THE MURDER FILES: ENTRY TWO, FINAL PROJECT LOG By: Bronwyn Losa
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BRONWYN LOSA 07/10/1977 FINAL PROJECT LOG – ENTRY 2
I found some statistics during my research about crimes that occur on Hogwarts grounds. It is incredibly rare for crimes to occur at the school, with a low percent of missing persons cases and a low percent of murders taking place here, though not completely nonexistant. If something like this did happen to Jade Burrows, it seems like a very rare occurrence. Even though Jade has never been found and her body never recovered, most people accept that she is dead. But why?
Logically speaking, it's probably due to the fact that it is so hard to just walk off the grounds (especially with no apparating abilities) or do literally anything without the professors knowing about it, especially as a 1st year.
A lot of what happened with Jade is hard to piece together with articles alone, so I will most likely be filling in the gaps myself until I can put together a solid timeline of what went down on the 17th of January 1972. Hopefully I can do this with interviews of the people that last saw her.
According to rumors that I remember from my 1st year, Jade's best friends were two girls named Lizette Barley and Nadine Shrew. Luckily, they still attend Hogwarts and are currently in my year. It's safe to assume both girls had been questioned by faculty and members of the Ministry of Magic for days after Jade's disappearance because they were in the same House as her. There are rumors of other friends that may have seen her at the time, but no names have ever been released due to minors being involved. Hopefully, I can find out the other names.
Inquiries started almost immediately, professors coming to each House and talking to all students. I'm not sure much came of this other than people stating they never saw Jade because nothing was ever published after this. No more updates came about, only small statements of "We're working hard to locate Jade Burrows" and "No one at Hogwarts claims to have seen anything after hours." The grounds of Hogwarts were searched thoroughly but only one thing was found in relation to Jade – a single mitten of hers found in the middle of a field (with a small engraving of her initials, made by her mother), which makes sense if she went out to play in the snow with her friends. But where was this found?
Upon finding this mitten, students were questioned once more and two bits of information were discovered, though they have not been proven to be directly linked to her disappearance. At some point around curfew on the night of the 17th, a Gryffindor student saw a bright light outside the window but couldn't state where it originated from. Another Gryffindor student was out past curfew and saw a group of students running through the hallways trailing snow behind them but did not recognize them.
To this day, neither Hogwarts nor the Ministry has released any other information about Jade's disappearance. Over a year after her disappearance, Jade Burrows was declared dead by pretty much everyone, even though there is no evidence of that and she was never found. There were public apologies to her family, and the case was, essentially, closed due to lack of evidence. They could do nothing more but hope that one day she would come back. The public mostly agrees on the theory that she ran off to continue being a Muggle – that being a witch was too much of a change, too fast. The other half of the public thinks something darker happened – that dark magic was involved. But, there's no evidence of any of this, and nothing ever came of Jade.
Really, I don't think they searched hard enough for Jade Burrows in the days following her disappearance, and that's why I'm doing what I'm doing.
This is the evidence I have so far, and what I can look into:
• Jade's mitten located on the grounds of Hogwarts – exact location, unknown.
• Gryffindor student claims to have seen a light outside on the night of her disappearance – exact location, unknown; student who made the claim, unknown; light origin, unknown; time, unknown.
• Gryffindor student claims to have seen students running through the halls after hours covered in snow (after Jade's disappearance) – student who made the claim, unknown; students in the hallway, unknown; time, unknown. It can be assumed that because this student did not recognize the other students, they must have been in different Houses.
• Jade's brother is currently a 5th year at Hogwarts. If I can talk to him, I might be able to find out who her friends were.
• Lizette and Nadine are currently 7th years at Hogwarts. I can speak to them and find out more about the situation and Jade herself.
