Last Seen Wearing ... (Hillary Waugh novel)
Encyclopedia
Last Seen Wearing ... is a U.S. detective novel
by Hillary Waugh
frequently referred to as the police procedural
par excellence. Set in a fictional college town in Massachusetts
, the book is about a female fresher
who goes missing and the painstaking investigation carried out by the police with the aim of finding out what has happened to her and, if necessary, tracking down any perpetrator who has done her harm.
The novel, which minutely chronicles the work of the police, is told exclusively in chronological order. No piece of information is ever held back. At any given point in time, the reader knows just as much as the police — neither more nor less. The time narrated is 5½ weeks, from 3 March 1950 to 11 April 1950.
situated in a small town in Massachusetts, 66 miles away from Boston
. She has left all her things in her room, and her diary
is found in one of her drawers. Her parents are informed, and eventually, on the following day, the police are called in.
(2) Right from the start of the investigation, chief of the local police Frank W. Ford's principle is "Cherchez le boy"
. In other words, the police think Lowell (or "Mitch", as she is sometimes called) might be pregnant
, with or without her trying to contact a doctor willing to perform an abortion
(illegal in 1950), or that she has just run off with some man. Both her fellow students and her parents declare all these speculations impossibilities and claim that Mitch is not that sort of girl; that she has had dates, but with no-one in particular; that she has never gone any further than "necking
" and "soul-kissing"; and that she is definitely still a virgin
. Her diary gives the police no clue whatsoever to prove the opposite.
(3) The police, however, pursue this line of investigation further. ("Look at her face. [...] It spells S-E-X to me.") Accordingly, they make a list of all the 47 males mentioned in the girl's diary, including even such unlikely figures as movie stars and local policemen, and consider all of them potential suspects. They also keep a watch on those shady doctors in town who might be willing to perform an illegal abortion, but the latter move does not lead anywhere.
(4) The process of elimination
begins, based on the hypothesis that the diary could be deliberately misleading as far as her relationships to men are concerned. The 47 males are categorized into seven groups and then either questioned or eliminated right away:
(5) As on the morning of her disappearance Marilyn Lowell Mitchell was seen walking along a nearby lake (an artificial one, with a river that runs through it and a dam), Ford, based on one of his hunches, has the lake drained
, but no piece of evidence
is found.
(6) When the police investigations slow down a bit as no results can be produced, Ford is confronted with John Monroe, a private investigator
hired by the architect Carl Mitchell, the girl's father. Monroe, who Ford does not mind co-operating with, does not get anywhere either, but he nevertheless keeps developing his own theories. To one of Ford's colleagues, Mitchell has become "the disappearingest girl I ever saw".
This is the part of the book where several false leads are introduced:
(7) On Friday, 17 March 1950, a college student, while crossing a bridge, happens to notice a small object lying at the bottom of the shallow river. This object turns out to be Marilyn Lowell Mitchell's hair clip
. This seems to be evidence enough that the girl drowned in the river, and the search for her body is resumed. Eventually, it is found. At first it is generally assumed that the girl has — for whatever reason, but most likely in connexion with her unwanted pregnancy — committed suicide by jumping off the bridge. Ford, however, does not think so. Right at the time of the inquest
he proves that this is wrong by having a large block of ice dropped into the river and subsequently by following its course. After this experiment it is a fact that the body was dumped where it was found and that it could not possibly have been washed ashore there. From now on, the student's disappearance is regarded as a murder
case. What is more, it is found out during the post-mortem that the girl was six weeks pregnant — a fact her family did not know anything about.
(8) Seen in this new light, Marilyn Lowell Mitchell's diary is re-examined — first by McNarry, the District Attorney
, a man who "couldn't find M in the alphabet", then again and again by Ford. Now that the police know that she was pregnant, her words "I'm late again" acquire an altogether different meaning: They refer to her having missed her period
for the second time in a row rather than to having to catch up on her assignments.
