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In the spring of 2016, Detective Sergeant Randy McAllister was sitting in his office at the Codidge Grove Police Department where he had worked for nearly 20 years.

If you're going to be a police officer, you could do worse than being stationed at Codidge Grove, Minnesota.

Codidge Grove, population 36,000, lies on the north bank of the Mississippi River, a half hour drive from the Minneapolis City Centre.

It has a share of problems, just like any other suburb of a major metropolitan area, but nothing like the problems of the inner city.

Randy McAllister liked the quiet and predictability of working for a low-crime, small-city community.

Serious violent crime was rare, and over his entire career, McAllister had known of just two murders, both of which had been in the previous four years.

The 31st of May, 2016, was much like any other day, until the monotony was broken up by a visit from the FBI.

Although not on every day occurrence, it was not completely out of the ordinary for the FBI to contact local police as a courtesy to let them know that they were investigating a crime in their area.

Special agent Asha Silke informed Detective Sergeant McAllister that the FBI had intercepted a threat made on the internet, involving a possible victim in Codidge Grove.

Silke asked if a local police officer could accompany him to notify the potential victim.

Threat reports are a common issue. They usually come via the internet or text messaging, but this one was a little different.

It had come by as something called the Dark Web.

It was a term that Randy McAllister had heard, but like most people didn't really have much understanding of.

He is signed one of his detectives to accompany the FBI agent to visit a Mrs. Amy Allwine, at her home on 76-24-110th Street South, Codidge Grove.

110th Street is a long, semi-rural road of very large blocks.

The Allwines lived in the last house on the right, before a 20 car park led to the Grey-Clayer June's sand-grabble prairie.

The prairie was popular with walkers, and often sunset watchers would sit in parked cars enjoying the view.

The letterboxes along the street were peppered with neighbourhood watch stickers, but there were rarely any incidents that required reporting.

The house owned by Stephen and Amy Allwine was no shack, but the simple dwelling could not compete with the significantly larger and more elaborate homes of their neighbours.

There was the epitome of the worst house on the best street. A prefab home that had been shipped in pieces and assembled on the property,

...