Death of a Salesman: The Edwin Dusek Mystery

"Orlando Sentinel," August 5, 1973, via Newspapers.com

By all accounts, Edwin Dusek was nearly irreproachable.  The 45-year-old resident of Orlando, Florida worked as a salesman for Niveco, Inc., a supplier for mobile homes and campers.  In 1956, he married a librarian named Mary Zink.  The couple had three daughters.  Dusek was an exemplary husband and father, and a remarkably meticulous and reliable man--“almost perfect,” in the words of one observer.

On Monday morning, July 2, 1973, Dusek left home on his usual sales route.  It was later verified that he visited clients in San Mateo, Palatka, and Lake City.  At 6 p.m., he checked into the Alamo Plaza Motel in High Springs, where he spent every Monday night.  The motel owners had no idea what he did after that.  As it turned out, they were the last known people to see Dusek alive.  When the salesman failed to make his regular 7 a.m. call to his supervisor the following morning, Dusek was reported missing.

Around 2 p.m. on July 3, a realtor was showing some undeveloped property off the Millhopper extension.  He probably failed to make the sale after he discovered a dead body about 100 yards back from the road.  It was soon identified as that of Edwin Dusek.  The body was naked, except for his shirt and one sock.  Dusek’s car was found the next night parked in southeast Gainesville, about 10 miles from where his body had been found.  Dusek’s wallet containing $11 was on the floor board.  The rest of his clothing and the other sock were also in the car.  Sand from the property where Dusek was found covered both the back and front seats of the car.

Investigators believed that Dusek was shot twice in the head with his own 9-millimeter gun.  Dusek always carried the gun in his glove compartment, but it was missing from the car.  The murder weapon was never found.  Strangest of all was the fact that Dusek’s back was covered with numerous shallow pinpricks.

It was thought that Dusek had been murdered at the site where his body had been found.  There were indications that a scuffle or some sort of disturbance had taken place six feet from the corpse.

This proved to be one of those particularly frustrating murder cases where the police had virtually nothing to work with.  Dusek had no enemies, and there was no discernible motive for anyone to want him dead.  Lacking any other ideas, detectives toyed with the theory that Dusek had been murdered by a hitchhiker he had picked up, but those who knew the victim quickly quashed that idea.  They explained that Dusek would sternly lecture his friends about the risks of giving rides to strangers.

One month after Dusek’s death, Alachua County Sheriff’s Captain Wes Schellenger essentially admitted defeat.  “There are plenty of questions and no answers,” he told a reporter.  “We are going to need a break.  Someone will have to say something.”

To date, that “someone” has remained silent.  Considering how weird and baffling Dusek’s murder was, it got remarkably little press attention, and the mystery was soon forgotten by everyone but the victim’s family.