(9) It is generally assumed now that he who is the father of her unborn child is also Marilyn Lowell Mitchell's murderer. Ford's hunch is that it is a local man ("There's no way of tracing the body back to somebody so we've got to trace somebody to the body"). Consequently, the police scrutinize the lives of those suspects who live in town, among them Seward. People from outside town are not completely eliminated though, for example the rather mysterious figure of Charles M. Watson, a travelling salesman.
(10) Also, Ford re-examines the diary, especially the entries dating back to six weeks before she was murdered — the time of conception
, i. e. when she must have slept with her murderer — and realizes that it must be code
d. Finally he breaks the code: It consists of three exclamation mark
s in a row. Each time this symbol appears at the end of a sentence the girl must have met her lover. The three exclamation marks appear for the first time in an entry on Friday, 16 December 1949. Christmas holidays that year started on the following Sunday, but as Marilyn Lowell Mitchell had no classes on Saturday, she left the college one day ahead of her classmates. The three exclamation marks can be found for the last time on 27 February 1950. Between that period, the code was used 23 times ("They sure went at it hot and heavy."). Interestingly, the girl met her lover on Saturday, 17 December 1949 (and then again on 3 January 1950) — a Saturday she told her parents she had stopped over in New York
at a friend's place before finally going home to Philadelphia, which, however, turns out not to have been the case.
(11) The process of elimination continues. The list of suspects has been narrowed down to 17 men. The police focus their attention on Seward when they find out that on 16 December 1949 he left town on the same train as Marilyn Lowell Mitchell. Now they check up on Seward's past, his family, and the circumstances under which he lives now. Among other things, they find out that he has a record as a life-long womanizer. Also, they have his house searched by his maid, a Mrs Glover. However, 35 year-old Seward seems to have changed his ways: Mrs Glover cannot report having witnessed any "immoral" situations or any traces thereof. Taking into consideration that keeping such things a secret in a small town, where there is hardly any anonymity (cf. Stephen Dobyns
' The Church of Dead Girls, a novel in which, almost half a century later, a very similar atmosphere is created), the police come to the conclusion that Seward is "either innocent or smart".
(12) The number of suspects is further narrowed down by the fact that two conditions must be true for the murderer: He must have been in New York on 16 December 1949 and in the college town on 3 March (to dump the body). There are other conditions as well — for instance, he must own a car or at least have access to a car (again to dispose of the body). Nevertheless the police do have doubts as to the conclusiveness of their work so far ("You'd better remember we don't even know if he's the guy. Hell, what if his folks do say he didn't get home until late Saturday, what will it prove? Do you think a jury will say he's her lover because Lowell puts three exclamation points in her diary on that day?").
(13) Seward is shadowed round the clock now, but not directly approached by the police. They let him stew for a while, waiting for him to make a mistake or at least act conspicuously. While shadowing him they are faced with a girl coming out of Seward's house late one night. It is 20 year-old Mildred Naffzinger, an employee at the local drug store and "a little tart who knows her way around". She denies any connexion with Seward, but, after a long time of questioning, finally gives in, telling the police that Seward is her on-and-off lover (he dropped her when he began his affair with Mitchell, now he has taken it up again). Just as he persuaded Mitchell not to mention his name anywhere, including her diary, he has worked out a special code for arranging his secret meetings with Mildred (and obviously another code for his meetings with Mitchell, some code they could use right in the classroom without anybody noticing).
(14) Eventually the police search Seward's house and garden while he is safely teaching at the college and find Mitchell's handbag. The police are going to arrest him the moment he leaves the classroom, and it will turn out that he had a secret affair with her, made her pregnant and eventually, panicking, broke her neck when she told him that she was pregnant, that she would go public and that she expected him to marry her (which, among other things, would have ruined his career).
There is obviously no twist or surprise ending, as in that case all or at least most of the meticulous police work described in the novel would have to turn out wrong or in vain. There is no "lucid, astounding explanation presented to the group of suspects gathered in the library — but the accumulation of enough evidence to point to a suspect, justify an arrest and stand up in court" (Ousby).
