The Nancy Asse Incident
Something She Saw That Nobody Believed
Archival Event Record — Status: Partially Corroborated
There are disadvantages to knowing everything that happens around you.
There are greater disadvantages to making certain everyone else knows that you know.
Nancy Lynne Asse had spent much of her life demonstrating both.
As Anita’s younger sister, Nancy developed an early and remarkably durable interest in matters that did not necessarily require her participation. She noticed things. She remembered conversations. She recognized cars parked where they normally were not parked and people standing with people they normally did not stand with.
Most unfortunately, Nancy talked.
Frequently.
This created a problem that would follow her well into adulthood.
By the time Nancy actually witnessed something worth reporting, nearly everyone who knew her had already heard enough from Nancy Asse.
The Incident
The surviving accounts agree on surprisingly little.
Nancy maintained that she had unexpectedly seen Crock O. Schitt and Anita Kay Asse together under circumstances considerably more familiar than either later cared to discuss.
Nancy was quite specific about where.
She was equally specific about when.
She was unnecessarily specific about several other details.
According to later family recollections, Nancy began telling people about what she had seen almost immediately.
Anita denied Nancy’s interpretation of the encounter.
Crock appears to have declined participation in the discussion altogether.
Nancy interpreted both reactions as confirmation.
This did not help.
The Problem With Nancy
Nobody accused Nancy of being unable to see.
The difficulty was everything that tended to happen after she saw something.
A parked automobile became a clandestine meeting.
A conversation became an argument.
An argument became a relationship problem.
And by the time Nancy had explained the matter to a third person, she had usually developed a remarkably complete understanding of what everyone involved had been thinking.
Nancy considered this perceptiveness.
Her family used other terminology.
Consequently, the story entered family circulation not as evidence, but as another Nancy story.
For years, that was apparently the end of it.
Then Something Turned Up
Much later, while reviewing material unrelated to Nancy’s original account, Archive personnel encountered a surviving item that should not have mattered.
It did.
The item independently places Crock and Anita together at approximately the location and time Nancy had always claimed.
It does not establish what they were doing.
It does not establish why they were there.
It certainly does not establish several of Nancy’s more enthusiastic conclusions.
But it creates one profoundly irritating historical problem:
Nancy apparently saw exactly what she said she saw.
What she thought it meant remains another matter entirely.
Anita’s Position
Anita has never disputed that Nancy was her younger sister.
Beyond that, surviving comments become less cooperative.
When asked years later about Nancy’s version of the incident, Anita reportedly responded:
“Nancy could walk past a closed door and come home knowing what happened behind it.”
When reminded that later evidence appeared to confirm at least part of Nancy’s account, Anita added:
“That doesn’t mean she needed to tell everybody.”
No further clarification was offered.
Nancy’s Position
Nancy’s response to the discovery was considerably shorter.
“I told you.”
Archive personnel have been unable to locate evidence that she ever expanded upon this statement.
This may represent the only known occasion on which Nancy Asse believed additional explanation was unnecessary.
Archivist’s Note
The Nancy Asse Incident presents an unusually irritating evidentiary problem.
Nancy’s reputation for gossip substantially reduced the credibility of her original account.
Subsequent evidence restored part of it.
The Archive therefore accepts that Nancy witnessed an encounter involving Crock O. Schitt and Anita Kay Asse substantially consistent with the time and location she later described.
The Archive does not accept Nancy’s interpretation of that encounter as established fact.
Unfortunately, neither can it dismiss it solely because the interpretation came from Nancy.
Further records remain under review.
No conclusion has been reached.
Archival Classification
Witness: Nancy Lynne Asse
Related Individuals: Anita Kay Asse; Crock O. Schitt
Evidence Status: Partially Corroborated
Interpretation: Disputed
Family Reaction: Predictable
Nancy’s Reaction: See above.
IMPERFECT ARTIFACT —–
Nancy said Crock and Anita were there.
An unrelated contemporary artifact places something strongly associated with Crock there.
The handwritten “A. — 7:30” is suggestive.
Nancy apparently couldn’t have known about the artifact.
Nothing proves what happened.