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If you pay attention to our newsfeed here at The Gorko, you will know that there is no lack of strange goings-on in the larger Peoria area, and the world, and all about the penchant of our own editors for amateur sleuthing. What you may or may not have realized are how heavily local and national professional crimefighters actually depend on The Gorko for important leads! Here are some of the most bizarre true crime cases that we have personally put to rest over the years.

THE AMNESIAC WHO SAYS OUR PEPPERONI PIZZA REMINDS HER OF HER HUSBAND PETER BENT, OF SURREY, ENGLAND

Gladys Akers of 951 North Prospect Drive, Peoria, Illinois, was born and raised in the Midwestern United States. She is 110% American: has lived in Peoria since 1976, bakes apple pies, and even talks with the indicative nasal whine. Gladys married a plumber from Rome, Iowa named Dick Beckett in 1975, with whom she had three children, and according to her neighbors has always lived the life of a quiet but cheerful housewife.

Why then when she smells our pepperoni pie special does she go into hysterics, shouting that her husband Peter Bent of Surrey, England must be informed that dinner is served? Why does she say it in that funny accent, and try to bully us to bring her tea with two lumps? Why does she say her name is Mary, and tell us about her own death by homicide in June of 1910, when she was pushed down a flight of stairs by drunken Peter? How is she able to sing English ditties popular before the First World War, and describe in great detail her house in Bramley, and give accurate accounts of price per pound on the potato and yam?

HOW THE GORKO CRACKED THE CASE

Slipping her caretaker Miguel a fiver (British English for five-pound note; it was in fact a twenty), that fine gentleman was able to distract Gladys while we rummaged through her stuff. Bingo! The 1914 English novel The Ragged-Trousered Philadelphians, by English plumber and journeyman Robert Tressel, who wrote under the pen name Peter Bent. Published in 1914, the novel follows the life and marriage of a poor plumber in the fictional English town of Ockleyford (which scholars theorize is based on the town of Bramley), his descent into alcoholism and unemployment, and eventual murder of his doting, adoring own wife Mary. The 1914 edition bears this title: ‘Being the story of twelve months in Hell, told by one of the damned, and copied down by Peter Bent.’

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