The novel has never been filmed; in a film version, the killer, Harlan P Seward, would only be a minor character. He never personally appears in the novel: He is never directly approached, let alone cross-examined
by the police, and he is not driven to committing any follow-up crimes either.
coed, 18-year-old Stamford, CT, resident Paula Jean Welden, while hiking the Long Trail in the Green Mountains near Bennington, VT.
That case has never been solved. It resulted, however, in the creation of Vermont
's state police which did not exist at the time of the disappearance.
Detective fiction
Detective fiction is a sub-genre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator , either professional or amateur, investigates a crime, often murder.-In ancient literature:...
by Hillary Waugh
Hillary Waugh
Hillary Baldwin Waugh was a pioneering American mystery novelist. In 1989, Waugh was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America.-Career:...
frequently referred to as the police procedural
Police procedural
The police procedural is a subgenre of detective fiction which attempts to convincingly depict the activities of a police force as they investigate crimes. While traditional detective novels usually concentrate on a single crime, police procedurals frequently depict investigations into several...
par excellence. Set in a fictional college town in Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
, the book is about a female fresher
Freshman
A freshman or fresher is a first-year student in secondary school, high school, or college. The term first year can also be used as a noun, to describe the students themselves A freshman (US) or fresher (UK, India) (or sometimes fish, freshie, fresher; slang plural frosh or freshmeat) is a...
who goes missing and the painstaking investigation carried out by the police with the aim of finding out what has happened to her and, if necessary, tracking down any perpetrator who has done her harm.
Plot summary
"The police examine her past for any motive that might make her wish to disappear, or any reason why someone might want to kill her. They find her body after a long and frustrating search. As they sift all the evidence again and again, the identity of her killer slowly begins to emerge, like a photograph taking on recognizable features in the developing fluid" (Ian Ousby).The novel, which minutely chronicles the work of the police, is told exclusively in chronological order. No piece of information is ever held back. At any given point in time, the reader knows just as much as the police — neither more nor less. The time narrated is 5½ weeks, from 3 March 1950 to 11 April 1950.
A step-by-step account of the work of the police as presented in the novel
(1) In broad daylight, at lunchtime on a cold winter's day, 18 year-old Marilyn Lowell Mitchell from Philadelphia disappears from her college campusCampus
A campus is traditionally the land on which a college or university and related institutional buildings are situated. Usually a campus includes libraries, lecture halls, residence halls and park-like settings...
situated in a small town in Massachusetts, 66 miles away from Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
. She has left all her things in her room, and her diary
Diary
A diary is a record with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. A personal diary may include a person's experiences, and/or thoughts or feelings, including comment on current events outside the writer's direct experience. Someone...
is found in one of her drawers. Her parents are informed, and eventually, on the following day, the police are called in.
(2) Right from the start of the investigation, chief of the local police Frank W. Ford's principle is "Cherchez le boy"
Cherchez la femme
Cherchez la femme is a French phrase which literally means "look for the woman." The implication is that a man behaves out of character or in an otherwise inexplicable manner because he is trying to cover up an affair with a woman, or trying to impress or gain favor with a woman.The expression...
. In other words, the police think Lowell (or "Mitch", as she is sometimes called) might be pregnant
Pregnancy
Pregnancy refers to the fertilization and development of one or more offspring, known as a fetus or embryo, in a woman's uterus. In a pregnancy, there can be multiple gestations, as in the case of twins or triplets...
, with or without her trying to contact a doctor willing to perform an abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
(illegal in 1950), or that she has just run off with some man. Both her fellow students and her parents declare all these speculations impossibilities and claim that Mitch is not that sort of girl; that she has had dates, but with no-one in particular; that she has never gone any further than "necking
Making out
In human sexuality, making out is a sexual euphemism of American origin dating back to at least 1949, and is used synonymously with the terms necking, heavy petting, and hooking up to refer to non-penetrative sex, though "hooking up" is also used in some cultures to imply casual sex.-History:The...
