This Probably Happened: The Devil Comes to Quincy, Ohio
How a botched neutering led to the bloodiest week in Logan County history.
In 1995, Gregg Miller invented the Neuticle, a pointless testicular implant for neutered dogs. Fast-forward five years to January 1st, 2000 in Quincy, Ohio. Wanda Marchison and her husband Bill emerged from their Y2K bunker to discover society still intact. They were relieved beyond measure. For it had been a hellish New Year’s Eve spent underground with their Bluetick Coonhound, Buford.
You see, Buford was not neutered. And right next door, the way less stupid Lindsay and Marcus Debussy were not worried about end times. In fact, they spent December 31st buying a purebred Bernese Mountain Dog. A female purebred Bernese Mountain Dog in heat. And her scent drove Buford crazy with canine lust. He bit Wanda and Bill several times that night as they tried to shoo him off their legs mid-hump.
Throughout the night, the dog-loving Marchisons thought about letting Buford out of the bunker to face whatever devil spawn had been summoned by the Y2K computer bug. But they held fast through the night and as they exited their bunker into the chilly January morning to see life going on as normal, Wanda turned to Bill and told him, “Buford’s gettin’ snipped.”
Enter Dr. Louis Manolo, local veterinarian and three-time Jeopardy audience member. In 1997, Louis almost made it to the first table of the World Series of Poker but couldn’t pass up a slot machine with a picture of a buxom blonde on it. He proceeded to lose all of his buy-in money to the machine. Then for each of the three years prior to 2000, Louis Manolo’s HOA had awarded him the Pantone 448 C Award, their version of a Razzie, named after the universally agreed-upon ugliest shade of green, which was given to him because of his lawn. It wasn’t a dead lawn, just an ugly one.
Every time his wife Debbie tried to tell him nobody cared about their lawn, he just became more obsessed. In an effort to make his lawn greener, he hired and fired every lawncare expert in three counties. Finally, in the Autumn of 1999, he spent his vacation money to replace the lawn with a fresh implant of Alabama Bluegrass.
For Debbie Manolo, this was the final straw. She could forgive him for lying about being a 3-time Jeopardy contestant, when he was only a 3-time Jeopardy audience member. She could forgive him for losing all of his buy-in money to a slot machine. But canceling their yearly trip abroad to replace a perfectly good lawn was the death knell. On Christmas morning that year, Louis woke to a half-empty bed. On the kitchen table, she left a simple two-word Dear John letter that read: fuck you.
So, when Wanda Marchison brought Buford into the clinic on the morning of Monday, January 3rd of the new millennium, Dr. Louis Manolo was not in top form. No, sir. He was in the most bottom of forms you can be in. Wanda dismissed his low state as a New Year’s Eve hangover and peppered him with stupid questions like, “Do the balls ever grow back?” Louis replied with a joke he had no idea would curse everyone involved, “Only by the devil’s hand, Wanda. Only by the devil’s hand.”
Now, neutering is a pretty straightforward process, which consists of making a small incision in the scrotum and removing the testicles. Once the testicles have been removed, it is impossible for them to grow back. The only exception is if the dog is cryptorchid, a condition in which one testicle is not in the scrotum but rather up inside the belly, and the vet does not bother to find it and remove it. Buford was indeed cryptorchid. And Dr. Manolo had indeed not bothered to find and remove that rogue testicle.
Aside from this, the surgery was a success, and in no time Buford was trotting around with two silicone neuticles swinging between his legs. And the scent of the next door neighbor’s dog no longer drove him crazy.
Then sometime in March, the prodigal testy returned and eventually fused with the two neuticles into an unholy symbiosis, which put something of the devil into Buford’s brain. Later, in an autopsy, the Sidney, Ohio PD’s medical examiner (Quincy only had a Sheriff’s department that was in no condition to take jurisdiction on its own case) would discover a cancerous fever had spread from the infected symbiosis of Neuticle and testicle all the way to Buford’s brain.
Neuticle Testicular Symbiosis (or NTS) is a relatively harmless condition that is easily fixed, but some say the devil really did come to Quincy, Ohio that Thursday, March 9th, because Buford escaped and went on a spree, in which he knocked up six lady pups and killed two people. The Debussy’s Bernese Mountain Dog, Lulabelle, was Buford’s first target. NTS had given Buford the extra push he needed to get over that fence that long kept him from fulfilling his carnal canine desire. Fortunately for the Debussys, they were not home. They had made the forty-nine minute trek to the Little Art Theatre in Yellow Springs, which was the closest arthouse theater to be playing Snow Falling on Cedars, an atmospheric period drama about the Japanese-American internment during and after WWII, based on the 1994 PEN/Faulkner Award-winning novel by David Guterson. For these reasons, Lindsay and Marcus Debussy were spared Buford’s wrath that day.
