Twin Peaks is a Lynchian masterpiece, telling the story of murder and spooky mystery. However, many fans aren’t aware that the TV classic is actually based on real events, to an extent.
19-year-old Hazel Drew was a paparazzi sensation. The all-American blonde disappeared in 1908, sparking huge public attention. While staying near her uncle’s farm, the well-to-do woman vanished and left the whole nation on tenterhooks.
The media ran with the story, and speculation filled the headlines. Murder, abduction, running away with a lover. Anything was possible, and the beautiful face of Hazen Drew filled the collective mind of the US. And, as they always will, the media began to spin the story.
All of a sudden, Drew was behaving strangely before her disappearance. She had been consorting with strange men. People said she had been struck with illness. Many wondered why she had quit her job only weeks before. Drew was, in the opinion of the papers, a harlot and a vagabond.
She was eventually found. The investigation into her murder revealed she had been hit over the back of the head and thrown in a river. Nobody was ever found guilty.
The ‘Twin Peaks’ Murder Victim Was Not What The Media Made Out
The papers had done their thing, and before she was even discovered to be the victim of a murder, Drew was vilified. She had brought it on herself and was a bad apple. But Jerry C. Drake is determined to put the record straight in his new book, Hazel Was a Good Girl.
Hoping to clear the name of Drew after her murder, he looks to separate her from the Twin Peaks character, Laura Palmer. “Going into this, I thought even if I can’t solve her case, I can at least fix her reputation,” he told The New York Post. “I can decouple her from Laura Palmer and rechristen her as who she really was.”
According to his book, prior to her murder, Drew was very different from her Twin Peaks double. “She would have had disposable income, and she spent it on good clothes. She liked to go out with her girlfriends and spent the weekends skating and going to the amusement park.” Continuing, he says, “She traveled to New York City and Boston with friends. But she also went to church religiously,” he claims.
The tragedy was never solved. However, many people, akin to Twin Peaks, claim her ghost has come to them in their dreams. They say that Drew has given them signs and hints as to her murderer, even today.