" and "soul-kissing"; and that she is definitely still a virgin
Virginity
Virginity refers to the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. There are cultural and religious traditions which place special value and significance on this state, especially in the case of unmarried females, associated with notions of personal purity, honor and worth...
. Her diary gives the police no clue whatsoever to prove the opposite.
(3) The police, however, pursue this line of investigation further. ("Look at her face. [...] It spells S-E-X to me.") Accordingly, they make a list of all the 47 males mentioned in the girl's diary, including even such unlikely figures as movie stars and local policemen, and consider all of them potential suspects. They also keep a watch on those shady doctors in town who might be willing to perform an illegal abortion, but the latter move does not lead anywhere.
(4) The process of elimination
Elimination
- Science and medicine :*Elimination reaction, an organic reaction in which two functional groups split to form an organic product*Elimination, clearance of a drug or other foreign agent from the body...
begins, based on the hypothesis that the diary could be deliberately misleading as far as her relationships to men are concerned. The 47 males are categorized into seven groups and then either questioned or eliminated right away:
- famous actors and Winston ChurchillWinston ChurchillSir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
- "casuals", i. e. men mentioned only once without any comment (a policeman she asked for directions; relatives; etc.)
- men she mentions only once but comments on (including some teachers, such as Harlan P Seward, her history teacher, and an older man called Charles M. Watson, who once dined at the same place as she and her friends)
- boys she has nothing to do with (for example her date's roommate)
- boys from back home (whom she has not written to or dated)
- boys she has dated (including blind dates)
- boys she "really has something to do with".
(5) As on the morning of her disappearance Marilyn Lowell Mitchell was seen walking along a nearby lake (an artificial one, with a river that runs through it and a dam), Ford, based on one of his hunches, has the lake drained
Drainage
Drainage is the natural or artificial removal of surface and sub-surface water from an area. Many agricultural soils need drainage to improve production or to manage water supplies.-Early history:...
, but no piece of evidence
Evidence
Evidence in its broadest sense includes everything that is used to determine or demonstrate the truth of an assertion. Giving or procuring evidence is the process of using those things that are either presumed to be true, or were themselves proven via evidence, to demonstrate an assertion's truth...
is found.
(6) When the police investigations slow down a bit as no results can be produced, Ford is confronted with John Monroe, a private investigator
Private investigator
A private investigator , private detective or inquiry agent, is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. Private detectives/investigators often work for attorneys in civil cases. Many work for insurance companies to investigate suspicious claims...
hired by the architect Carl Mitchell, the girl's father. Monroe, who Ford does not mind co-operating with, does not get anywhere either, but he nevertheless keeps developing his own theories. To one of Ford's colleagues, Mitchell has become "the disappearingest girl I ever saw".
This is the part of the book where several false leads are introduced:
- The police receive an anonymous letter saying that Marilyn Lowell is alive and well, just visiting friends. The police immediately suppose that it was written by some "crank", which soon is revealed to be true.
- After having been seen spying on the college students, someone who later turns out to be a young journalistJournalistA journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
out for a scoopScoop (term)Scoop is an informal term used in journalism. The word connotes originality, importance, surprise or excitement, secrecy and exclusivity.Stories likely considered to be scoops are important news, likely to interest or concern many people. A scoop is typically a new story, or a new aspect to an...
, is chased by the police and brought down to the station. - After the disappearance of the freshman has been extensively covered by all the newspapers, a report comes in saying that a lady claims she was sitting next to the missing girl on a Greyhound bus bound for ChicagoChicagoChicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
. It is especially her clothes that exactly fit the description. - A decapitatedDecapitationDecapitation is the separation of the head from the body. Beheading typically refers to the act of intentional decapitation, e.g., as a means of murder or execution; it may be accomplished, for example, with an axe, sword, knife, wire, or by other more sophisticated means such as a guillotine...
body is found in Boston HarborPort of BostonThe Port of Boston, , is a major seaport located in Boston Harbor and adjacent to the City of Boston...
