged her to do it as well.
Veronica gets to writing, and the rest of the family heads out to find lighter wood for their fireplace. As they arrive back home, Veronica finishes her piece. She starts to leave the house to turn in her paper to the big city when she’s stopped by Wilbur. “You’ll slide off that icy road as fast as you can say slide” Wilbur said. “It won’t take me 20 minutes to get there” replied Veronica. Wilbur knew that the route that she would be taking was very treacherous and dangerous. Nobody had ever survived that road, too bad Veronica didn’t know that. Wilbur finally gave in and said, “You be careful now.” She set out in her Volkswagen SUV, but she forgot to put the chains on her tires to keep her from sliding off the road. She was driving when she saw what appeared to be a wrecked BMW SUV buried in the snow. She paid it no attention as she continued.

That night, Stanly and Wilbur were watching the evening news and suddenly an Amber Alert came across their TV screen. It showed that a white woman stand at 5’7” tall had disappeared. Their worst fears had been realized, Veronica was missing.
About 30 minutes later, they heard a knock on the door; a very large man was standing there. His eyes were as gray as the sky above, and his feet were bigger than the state itself. “Hello, I’m Detective Hubert Johnston. I’ll be covering your case.” This detective is the best in the state of Montana.
Weeks and weeks pass on and they haven’t heard anything. One day they were watching The Price is Right when they heard the phone ring. It was Detective Johnston. “Will you two please come to my office in Helena? This is serious.”
As they arrived they saw a hearse outside the building; they knew this wasn’t going to be good. “Please take a seat” the detective said. We did find Ms. Peterson’s body. She was attacked and was assaulted by a large man. When we got there she was already frozen to death. At that moment the casket was carried by the office and put into the hearse.