2025 murder mystery script is in the works already

Crime won’t be taking a holiday in La Conner anytime soon – at least in terms of the town’s popular murder mystery event.

Former Weekly News reporter Nicole Jennings co-wrote the Prohibition Era murder mystery script with her mom, Chris Jennings. They’re already planning next spring’s third annual production.

Nicole Jennings is developing for next year a mystery steeped in World War II intrigue.

Her aim is to craft story lines around local weapons testing and ­espionage, with fictional plots bolstered by research into the history of nearby Naval Air Station Whidbey Island and perhaps Fort Whitman on Goat Island just south of town.

“I plan to get started on it pretty soon,” she said. “We were writing this year’s murder mystery right down to the wire.”

Jennings portrayed Bonnie McClyde, moll of a murdered rumrunner, in the 2024 murder mystery. She hopes her castmates will return for next spring’s World War II-themed whodunit.

“The second annual La Conner Murder Mystery, set in 1924, was the bee’s knees,” Jennings said in a recent social media post. “And just as special as getting to act the part of Bonnie McClyde was getting to write the story and all the clues with my mom, who played the FBI’s first woman agent, Alaska Davidson, hired in 1924.”

Chris Jennings owns Jennings Yarn & Needlecrafts, a long-established La Conner business, and is president of the La Conner Chamber of Commerce, whose office serves as the start and final arrest site for each murder mystery.

“We based the story off the real history of bootlegging between Vancouver Island and the La Conner area during Prohibition,” Nicole Jennings said.

The period 1920s clothing worn by the cast and participating merchants was more comfortable than the Victorian garb required last year, she and others noted.

“It was great how many people dressed up (in 1920s clothing),” she said.

Jennings credited Kevin Baker with helping create charts for motives, alibis and evidence for sleuths to narrow down theories of the case with the clues they were provided.

“I think we did all right as quite a few people guessed correctly – but not too many, so it wasn’t too easy,” Jennings said.

A similar formula will be in place for the 2025 murder mystery.