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Excerpted from the book This Night Wounds Time:

http://www.tomphillips.co.uk/cgi-bin/showcase.pl?pageno1=222&headdir1=2/221230&pageset1=221-230&edition1=Tetrad%20Press%20Edition,%201970[-75]&picture1=h222a500.jpg

In 1974, the British rock band King Crimson released its classic album Starless and Bible Black.  (The album’s title is a reference to Dylan Thomas’ play Under Milkwood.)  Featuring not only a stellar performance by John Wetton, the future bassist and vocalist for 1980s super group Asia, the album’s back cover includes a close-up of a section of painter Tom Phillips’ 1970 masterpiece A Humument. 

The album’s graphic is an explosive swirl of black, red, white and pale blue surrounding four ominous words - "this night wounds time."

Although once ignorant to the meaning of this cryptic phrase, in the course of researching and drafting this book, I have come to understand all too well its import and impact.

Time is ultimately that place within the human psyche where hopes regarding the future, concerns for the present, and memories of things past reside in tandem.  If ever there was a night in which time was forever wounded, it was the night on which Stacie Madison and Susan Smalley disappeared.

The girls’ community has never been the same and, in the 21 years that have elapsed since March 20, 1988, Stacie’s and Susan’s families have existed in the inescapable shadow of a mystery that remains unsolved.  Their lives are unjustly and irrevocably altered by the unexplained events of that night.

Carolyn, Ida, John, Rich, Sara and Stefanie: may “the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:26)