Closing Night, 1996

The Adirondacks, August 1996. Camp Greyfeather Lake closes for the season after the final campfire. At 12:20 a.m., head counsellor Marcy Delgado, 24, walks toward the waterfront with a flashlight. Five hours later, she's found floating inside the roped swim area. The county coroner calls it accidental drowning. Alcohol was a factor. Case closed. But the evidence doesn't follow. Her flashlight sits switched off on the boathouse dock. A canoe paddle turns up in the loft. The swim-area gate padlock is closed from the outside. Two names are erased from the staff sign-out board. And Marcy had told the camp director she was filing a complaint with the state licensing board. Five staff members remain under suspicion: the camp director, the waterfront director, the head cook, and two senior counsellors. One was Marcy's ex. The file contains cabin logs, infirmary records, a camper's letter describing a late-night argument, and the season's final roll of film from the camp photographer. In 2014, a former camper—now an attorney—requested the file be reopened.