Archie Wood

Archie Wood (born Archer Nathaniel Wood, also known later as the Lakeview Skinner) was a notable serial killer and purported member of a Satanic cult known as the Bishops of the Styx. The perpetrator of the 1989 "Hell's Staircase" Incident, he became eponymous with the resurgence of Satanic panics across the United States in the early 1990s, and gave Atkins County a reputation as the stalking ground of an iconic murderer. His crimes were ultimately the boiling point for years of mental trauma that he had went through following an official FBI investigation - however, the Preternatural Investigation Branch also unearthed his solicitation of the abnormal and the true reason behind his murder-suicide in 1989.

Early life
Archie was born to Robert and Elizabeth "Ellie" Samson on the 3rd of February, 1950, in Albany, New York - his birth was concurrent with the death of his mother due to her anemia being compounded alongside a complicated delivery. The death of Ellie was levied entirely on Archie by his father, who was already previously stewed deep in an alcoholic addiction following his service in the Second World War over fifteen years prior.

Being raised by a single father, Archie quickly grew accustomed to violence and anger as being something concurrent to life itself, teaching him at a young age to become impulsive, emotionally uncontrollable around others, and to develop a penchant for inflicting pain. During his adolescent years, Archie grew accustomed to torturing the animals kept on his father's farm in Atkins County while Robert was away. Being caught red-handed sometime in 1966 violating one of the dairy cows on the farm with a cattle prod by his own father, he was forced out and sent to live with his grandmother, Annabelle, in the township of Cedarcrest.

Interviews with locals that frequented Cedarcrest's respective Catholic church recall a particular incident that involved Archie getting into an altercation with one of the younger churchgoers following Sunday services in 1967, leading to his brief detainment before having been letting go after the victim decided not to press any charges on the minor.

Life with Annabelle and imprisonment
After this incident in 1967, Archie dropped out of high school and lived entirely secluded on his grandmother's farm, only having the most basic of social contact with the outside world through ferrying goods to the local farmer's market on a seasonal basis. Not much is known about the man as he grew up from 1968 onward, but in 1981 he was arrested outside of Albany after entering a vicious argument that turned physical at a bar on the outskirts of the city. He was charged with second degree assault and was imprisoned with a sentence of four years until 1985; the FBI have subsequently concluded that his stay in the Albany County Corrections Facility was the time that Archie first came into contact with someone from the Bishops of the Styx. However, investigations into both the corrections officers and inmates serving within the prison during this time frame have not yielded any concrete leads as to who may have been the source of influence for Wood.

1985 Longbay Reservoir case
Wood's first foray into human bloodshed began with the review of the 1985 Longbay Reservoir Case, where the body of a 31 year old male was found on the shores of the Longbay Reservoir in northern Cedarcrest, hidden within a mess of reeds.

Work in progress...