The Thimbleweed Park Sheriff has formally closed the ongoing investigation into the dead body under the bridge citing lack of evidence, dwindling interest, and a desire to get home by 8:00pm to watch wrestling.

The murder victim is believed to be a European visitor with no ties to the local community. The unsolved murder is the latest in a series of suspicious events that include the sudden death of town founder Chuck Edmund and the mysterious disappearance of his brother, Franklin.

In the course of the investigation, the Thimbleweed Park Sheriff’s Department raised suspicions about two uninvited federal agents, disgraced entertainer Ransome the Clown, and pillow factory heiress Delores Edmund. Though their involvement has not been definitively ruled out, the Sheriff today insisted he sees no reason to waste further resources on a “dead-end-a-reno case.”

“Dead body? What dead body?” the Sheriff blurted when pressed for comment, conspicuously looking over his shoulder.

Game developers Ron Gilbert, Gary Winnick, and David Fox, who have been camping out in Thimbleweed Park since the body was found, are questioning the Sheriff’s motives. “This town is hiding a secret, a big one. When we came close to uncovering it, that’s when the locals stopped cooperating,” Fox said from the show floor at ThimbleCon ’87, which is taking place this weekend at the Edmund Hotel.

“We thought raising funds on Kickstarter and embedding ourselves in Thimbleweed Park would give us answers. But two years later, we’re only left with more questions,” added Winnick. “Why are the signals so strong out here? How come the phone book has 3,000 names in a town with only 80 people? None of these nutjobs even care about the dead body!”

With officials stonewalling the murder investigation and the crowdfunded project drawing to a close, the developers of the Thimbleweed Park video game are now appealing to more than 18,000 backers, as well as countless others who are intrigued by the strange happenings in Thimbleweed Park, to take over.

“Gary, David, and I have spent two years of our *beeping* lives trying to get to the bottom of this,” said Ron ‘Grumpy Gamer’ Gilbert. “You want to know what’s going on with the dead body? You want the truth about Thimbleweed Park? Then get down here and start pointing and clicking. This game isn’t going to play itself.”