. However, the post-mortem establishes that it belonged to a woman who had given birth to a child.
(7) On Friday, 17 March 1950, a college student, while crossing a bridge, happens to notice a small object lying at the bottom of the shallow river. This object turns out to be Marilyn Lowell Mitchell's hair clip
Bobby pin
A bobby pin is a type of hairpin. In British English, it is known as a hair grip, grip, or kirby grip. It is a small pin or clip, usually of metal or plastic, used in coiffure to hold hair in place. Typical bobby pins are plain and unobtrusively colored, but some are elaborately decorated or jeweled...
. This seems to be evidence enough that the girl drowned in the river, and the search for her body is resumed. Eventually, it is found. At first it is generally assumed that the girl has — for whatever reason, but most likely in connexion with her unwanted pregnancy — committed suicide by jumping off the bridge. Ford, however, does not think so. Right at the time of the inquest
Inquest
Inquests in England and Wales are held into sudden and unexplained deaths and also into the circumstances of discovery of a certain class of valuable artefacts known as "treasure trove"...
he proves that this is wrong by having a large block of ice dropped into the river and subsequently by following its course. After this experiment it is a fact that the body was dumped where it was found and that it could not possibly have been washed ashore there. From now on, the student's disappearance is regarded as a murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
case. What is more, it is found out during the post-mortem that the girl was six weeks pregnant — a fact her family did not know anything about.
(8) Seen in this new light, Marilyn Lowell Mitchell's diary is re-examined — first by McNarry, the District Attorney
District attorney
In many jurisdictions in the United States, a District Attorney is an elected or appointed government official who represents the government in the prosecution of criminal offenses. The district attorney is the highest officeholder in the jurisdiction's legal department and supervises a staff of...
, a man who "couldn't find M in the alphabet", then again and again by Ford. Now that the police know that she was pregnant, her words "I'm late again" acquire an altogether different meaning: They refer to her having missed her period
Menstrual cycle
The menstrual cycle is the scientific term for the physiological changes that can occur in fertile women for the purpose of sexual reproduction. This article focuses on the human menstrual cycle....
for the second time in a row rather than to having to catch up on her assignments.
(9) It is generally assumed now that he who is the father of her unborn child is also Marilyn Lowell Mitchell's murderer. Ford's hunch is that it is a local man ("There's no way of tracing the body back to somebody so we've got to trace somebody to the body"). Consequently, the police scrutinize the lives of those suspects who live in town, among them Seward. People from outside town are not completely eliminated though, for example the rather mysterious figure of Charles M. Watson, a travelling salesman.
(10) Also, Ford re-examines the diary, especially the entries dating back to six weeks before she was murdered — the time of conception
Fertilisation
Fertilisation is the fusion of gametes to produce a new organism. In animals, the process involves the fusion of an ovum with a sperm, which eventually leads to the development of an embryo...
, i. e. when she must have slept with her murderer — and realizes that it must be code
Code
A code is a rule for converting a piece of information into another form or representation , not necessarily of the same type....
d. Finally he breaks the code: It consists of three exclamation mark
Exclamation mark
The exclamation mark, exclamation point, or bang, or "dembanger" is a punctuation mark usually used after an interjection or exclamation to indicate strong feelings or high volume , and often marks the end of a sentence. Example: “Watch out!” The character is encoded in Unicode at...
s in a row. Each time this symbol appears at the end of a sentence the girl must have met her lover. The three exclamation marks appear for the first time in an entry on Friday, 16 December 1949. Christmas holidays that year started on the following Sunday, but as Marilyn Lowell Mitchell had no classes on Saturday, she left the college one day ahead of her classmates. The three exclamation marks can be found for the last time on 27 February 1950. Between that period, the code was used 23 times ("They sure went at it hot and heavy."). Interestingly, the girl met her lover on Saturday, 17 December 1949 (and then again on 3 January 1950) — a Saturday she told her parents she had stopped over in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
at a friend's place before finally going home to Philadelphia, which, however, turns out not to have been the case.