Like the male of many species, once satisfied Buford realized he wasn’t all that into Lulabelle and continued on to the next backyard. And the next. Until he ran into Marlene Haskins, former Miss Ohio runner-up and nude yoga enthusiast, who was in the middle of a downward facing dog pose when Buford pounced. Marlene fought for her life, but a Bluetick Coonhound with NTS could take down a horse, and Marlene Haskins was a human, considerably smaller than a horse. Buford ripped her jugular open and tore off one fake boob. Sidney PD’s medical examiner would later theorize that the extra silicone from Ms. Haskins’ breast implant could’ve “jacked up that pooch like that cocaine bear back in ‘85.”
Buford bounded out of Marlene’s open side gate around 9:30 AM on that Thursday. We can only make a guess as to Buford’s route that morning. Based on the dog owners who came forward later once they realized their mysteriously impregnated dogs had given birth to half-Blue Tick Coonhound puppies, we can guess that Buford headed South on Logan Street, took a left on Don Hahn Drive and stopped over at the Delarosa’s (while they were at work) to visit their beloved Goldendoodle, Virginia Woof. Then he headed northward up Carlisle and impregnated three more bitches, giving seed to future litters of Basset Blueticks, Border Bluetick Collies, and one ill-fated litter of Shih Tbluz, before reaching 2773 Sandino Court.
Around this time, Quincy’s Sheriff Station received a few calls about a rabid, blood-spattered coonhound running through people’s yards. When another call came in saying a bloody hellhound was inside someone’s home trying to break down the door, Deputy Dale Spooner finally made the call.
Over at The Watering Hole, recovering meth addict Rose Wilton was tending bar, holding down the fort for the regulars, when the phone rang. She spent at least thirty seconds screening Deputy Spooner’s call, making damn sure it was worth waking the bear. Something about a bloody hound in some guy’s house sounded worthy enough and so she carried the landline phone, base and all, stretching the long phone cord, to the end of the bar where Sheriff Wayne Higginbottom roosted.
Sheriff Higginbottom’s Thursday ritual was the same as his Monday, Tuesday, and Friday ritual: get sauce-knackered because there wasn’t a damn thing to sheriff in Quincy. Wednesday was the day he dried out and weekends he let his deputies run the show so he could focus on his drinking.
He grunted into the receiver and listened to his deputy’s report. Witnesses say he straightened up on the spot and looked like their sheriff for the first time since the incident. We don’t really have time to get into his backstory, but just know that this was a shot at bittersweet redemption for Wayne. Five years prior, he had let his partner die at the maw of a rabid Siberian Husky because he couldn’t bring himself to shoot a dog that resembled his own childhood puppy, Skooch. That was the day he reprioritized his drinking.
On his way out of The Watering Hole, Rose asked him if he needed a ride to the scene. He responded by putting on his hat and winking at her. Sheriff Wayne Higginbottom took out two mailboxes and a lawn-based inflatable Santa Claus on his way to 2773 Sandino Court, home of the only full-time dog walker in Quincy, Ohio. And probably Ohio.
Xander Buckley had moved away to art school in New York where he made ends meet by walking dogs, so when he moved back home a failed artist, he at least had one bankable skill. Around 9:45 that morning, Xander had just finished walking every dog on his morning route—13 of which were females in heat. Sidney, Ohio PD would later put in their report they believed that Xander Buckley carrying the scent of several females in heat is probably what led to his demise. But going into massive debt for art school sure didn’t help.
Xander had been chased into his home by Buford, reported by his next door neighbor, who wished to remain anonymous (thankfully, because I don’t have any more space for backstory). And that blood-spattered hellhound busted down the door. Seventeen minutes later, a patrol car with an inflatable Santa attached to its flashing lights skidded to a halt on Xander’s front lawn and out stumbled a flushed, bloated, and disoriented Higginbottom. Several minutes later the anonymous neighbor heard six gunshots.
Sidney, Ohio CSI determined that Xander’s face and throat had already been partially digested by the time Sheriff Higginbottom arrived on the scene and made his way upstairs to the spare bedroom Xander called his art studio. Higginbottom’s report stated that he moved tactically through the house until he found Buford upstairs, chowing on Xander, and shot him dead. The dog, not Xander. Sidney’s report had it a little differently. The Quincy Sheriff moved through the house, knocking over several priceless heirlooms that Buford would’ve deftly maneuvered around, even in his NTS-fevered state. The Sheriff then made it upstairs where he vomited all over himself, presumably at the sight of Xander’s missing face. Then fired wildly at several of Xander’s monster paintings before getting lucky and ending Buford’s reign of terror with a stray bullet to the head.
Sheriff Wayne Higginbottom didn’t get redemption that day and continued his daily ritual at The Watering Hole. At least for a few more days.
