A Headless Corpse in the Heartland

Postcards from the Heartland: My second home (but first in my heart) lies in Custer County, Colorado, near the town of Westcliffe in a remote and lovely valley between two mountain ridges, the Sangre de Cristo and the Wet Mountains, notable for being one of the most sparsely populated counties in the U.S. The local newspaper there, the Wet Mountain Tribune, has been published since 1883, when the whole area was in the midst of the silver boom. Yesterday’s edition included this morbid headline: “Authorities Seek Identity of Headless Corpse”:
http://www.wetmountaintribune.com/home.asp?i=518&p=1
Our laconic lawman, Fred Jobe, tall and craggy, friendly enough to taxpayers like myself, is also known locally as The Singing Sheriff (he has his own CD). He resembles a marshal straight out of Dodge City, circa 1883, or an extra in one of the several iconic Westerns filmed in our county, including Cat Ballou and How the West Was Won. I love the hardbitten attitude in his final quote: “Jobe said as crime escalates in larger surrounding counties, he feels Custer County, due to its numerous remote locations, will continue to be a dumping ground for murdered bodies.”