The Little Wabash River meanders for a lot of miles from Central to Deep Southern IL where it empties into The Big Wabash River, and from there into The Ohio River. The Little Wabash (except this year in the 2012 drought) floods very easily. For several decades weve said, A frog pees in town
and the Lil Wabash is flooding the countryside. Few bother with row-crops in The Bottoms anymore.
Its way more polluted than some decades ago. Landowners, who tend to be farmers, and own acreage on the banks of the Little Wabash run the gamut. Some run off people who take a notion to access their stretch of river without permission to hunt/fish/camp there. Often it's not possible to access that easily, either, for one would have to drive right by the farm residence on the upland to hit the bottoms down steep and rutted hillside roads.
There are probably others who dont care and likely those who dont care and have good enough liability ins. so if someone trespasses on their property and gets hurt and they decide to sue the landowner, theyre covered. Id wager that those private (but seemingly open to all) sites become well-known among area residents who desire a place to fish and camp.
So far I havent seen anything mentioned about the landowner, except it was private, no word if the young couple had permission, etc. which came to my mind right away.
Its not unusual to see snakes near The Little Wabash, and in daytime hours, often someone had a rifle to shoot watersnakes. Even guys who dont generally mind rank and file snakes and are even protective of the rights of the reptiles seem to have a hatred for water snakes and prefer to kill such snakes every chance they get. In the farther Southern reaches of the river there are Cottonmouths and Copperheads, some Rattlers, all poisonous. So someone having a firearm present isnt that unusual.
There are local guys, no doubt the same down in White County, who gleefully call themselves River Rats who work the river with nets and haul in a lot of fish and have since they were toddlers beside their daddies. Some good Channel cats as well as carp (the latter often fed to a herd of swine, hogs really like to chow down on fresh carp.) As bad as pollution is locals think twice nowadays about eating too heavily from fish caught in The Little Wabash.
When I was younger, we used to hog for fish, entering the water, swimming, wading, a large group of us wearing seriously protective footwear, and catching (by hands in the gill area) catfish and carp hiding out beneath the deadfall logs common along the river. I dont know of anyone who hogs fish now due to the polluted water conditions. You'd need hazmat treatment when you crawled out and up the snot-slick riverbank to dry ground.
Even so, The Little Wabash at sites can be nice and very peaceful for drowning worms even if one doesnt intend on eating much of what is hooked. In my experience with people who also own creek and river property, most will run off those present without express permission. IL has serious laws about river property. A landowner cant do a lot of things that might effect the course of the river, for instance. And, while a farmer may actually own property on both sides of a stream or river, cutting through property, the river/stream itself the water has a form of public access rights. The farmer does not own the river/water per se.
So someone coming downriver ON the river neednt get landowner permission to be on that stretch of water. However, The Little Wabash isnt what anyone in their right mind would consider navigable.
In small towns like these kids came from, if they went to town to get a sandwich late at night, and people knew they were camping, word couldve easily spread and fast. After the relentless run of days we had of 108 degree heat for weeks on end, with sometimes only a sweaty and humid "low" of 80 degrees at night, when Jake and Jessi went fishing, there couldve been people who innocently said, Jake and Jessi are camping at the river. Well, at least they are lucky, as its getting down in the upper sixties at night now, so its gotta be pleasant. We ought to think about doing that, too. Sounds like fun! There could have even been kids talking, as happens in small towns, about getting together and "sneaking up" on the couple, but didn't. Someone else overheard and bootlegged their idea. (SPECULATION, please note!) Such small-town banter (and it sure goes on like that in rural backwaters) couldve been almost the talk of the small town late that night.
Having lived as rural as the Wheeler and Coston families did, I found myself doubting that it appeared only the father knew Danny Coston. We have neighbors, I dont know their first names, but wave when we drive by, as do they. May not know them face to face and personally but know OF them and on sight, sometimes the cars and faces of visitors who also wave back. And in these parts, neighbors know neighbors, and one neighbor who knows other neighbors may tell you the darndest stuff about other neighbors you wouldnt know from Adam. Its true: everybody knows everyone else AND THEIR BUSINESS.
I would assume the local LEOs arent sitting around swilling coffee and eating donuts, but are competent and savvy people, mulling this over, thinking along the same lines as many of us redneck types familiar with the region and the mores of The Little Wabash River, small town ways, and they are quietly digging and digging. Some of it they must keep close to the vest so there's something left to bring to light before Da Judge.
And one day, folks, in courtroom coverage, it may well come together like shoving matching pieces of a jigsaw puzzle together and the reason/that motivation many desire to know, will be revealed. Probably like opening up a can of (fishing) worms.
President Roosevelt said nothing happens by accident. And IMO, he was right.
