Belle Plaine, Iowa is a small town roughly 40 miles south of Evansdale, which is really in the middle of nowhere. Built as a railroad town in the middle of the Civil War, the population has languished between 2,000 and 3,000 in the decades since, and the town itself hasn't changed much over the past half-century or so.

On May 4th, 2018, Belle Plaine would make national headlines for perhaps the worst of reasons. That day, a Union Pacific train was heading from Chicago, Illinois to Nebraska along one of the region's dedicated coal rails, and everything was going along swimmingly until shortly before 5:00 AM. That is when it was reported that an incident had occurred involving two people - a mother and a son - both of whom had lost their lives in a tragic accident along the railroad.

The casualties were later identified as 35-year old Teresa Gerleman and her 8-year old son, Henry Fields, both of whom were locals. The incident was initially reported as a tragic accident, but as police began to learn more, they realized that this was no accident.

Due to interviews with Teresa's friends and family - which gave them context for her deteriorated mental state - as well as footage obtained from the train, police labeled this ordeal as a murder-suicide; with Teresa having killed herself and her son by pulling him onto the tracks at the last moment, ending both of their lives in an instant.

This incident led to a weeks-long investigation which aimed to understand why this woman had decided to end both her son's life as well as her own.

Police were able to learn that 35-year old Teresa Gerleman had been struggling through numerous mental health issues, and had been going through counselling - in addition to being put on a number of medications.

During meetings with support specialists in the months prior to the incident, Teresa had reportedly told them that she felt like "standing in front of a train," and had even made mention of knowledge she possessed, pertaining to a high-profile double-murder from the region.

As you can already imagine, this was the unsolved double-murder from Evansdale, which was just 40 or so miles away from Belle Plaine. Teresa had spoken to her counselors about supposed evidence she held in her possession: a 6-page letter she claims had been written by the killer(s) of Lyric Cook and Elizabeth Collins. These were apparently men that Teresa had hung around in the months and years prior, and according to her - in this letter - these men had confessed to the double-murder in explicit detail.

Following the death of Teresa and her son, a search warrant was executed on her home. In the search warrant, police used specific details obtained from Teresa's specialists, including a tidbit about this supposed letter from one of her counselors, named Julie Croft.

"When asked to be more specific, Julie stated that it has to do with the two girls in the woods near Evansdale."

During the subsequent search of Teresa's property, several of her belongings were taken away by investigators: including notebooks, sealed envelopes, and multiple cell phones. However, it seems like whatever information police were able to obtain from Teresa's belongings - including, presumably, from this letter - was irrelevant (or simply outdated).

Police claim that they were unable to learn anything new from Teresa Gerleman's belongings, adding that her deteriorated mental state had likely made it hard for her to differentiate between what was real and what was fiction. The referred to the letter in her possession as containing "old information" that they had received in the past - nothing new or revelatory.

It is unknown if the death of Teresa Gerleman or her son, Henry Fields, was linked in any way to the unsolved double-murder in Evansdale. However, it led to a brief resurgence of interest in the case, and remains an bizarre incident that many believe might share some connection - no matter how tentative.