Welcome! to Baikersfield, Utah. Located 27 miles Southwest of Cannonville, the small town thrives on two things, Mining and Tourism. Just outside of Baikersfield one can experience the various Hiking Trails, River Rafting, and Camping all within
Bryce Canyon National Park. All in all it is a poorer area with a harsh, but beautiful landscape. It is not a place for the weak of heart, and those who are never last.
On first glance it looks to be the perfect small town. It's the sort of place where most of the families are multi-generational citizens, and everyone knows everyone... and their business. Where the women and men still go to the beauty parlor or barber shop to socialize on a Wednesday afternoon. A place where the doors aren't locked at night, the children run around without fear in the dark, where people still borrow cups of sugar from the neighbors and game nights are the highlight of society unless there's a church social. The townspeople are set in their ways, and outsiders are treated properly, but with a silent hesitance to see if they'll be able to hack it. If they can manage, they're welcomed with open arms. If not...well... they leave and are forgotten. When someone falls on hard times, the community pitches in. As one old-timer said about the small town: "Ain't no outsiders need know our business. We care for our own." Thus it was a quiet town that no one knew of unless they'd been there.
Until the spring of 1980, that is. Baikersfield, Utah became national news when a tv station outside of Cannonville broke the news of people going missing. Over a period of six months several people vanished from the area (though they were all hikers, and tourists) only to turn up dead a few days later along the canyon's back roads. It was almost like clockwork. The police worked side by side with the Utah State Sheriff's department in an attempt to solve the murders as quickly as possible. But for months they could find nothing to link the bodies to any suspects they could find. Unfortunately for everyone the more media attention the town got, the more murders there were. What was worse was that they weren't just dead. Oh no. These victims were disembowled, dismembered, and hung up like tasteless Halloween decorations. And then the murderer's crimes escalated from tourists to townspeople. The spree lasted eight ghastly months with 63 poor souls found dead, though there might have been more.
A break came in the case, the mystery was solved, and Baikersfield would never be the same again. There was not one murderer, but several. The Carpenter family had always been a bit peculiar, but had always been an upstanding family. John and Mary had seven children at the time of the atrocities, and the police were horrified to find out that most of the children had participated in the terrible murders. By the time they were found out, it was too late for the law. John and Mary Carpenter were found dead on their own dumping ground the day they were to be arrested. The eldest children were tried, found mentally incompetant (and criminally insane) and were sent to seperate mental institutions. The younger children were given to the townspeople to raise, in hopes they would forget everything and live the rest of their lives in peace.
And so, over the past 29 years, the story of 'The Baikersfield Slaughter' has evolved into a sort of local legend. Never fully remembered, but never truly forgotten. A bonfire takes place on the anniversary of the Carpenters' deaths, having become a rather macabre tourist attraction. Many a tourist has claimed that the canyon surrounding the town is haunted by the souls of the dead...and who's to say they're wrong? The wounds from that terrible year have healed, but the scar is still there and it marks every single member of Baikersfield... and unfortunately... some wounds never truly heal and will re-open when you least expect it.
