Caspersen Beach

In 1994, toddler Savannah Troy was kidnapped in broad daylight while playing on one of Florida’s Gulf Coast pristine beaches, then murdered. The murder was pinned on Randy Cousins, a homeless man who had the misfortune of stumbling upon the body some months later. Cousins was accused, convicted and then sentenced to life in prison with no apparent chance for exoneration, based solely on circumstantial evidence. 

Now, some 20 years later, Detective Geri Garibaldi, wants to re-open the investigation based on a death bed confession from a mentally ill woman, Maggie Blue, who says she knows who really killed the child.  But can they believe her? 

Maggie, herself a homeless person, possessed dark secrets of her own. Her daughter, Poppy, was being raised by her grandmother, due to Maggie’s chronic addictions and less than favorable lifestyle. However, Maggie’s obsession of having a child, no matter the cost, filled her days and nights with unrealistic dreams of motherhood. This preoccupation didn’t go without notice by her unsavory constant companion, Gator Pope, whose sinister undercurrent was ready, willing and able to commit whatever action was necessary to fulfill Maggie’s unbalanced desire. Would this be enough to place Gator Pope in the precarious position as “a person of interest”?  

Determined to unravel the copious speculations this investigation was unleashing, Det. Garibaldi possessed an equally formidable desire to explore ways to defuse Florida’s reputation for leading the nation in wrongful convictions, for which she held a gut feeling that Cousins was just such a victim of. Garibaldi enlists the aid of a cadre of unlikely individuals who help to disentangle the tapestry of mystery and possibilities in this stone cold-case.

If, Randy Cousins is innocent, that means only one thing…the murderer is still out there!