LOGLINE
He’s the killer that’s right under his nose.
Elevator Pitch
The best detective in the country meets his match with the stealthiest killer he’s ever tried to catch. For seven years, the clock keeps ticking and victims keep turning up. The killer who seems to awake whenever the detective closes his eyes haunts him, which means rest is as elusive as the killer as he stretches his nights to crack the case. Ever under his nose, but never on his mark, the elusive killer remains out of the detective’s grasp while yet getting closer and closer to him, until Detective Winsby wakes up with blood on his hands and has to deduce that it must be him. In this case, peace for Winsby means losing his freedom and that’s a cost he’s willing to pay to save the lives of the ones he swore to protect. Freedom might not be peace, but rest finally found him when justice found the killer.
SYNOPSIS
John Winsby is a longtime and reliable head detective of a small team headquartered in the suburban city of Peace, Illinois who cracks the toughest mystery cases around the country and loves a good cigar. Carter, his right-hand man, who is over a decade his junior, is always there to provide perspective and (try to) lift his spirits, reminding him of the team’s capability. Christa, the team’s evidence investigator, has twenty-four years of experience pulling answers out of samples that come in ziplocs. The silent glue of their team, their trusty researcher and front desk lady, Patricia, is always learning cases before the news does and tips the team where justice is needed.
Along with their new kid-intern Bobby James, who is always just a second late, they form a well-oiled machine. However, the case they’re facing has haunted them for nearly ten years, since February of 2018 when a new serial murderer reared his head in the sleepy town of Peace and has been eluding them ever since.
What usually takes weeks or months has now turned into years as the team tirelessly looks for the murderer who never sleeps. His tracks are always clean, evidence is sparce and witnesses are none.
Detective Winsby, never losing hope, but ever so weary from loss after loss, extends his nights in the office. Carter always stays behind with him and tries to get him to go home and rest, but his answer is always the same, “It always happens when I sleep, Carter. As soon as I close my eyes, that killer will wake up again. Without fail, Carter.”
But the murders continue.
Slowly, Winsby starts finding evidence mingled with his personal things. He becomes nervous that he’s being targeted or framed.
As time goes on, and more and more evidence is found that always leads to his person, Winsby starts to keep a journal, from February 9th, 2025 until March 13th of 2026 when he wakes with blood on his hands and concludes a truth he never could have believed: he’s schizophrenic. Rushing to the headquarters, his hands stuffed in ziplocs, he turns himself in as evidence.
When it turns out that he was right, and he’s put in prison, Carter visits him and tells him he has great respect for “the good man of [him]” and that he believes that justice will will reward him in the next life for his willingness to put himself away, losing his life, just to keep the demon contained.
A.M.M. Scripts 