It’s January, the longest 31-day month in the year. It is also our coldest month and the one with the most snowfall. There’s another fact about Maine winters that many people experience, but no one seems to talk about. Have you noticed that if anything is going to break down, it happens in winter!

Smuttynose Island, at 25 acres, is the third-largest island. It is known as the site of Blackbeard’s honeymoon, later for the shipwreck of the Spanish ship Sagunto in 1813, and then for the notorious 1873 murders of two young women. The latter is recalled in the story, “A Memorable Murder”, by Celia Thaxter, in the 1997 novel, The Weight of Water, by Anita Shreve (and in the film of the same name), and in the song, “The Ballad of Louis Wagner” by John Perrault.

I want to revisit an actual crime case once again, this one much closer to home. It is about a man who was born less than five miles from where I live. You may have heard that no one ever escaped from Alcatraz, but that isn’t exactly correct. I want to introduce you to the Alcatraz Eel.