When I was a kid, police and fire officials found a fifty gallon drum among bridge pilings in the canal twixt Miami Springs and Hialeah. A woman’s body had been stuffed inside and the drum filled with cement.
The perp turned out to be a popular men’s store owner who, at trial, claimed the woman had unwantedly come on to him in his home, and he’d struck her with a lamp.
Panicked, as he claimed, that he’d killed her, he recruited a couple of high school boys he knew, who helped him dump the barrel in the canal, claiming to them it contained...I can’t recall...old auto parts, or something.
The jig was up however when after the barrel was found, and one or both of the kids copped to having helped the guy dump it, considerably downstream from the bridge.
He was charged with first degree murder, but beat the rap as his panic defense was bought by the jury. If I recall correctly, he claimed he was a homosexual, and that the woman would not take his no for an answer.
My family would not let my brothers and I go into his store after that, and IIRC, he went out of business soon thereafter.
What was the name of the store.Think I was at the CG base in Opalocka when that happened