Dryden, New York is your typical, small town nestled among forestry, ponds and plains. But in the 1990s, that peace was disrupted by a string of events so tragic it was hard not to suspect a site-specific curse. Dryden would come to be known for a time as the “Village of the Damned,” and in Part 1 of this series we’ll trace the first half of this ominous decade there.