(11) The process of elimination continues. The list of suspects has been narrowed down to 17 men. The police focus their attention on Seward when they find out that on 16 December 1949 he left town on the same train as Marilyn Lowell Mitchell. Now they check up on Seward's past, his family, and the circumstances under which he lives now. Among other things, they find out that he has a record as a life-long womanizer. Also, they have his house searched by his maid, a Mrs Glover. However, 35 year-old Seward seems to have changed his ways: Mrs Glover cannot report having witnessed any "immoral" situations or any traces thereof. Taking into consideration that keeping such things a secret in a small town, where there is hardly any anonymity (cf. Stephen Dobyns
Stephen Dobyns
Stephen J. Dobyns is an American poet and novelist born in Orange, New Jersey, and residing in Westerly, RI.-Life:Was born on February 19, 1941 in Orange, New Jersey to Lester L., a minister, and Barbara Johnston...
' The Church of Dead Girls, a novel in which, almost half a century later, a very similar atmosphere is created), the police come to the conclusion that Seward is "either innocent or smart".
(12) The number of suspects is further narrowed down by the fact that two conditions must be true for the murderer: He must have been in New York on 16 December 1949 and in the college town on 3 March (to dump the body). There are other conditions as well — for instance, he must own a car or at least have access to a car (again to dispose of the body). Nevertheless the police do have doubts as to the conclusiveness of their work so far ("You'd better remember we don't even know if he's the guy. Hell, what if his folks do say he didn't get home until late Saturday, what will it prove? Do you think a jury will say he's her lover because Lowell puts three exclamation points in her diary on that day?").
(13) Seward is shadowed round the clock now, but not directly approached by the police. They let him stew for a while, waiting for him to make a mistake or at least act conspicuously. While shadowing him they are faced with a girl coming out of Seward's house late one night. It is 20 year-old Mildred Naffzinger, an employee at the local drug store and "a little tart who knows her way around". She denies any connexion with Seward, but, after a long time of questioning, finally gives in, telling the police that Seward is her on-and-off lover (he dropped her when he began his affair with Mitchell, now he has taken it up again). Just as he persuaded Mitchell not to mention his name anywhere, including her diary, he has worked out a special code for arranging his secret meetings with Mildred (and obviously another code for his meetings with Mitchell, some code they could use right in the classroom without anybody noticing).
(14) Eventually the police search Seward's house and garden while he is safely teaching at the college and find Mitchell's handbag. The police are going to arrest him the moment he leaves the classroom, and it will turn out that he had a secret affair with her, made her pregnant and eventually, panicking, broke her neck when she told him that she was pregnant, that she would go public and that she expected him to marry her (which, among other things, would have ruined his career).
There is obviously no twist or surprise ending, as in that case all or at least most of the meticulous police work described in the novel would have to turn out wrong or in vain. There is no "lucid, astounding explanation presented to the group of suspects gathered in the library — but the accumulation of enough evidence to point to a suspect, justify an arrest and stand up in court" (Ousby).
The novel has never been filmed; in a film version, the killer, Harlan P Seward, would only be a minor character. He never personally appears in the novel: He is never directly approached, let alone cross-examined
Cross-examination
In law, cross-examination is the interrogation of a witness called by one's opponent. It is preceded by direct examination and may be followed by a redirect .- Variations by Jurisdiction :In...
by the police, and he is not driven to committing any follow-up crimes either.
Sources
It is generally accepted that the novel is based on the true case of the December 1st 1946 vanishing of a Bennington CollegeBennington College
Bennington College is a liberal arts college located in Bennington, Vermont, USA. The college was founded in 1932 as a women's college and became co-educational in 1969.-History:-Early years:...
coed, 18-year-old Stamford, CT, resident Paula Jean Welden, while hiking the Long Trail in the Green Mountains near Bennington, VT.
That case has never been solved. It resulted, however, in the creation of Vermont
Vermont
Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...
's state police which did not exist at the time of the disappearance.