The Faithless Preserve

Growing up in the town of Bellmore, students would often speak of Cedar Swamp Creek as if it was not just a source of water, but of the connective strain of disappearances over the years. It hides behind a fence just behind the high school I attended and cuts through a barbwire fenced off a government preserve called Faith Laursen Preserve (formerly Meroke Preserve), which lays a few miles south. No trespassing signs were always more in abundance than people in this area.

Legend has it that in the early 90s, a couple of girls from a cross country team took a route along the creek, finding a hole in the fence to get there. They followed the creek south, past the Newbridge pond, and down to the Laursen preserve. 

The Cedar Swamp Creek that runs through the preserve

 

Some say the girls found out what the Laursen family was doing to "protect nature" as they were known famously around the Bellmore-Merrick towns for doing. However, in her elder age, Faith Laursen grew more and more paranoid of teenagers taking the preserve for granted, which once was used during the Revolutionary War by the British to ambush the Colonials. 

Faith Laursen, a former girl scout, originally intended for the preserve to be about educating the youth about the importance of nature. Yet, as years passed by, she began to lose hope with teenagers who would rather come into the preserve to drink, smoke, and have sex. So it is said, one of the girls tripped alongside the creek, and as they brushed away the leaves, found a decomposing arm. Faith would give trespassing teenagers "back to nature" by burying them alive. And so...presumably, Faith Laursen, to protect her secret, had the two girls meet the same fate of being buried alive. 

Faith Laursen (left) and the Laursen family who established the preserve as "forever wild" in 1993

The girls' photos made it onto milk cartons and into the local papers, but no one ever found them. Having worked for local papers in Merrick and Baldwin such as the locally famous Bellmore and Merrick Life, no one ever questioned the Laursen family about the disappearance. They held too much clout. Even the parents of the two missing girls couldn't ring themselves to confront the Laursens - fearing what lengths they would go to hide their secrets. However, as adults never wanted to challenge the Laursen's popularity, teenagers would take it upon themselves to "investigate." 

The "creeky" bridge where it is rumored the Laursens have under 24-hour human surveillance.

To this today, teenagers dare each other to slip past the fences and follow the creek into the preserve (never using the main gate to avoid being spotted). While no deaths have been reported, several missing persons cases remain unsolved - high schoolers who were rumored to have been dared to spend the night down by Laursen Preserve. Faith Laursen has since passed, but her family has carried the torch of her sinister legacy: eliminating any source of disruption to their preserve. 

Teenagers who look to "disrupt" the purity of the preserve's nature are seldom heard from again. Their bodies most likely, decomposing in the deepest recesses of the preserve.

Just like Dean finding out about what Kit Harris did to the student who took a dump on his car, this "urban legend" was told to me through many older people - primarily other students. The people actual exist and their personalities seem to fit the stories told about them. Kit Harris comes across as an angry and odd man, so his rumored actions make a lot of sense. Faith Laursen, with her love of nature, seems like she would do anything to protect it.