National Adult Literacy Database

February 4, 2013

This week, we have a story written by Terry Wilson, from Halifax, Nova Scotia.  Terry is enrolled in in literacy classes at Dartmouth Learning Network (DLN), a non-profit, community-based organization dedicated to improving literacy levels in the community. It offers training for adults in language, mathematics, computers and life skills.

Who Killed John Doe?

by Terry Wilson

When the cops got to the crime scene they saw lots of blood on the pavement where the dead man lay. There were no eye witnesses. The person that did the shooting had fled the crime scene without a trace. There was only one clue and that was the shell that the sergeant found. But there was something different about the shell that killed John Doe.

When the day came to an end the cops were exhausted after their shift. The detective that was handling the case said, “I have to sleep on that,” referring to the weird shape of the shell they found at the crime scene. Sergeant John came back the next day to where the killing had taken place to look for more clues.

On the third day the Sergeant stayed around the crime scene for at least four hours longer than he did the second day. The dead man was not vertical but was lying horizontal in the middle of the street. While he was looking for clues Sergeant John ended up with a bad sore throat, so that night before he went to bed he took some medicine to make his throat better. The next morning he was feeling alright.

When his shift started for the day, he got an idea to go to a gun shop to check to see where the bullet was made. The gun dealer said “it would take some time to decide where the bullet came from.” Six days went by before the gun shop owner got any information. He called up the sergeant to tell him that it came from Russia. There were several places that bullet was made. Two days later they found out which gun manufacturer had made the bullet.

The sergeant and detective were looking in every place they could think of for clues but after two days there were still no more to be found. After four weeks somebody came forward and said to the detective that he had seen something in the alley. The two officers went with the man to the alley and there was the gun, hidden behind a large rock.

When the two cops found the gun, they went back to the alley to search some more and found John Doe’s wallet. When they dusted the gun they found finger prints.  They checked photographs and found matching prints of a wanted man named Billy Clark. They looked into the wallet of the dead man and saw his photo I D. The man they called John Doe was really John Smith.