Singing Loudly

[Episode 3 - can be found here]

A grossly abbreviated version of DiDi Stuart's eulogy (as given by Dennis Rogers, brother of Samantha Rogers-Flavor and the producer of Your Big News, the show which made DiDi a star in Glenedin County and the surrounding area in the great state of but that's not important):

"In life, DiDi Stuart was a kind-hearted woman, a generous woman. She loved children. And dogs. Every Sunday, DiDi worked in the St. Lucretia Home for the Aged, feeding the old folks. We all laughed at her jokes. When she cried, we cried with her "Everyone loved DiDi" I loved DiDi Stuart, and I think right now she is looking down at me from heaven saying, 'It's going to be okay, Dennis. You can do it without me.' DiDi, I'll do it just for you.'"

Just about everything Dennis Rogers said about the late Ms. Stuart was complete fiction.

DiDi Stuart had an equal repulsion for everyone she met, especially children, dogs and old people. No one liked DiDi Stuart, much less loved her. Her husband (Bradley Stone, star of the hit TV show Tahoe Ski Patrol) didn't love her, which probably explains why he didn't rush home from his love nest in the Swiss Alps with his mistress when he heard his wife was shot, as well as explaining his absence at her funeral. Stone and Stuart married each other because they looked good together in photos. Bradley, with his dark hair, dark eyes, broad shoulders and Adonisian musculature, made possible with (hush-hush) steroid abuse, DiDi with her curly, strawberry blonde hair, green eyes, breast augmentations and $33,000 face - they were the picture perfect all-American couple because all the impulse purchase magazines said so.

DiDi Stuart was an overly-ambitious snake, to put it mildly. If you took away the $24.5 million combined of assets she and Bradley Stone had, one could very easily see how she accomplished nothing in her 27 years. She left no legacy. She had no children. She gave to no charities. She supported no cause. She inspired only the most superficial of young men and women. Sure, DiDi Stuart had money, good looks, a great house, beautiful cars and all the material possessions that money could buy, but what did it all mean without any love.

Take it from John Lennon, kids, love is all you need.

Back to our story

When Sheriff Joseph Mundle found DiDi Stuart, she was on her back. But Mark Sandlewood (one of the three boys that discovered the Stuart corpse) confessed to having poked her so that her front was completely exposed. Mark said she was originally on her left side, and the other boys (Wallace "Wally" Hogarth and Erik Derrik Brawn, III) confirmed Mark's testimony.

DiDi Stuart had been shot in the neck with a .38 from an approximate distance of three feet, as the shape and discoloration of the bullet's entry wound indicated. The bullet itself had been dislodged so that the gun from which the bullet was fired could not be as easily identified.

From the angle of the bullet's entry and by the uncomfortable-looking way her legs curled around her body, the sheriff decided that Stuart had been shot while standing, suggesting that she was not expecting to be shot. If she had been kneeling, begging for her life, her knees would more likely have been tucked more neatly underneath her, and the bullet would have entered her body at a different angle. If she had started running to escape her murderer, on the other hand, the murderer probably would have shot her somewhere other than the left side of her neck, and the distance between target and shooter would have increased.

DiDi Stuart's murderer must have been someone who, by the sheriff's reasoning, lacked an apparent motive, making the killer someone whom DiDi didn't think she needed to fear.

DiDi was dressed in a lavender polka-dotted, pale blue designer suit-skirt with two-inch heels. She might have been carrying a hand-held tape recorder, because a number of blank microcassettes were found in one of her inside coat pockets. DiDi might have been carrying a set of keys, as her Ferrari was found a half-mile away near the old abandoned toaster manufacturing plant. But no keys were found on her body. Two of DiDi's fingernails on her right hand were chipped, indicating that something (such as a set of keys) might have been wrested from her fist posthumously.

Gerald Hogarth Jr., the Glenedin coroner (as well as Rumpus mortician, Hogarth Funeral Home manager, and father of Wally Hogarth), pronounced DiDi Stuart dead at 2:16 p.m. on September 13, 1996.

It was a Friday; some said it was the most beautiful day that Rumpus had seen in years.