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-News Articles/Editorials/Letters to the Editor-
10/15/2000
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He lay on the floor, blood streaming down his back, "sobbing and whining" and sipping a beer saying he really wasn't all that bad of a mayor. Carson city Mayor Ray Masayko was killed-in jest-Friday night during Murder at the Mansion. Murder at the Mansion was a murder-mystery benefit for Advocates for Cancer Care at the Governor's mansion and is the first murder event, written by Carson resident Gayle Crandall. "It was great," Crandall said. We had great audience participation" especially from the two players picked from the audience. "Most audience members came in costume. They really spent money trying to find out whodunit." Audience members tried to solve the mystery buying and selling clues from the suspects aiming for a pair of special champagne flutes made by Riedel and a nice bottle of champagne. Crandall said someone solved the mystery, but left another mystery in its place, by not leaving their name on the slip tossed into the jar of solutions. Instead, Dean Metcalf, uncle to local builder tom Metcalf, walked away with the prize. He was in town visiting on his way to Palm Springs from Alaska." Crandall said. The suspect list included: Trixie, played by an unknown audience member, married the mayor, whom she met a Woodstock, and took out a large life insurance policy. In her earlier days, she played a soap actress in New York on "The Homely and the Lonely." Gayle Galore, a shady lady played by fundraiser Gayle Thomssen who really wanted to be Carson's first woman mayor, but was serving her time as his campaign fund-raising chief. Mayor Ray had once shut down her Love Shack karaoke bar for having the worst karaoke music in town. And did we mention, she used to be a knife-throwing assistant with the circus? Newspaper reporter, Ron Casablanca, played by businessman Ron Weikel. Casablanca, a New York gossip columnist was raised by his generous step-sister, Trixie. Rita Redwood, played by Rita Carman, was an environmentalist fighting to save the butterfly from the bypass and was angry with the mayor for having her arrested for doing "the worst" ever rendition of "Feelings" at the Love Shack. Honest John Justice, played by an audience member known to Crandall on as Richard, made a killing selling the mayor's secrets to audience members trying to find out "whodunit." The mayor's killer secret was that if he died, the money was not going to Trixie but would go toward the bypass beatification project. Chamber of Commerce leader Larry Osborne, ran the investigation Crandall said her volunteers were good sports. "Most didn't know what I was going to do to them and just said they'd do it because it was for a good cause," she said Carson Advocates for Cancer is a group of about 25 volunteers banded together to help cancer victims pay for medications and doctor bills. Crandall said she has "no clue" how much money the mansion event generated. "The room holds 225," she said. "It was pretty packed, but I don't think it was that full. Even if we had 125 at $20.00 each we did real well." In the end, and maybe somewhat ironically, Mayor Ray was axed by a newsman, but Casablanca's reasoning had nothing to do with the mayor's politics. Having a soft spot in his heart for his stepsister, Trixie, who raised him. Casablanca wanted her to collect the insurance money. |