A week later, Marcus and Lindsay Debussy claimed that Buford had impregnated their Bernese Mountain Dog, which he did. Bill told them it was impossible because he was snipped. He was outraged that they would come at him like this after recently losing his beloved hound. But what Dr. Manolo had jokingly told Wanda echoed in her head, “Only by the devil’s hand, Wanda. Only by the devil’s hand.”
She finally confessed her fears to Bill. Together, they knew what had to be done: stop the birth of unholy devil dogs in Quincy. So on the morning of March 17th, 2000, Wanda and Bill went next door with hunting rifles and shot the poor pregnant Bernese Mountain Dog. Marcus and Lindsay ran outside so fast it startled Bill. He shot Marcus.
According to eye witness Carl Smithey, whose second-story bedroom window looked upon the Debussy’s backyard, he’d heard the first volley of gunfire and ran to the window just in time to see Bill shoot Marcus “right in the dick.” What Carl Smithey, a known workaholic, was doing at home on a workday, is a story for another time. But let’s just say, when his wife, Dottie, read about the incident in the paper and saw she had given a quote (“Yep, right in the dick, and probably in his balls, too, I would imagine.”) despite being out of town during the event, divorce loomed on the horizon. Divorce at the end of a Colt .45.
Reportedly, Bill couldn’t believe what he had just done, and spiraled into madness. It was at this point Wanda berated him for failing their lord and savior, then stepped forward and pumped two rounds into Lindsay. Then she finished off Marcus—right in the head this time.
For these reasons, Lindsay and Marcus Debussy missed the 72nd Oscars by nine days and were spared the pain of seeing Snow Falling on Cedars lose its only nomination for Best Cinematography to American Beauty, a movie about a pedophile played by a real-life sexual predator.
Wanda then left Bill gibbering madly into the void, and continued her mission from God, only to stop for a moment when she heard the rifle report behind her. Bill had taken his own life.
Wanda marched on for three blocks to the next place Buford had visited last week, according to the police report. Around the same time, Deputy Dale Spooner was phoning The Watering Hole. This time, patrons saw a different man get up from that stool. Not the grumpy bear of a drunk with a badge they saw most days. Not the reinvigorated man who finally got his shot at redemption, either. More like a pallbearer, grimly marching toward the grave, sagging under the weight of a coffin.
What many around Quincy didn’t know was that 28 years ago, Wanda Marchison (then Wanda Bettencourt) was Wayne Higginbottom’s high school sweetheart. Upon graduating from Riverside High, located a few miles down the road in DeGraff, Ohio, Wayne promised to marry Wanda, just as soon as he got back from the war in Vietnam. But Wayne Higginbottom returned from ‘Nam to find Wanda had married Bill Marchison, a man who had dodged the draft by becoming a pastor—a vocation he conveniently bailed on as soon as the last chopper left Saigon.
Higginbottom watched Bill drag Wanda into various trendy religions and weirdo fringe groups over the years. In ‘85, Bill had briefly started his own sex cult based on free love and interdimensional transcendence. But things quickly fell apart when he realized his followers were mostly guys trying to sleep with his wife.
So when Higginbottom got his second call to action in as many weeks, and heard Wanda was on a killing spree, it was like he’d been expecting the call.
But who sent Wanda the police report containing the locations of every knocked up pup? Some speculate the Sheriff did out of some kind of twisted logic. To spur her on, or more likely Bill; to make something like this happen, so he could somehow get close to her once again. Each deputy of the Quincy Sheriff’s Department passed a polygraph. Deputy Dale Spooner went on record saying, “But the Sheriff didn’t even know where we kept the reports. He hadn’t been here in weeks.”
No matter how she knew, she arrived like clockwork at Buford’s second stop (5567 Don Hahn Drive, home of the Delarosa’s, again at work, and Virginia Woof, now safely inside), ready to blow away a pregnant Goldendoodle, only to find her high school sweetheart parked out front. What happened next? Did Wayne try to talk her down? Did Wanda fire before they could exchange words? No eyewitnesses have come forward to say. What happened during their final confrontation may always be a mystery.
We only have the facts:
Wanda fired first, hitting Wayne in the gut.
Wayne fired second, third, and fourth, finally hitting her femoral artery.
Wanda fired fifth, missing Wayne, then collapsed from blood loss.
Wayne crawled to Wanda in the middle of the street.
Where they were found holding hands.
And so one of the most bizarre true crime stories of our time came to a close with Wanda Marchison and Wayne Higginbottom bleeding out in the middle of the street that fateful morning.
One thing the experts can agree on: there’s no evidence that Neuticles do anything positive for your dog whatsoever. The presence of prosthetic testicles in show dogs has even caused disqualification in some cases. So why risk another Quincy, Ohio?
If you or someone you know is thinking of giving their dog neuticles, please call this hotline: (719) 266-2837.
Bro it’s so crazy, I was just thinking about “Snow Falling on Cedars” like a week before this short story published. Awesome.