Pamela Wisher

Pamela Wisher was a young, wealthy "society girl" and resident of New York City. The discovery of her headless corpse in the Humboldt Kill initiated the events of Reliquary.

Wisher was about five feet six inches tall, blonde, blue-eyed and beautiful. She was a former debutante from a rich family and was called a "trust funder", although she did volunteer in a hospice for AIDS patients. She was dating a young aristocrat, the Viscount Adair.

Pamela apparently fell into drugs after the death of her father, Horace. She somehow became involved with Greg Kawakita who was manufacturing a drug called Glaze. The drug, refined from an Amazonian plant called the Mbwun Lily, caused mental and physical transformations in those who took it. Kawakita believed he had removed most of the side effects from the drug, but he was unsuccessful. The drug's users became extremely sensitive to light and retreated underground to the tunnels and sewers of New York. The homeless people who lived there called them Wrinklers.

The exact circumstances of Wisher and Kawakita's deaths is not known, but apparently his clients turned on him and dumped his and Pamela's bodies into a storm drain. A heavy rain later flushed them into the Humboldt Kill.

Wisher's body was discovered by a police diver Snow, while on an unrelated assignment in the Humboldt Kill. Her body was found without its head and was embracing Kawakita's corpse. Both skeletons showed evidence of having been chewed. The medical examiner's office identified Pamela by a belt she was wearing.

Journalist Bill Smithback of the New York Post wrote several articles about Pamela after her body was discovered. In doing so he met and interviewed her mother, Anette Wisher. Anette's outrage over her daughter's death prompted her to found the protest movement Take Back Our City. Smithback and the Post offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of Pamela's murderer. The New York Police Department was subsequently flooded with bad tips and crank calls, much to their annoyance.

Some time after her death, Pamela's mother arranged for a "vest pocket" park on East 53rd St. to be named Pamela Wisher Park.