David Bushman
And Mark Givens
her acquaintances — identified only by their initials — locked away in Hazel’s trunk.
The Twin Peaks narrative at various times pointed the guilty finger at sensitive biker James Hurley, local drug dealer Leo Johnson and sleazy real estate developer Benjamin Horne. Investigators in Hazel’s case, under mounting pressure from the public and the national press, uncovered new suspects on a seemingly daily basis.
Smith, the farmhand who crossed paths with Hazel shortly before her death, was an early target. In addition to his affections for the dead girl, he repeatedly made contradictory statements to the authorities. When corroborating alibis seemed to clear his name, a string of eccentric suspects followed, beginning with Hazel’s surly uncle William Taylor, whose farm was within a mile of Teal’s Pond. Authorities could never uncover direct evidence linking him to the murder, and he was eventually cleared. Other irascible characters would fleetingly shoot to the forefront as persons of interest.
Sand Lake is, in many regards, a northeastern doppelganger to its fictional Pacific Northwest counterpart. Located down the slopes of Taborton Mountain, about 10 miles (16km) east of Albany, it has a population of 10,135 — closer to the 5000 originally envis- ioned by Lynch and Frost for Twin Peaks, before ABC insisted the iconic “Welcome to Twin Peaks” sign expand the number to 51,201, believing the low population would turn viewers off.
Sand Lake historian Bob Moore notes of Twin Peaks, “The logging industry, the Great Northern Hotel, and the isolated hunting camps seem oddly related to Sand Lake in the late 1800s and early 1900s.”
Unfortunately, the parallels between Hazel Drew and Laura Palmer go only so far. While Frost and Lynch famously failed to rebuff network pressure to expose Laura’s killer (no spoilers here), there were no meddling ABC executives to force a resolution to Hazel’s story. Instead, weeks of investigation culminated in a grand inquest where witnesses were gathered to obtain their definitive testimonies. Unfortunately, little new information was elicited and the case ended abruptly.
“A wise man once told me that mystery is the most essential ingredient of life, for the following reason: mystery creates wonder, which leads to curiosity, which in turn provides the ground for our desire to understand who and what we truly are,” Frost wrote in his 2016 novel The Secret History of Twin Peaks. The solution to Hazel’s murder may lie forever beyond our grasp, but it’s our longing for answers that makes her story — and the story of Laura Palmer — so seductive.