A. William Mosely High School.

Q. Where is it supposed to be on the show?

A. Somewhere in Miami.

Q. When did we see it on the show?

A. In Episode 6 (of Season 4), "Dirty Harry".

This short scene is part of a montage of shots
showing the Trinity Killer's public persona, while Dexter's voice-over tells us about how serial killer Arthur Mitchell passes as a family man, a teacher, and a church deacon.

Q. What is it actually in real life?

A. An elementary school - far from Miami.

Q. Where can I find it in real life?

A. The school seen is Horace Mann Elementary School, at 257 Coronado Avenue, in Long Beach, CA.

In the shot, we are looking east/southeast, at the west side of the school.

It's located on Coronado Ave, between 3rd Street & E. Vista Street.

That's just a three blocks north of Dexter & Rita's new home. And it's about half a mile southwest of the gas station where Dexter is accosted by the rogue female cop.

The "Faculty Parking Only" signs you see posted along the street (when Arthur is at his car), and which read "William Mosely High School", were fake.

( Horace Mann, by the way, was a 19th century education reformer, generally considered "the father of American public education", and there are several schools in the L.A. area named after him. William Mosely, on the other hand, was the first governor of Florida.)




I shot the photos below in November 2009.







Here is an aerial photo of the school. And here is a map link.

Q. How the heck did you figure out where it was?

A.  I did this the hard way: by looking at every single school in Long Beach (plus a few in Hollywood & San Pedro), via Google StreetView, until I found it.

At first, I thought I had lucked into finding it, when I noticed that a school next to the gas station looked almost exactly like Arthur's school. But when I made a close comparison, I could see that it wasn't the same school. (It's amazing how many of Long Beach's schools look alike.)

But that made me pay closer attention to the schools in that general area, which is where I finally found, just north of Dexter's house.