Lying near an irrigation pump tells me he was off to the side rather than in the middle of the field. The pumps are on the edges. JMO
I pass by that area sometimes when I go hiking in DuPuis. Maybe I'll drive by there.
For sure. They couldn’t have seen him in the middle of the field, just getting out of the car. He had to be at the edge of the field, if in the field at all.
The picture in the PB Post shows 2 men looking ‘where’ the skeleton was found, and they are not looking at sugar cane. That’s maiden cane, and it’s not usually found in cane fields. It is more likely to be found on ditch banks, because they don’t get sprayed as much, as are pumps, of course.
It is either this pump #1,
Dropped pin
26°36'38.0"N 80°41'19.0"W ,
or possibly this one #2,
Dropped pin
26°36'43.5"N 80°40'49.0"W .
You can go to street view and look south to see the pumps. The first pump matches the directional description in the news better - the dirt road going north from that pump did end a 1/2 mile north of 827 in 1976 (see pic). It goes way further now, as you can see in satellite view.
The second pump (the bigger one), is definitely more the type of pump you’d fish at, but it isn’t as close to “half way from Belle Glade to South Bay” as pump 1 is, whatever that’s worth. That’s an unhelpful way to describe either of these places. I think the road at pump 2 also ended (T-intersected) 1/2 mi N of 827. The road at pump 1 is marked more clearly on a 1971 map, maybe because it’s a range line. I don’t think this is the same exact pump that was there in 76, or in the exact same place, but that’s ok. Pump 1 is likely the same pump since 76.
There is another big pump good for fishing west of #1, that was there in 76, but it doesn’t have a road running north from it at all, and hasn’t had, as far as I know.
I think our guy was either on the ditch bank near pump 2, or at the edge of the field that is northeast of pump 2, because I trust three black women to know where to catch bluegill a whole lot more than I trust the post to describe anything west of the Turnpike.
Weirdly, today I realized the google mobile actually mapped the dirt road north of pump 1, for 2.5 miles, from 827 back to 827A, last December, 2021. I don’t often find private roads on street view, so this is nerd heaven for me, and I’m checking my own farm roads for sure in a minute. This gives you a nice way to see how a cut field would be, because the cane is magically down if you go one click N of 827, up the dirt road. Also, if you stay right on 827 in street view, you have 8 different street view dates to look around in, which gives you an idea of how much the cane changes in seasons, and the weeds, and whatever. If you haven’t seen cane before, which date would you dump a body at the edge of a field, seeing it now? I think I would only do it when the cane was the tallest and most impenetrable, and any time the cane was lower than that, I’d dump it way in the middle. That’s what I was trying to get at before, but I didn’t know these pics were on google maps then, or I might have done a better job of it. As soon as I read the news story, I knew it was Bolles Canal, so I didn’t look.
Don’t get too carried away with exact locations, because everything has changed since 76. The Bolles Canal is the same, and the old Bolles Canal Rd/827 of 1976 has been abandoned, and a new 827 built, and it’s all shifted north.
To my mind, the women would have pulled off the old Bolles Canal Rd/827, going north up the dirt road, and pulled over to the right in the open area for parking equipment at the southwest corner of the block on the right. They get out and walk toward the pump house and see a body…somewhere. I’m waiting to hear back from somebody who would remember where, and hopefully any identity clues from the grapevine.
