Pathological

by Henry Cordes

  Stepping into the entryway, the detectives were greeted by the smell of death. It was clear the victims had not been killed this day. After the detectives’ eyes adjusted to the dim indoor light, they spied the first body, lying right in front of them. The body of the second victim was also visible from where they stood, off to the left in the living room.

  And there was blood. An enormous amount of blood, in wide pools and scattered in droplets on the floor, furniture and walls. Mois could already see this was no murder/suicide. These victims had lost their lives in a frenzied fight to the death.

  To Mois, it seemed the first victim had been accosted at the front door and shot right there. Mois immediately noticed the apparent gunshot wounds visible through the man’s clothes. But there were also vicious stab wounds to the side of his neck. It looked to Mois like whoever shot this man wanted to make sure he was dead. This was no casual killing. This was personal.

  The victim had fallen amid painting supplies, an aluminum ladder and boxes stacked in the hall, signs, it seemed, of a family in the midst of a move. The piano those movers had been coming to fetch was just beyond the first victim’s head.

  Mois and Warner drifted off to the left towards the second body. But before they got there, Mois came upon more gun parts. Kind of a gun nut, Mois recognized these pieces right away. There was the inner recoil spring and rod from a semiautomatic handgun. There was also a U-shaped piece of metal, part of the gun’s frame that had broken off. He figured that fracture was why the gun had broken, causing those other pieces to fall to the floor.

  Not far away on the cream and orange carpet was a knife, a wood-handled kitchen knife with a weathered handle, brass rivets and tarnished blade. And as Mois stood over the female victim, he saw a similar blade beneath her. This one was bloodied, apparently the one used to kill her.

  Whoever this woman was, Mois could also see she had fought off that knife with every ounce of life she had. Blood had been propelled in all directions. Mois recognized the many defensive wounds on her hands and arms. The woman had also suffered an obvious bludgeoning wound near the top of her head. Mois then saw what appeared to be the fatal wounds: a series of major cuts to the right side of her neck.

  Eyeing this crime scene for the first time, Mois and Warner were noticing some things that were immediately familiar to them. A pair of victims. In a beautiful home. Valuables all around, with no sign of theft. And most notably, knife wounds to the sides of their necks. Warner would even recall the two detectives exchanged a couple of knowing looks as they soft-shoed their way through the carnage. They’d worked together enough that they didn’t have to say it aloud. But a thought was already flickering. Could it be? “I’ve seen these things before,” Mois would recall thinking.

  Their tour of the home then took them into the adjoining kitchen, where they saw two drawers had been pulled open. One was the ubiquitous junk drawer. Every house, Mois knew, has a kitchen junk drawer, the place you put scissors, rubber bands, pens, batteries, flashlights, old bills, keys of long-forgotten origin and anything else that doesn’t have a home.

  It was the other open drawer, though, that stood out. That one was filled with a jumble of kitchen utensils and gadgets, cheese graters, egg beaters, whisks and the like. But most noticeable to Mois were the knives. Kitchen knives with faded wooden handles, brass rivets and tarnished blades. Knives exactly like the ones used on these victims. Suddenly there were alarms sounding in the detectives’ heads. Stab wounds to the neck delivered with knives taken right from the home.

  When Mois and Warner finished their initial walk through and stepped outside, they held an aside. “God, I hope this isn’t what it looks like,” Mois said. No kidding, Warner replied. The two talked about the striking similarities between these killings and the Dundee slayings five years earlier. It’s not as if they were convinced at the moment the pairs of deaths were related. You see a lot weird stuff in homicide. But they’d already observed so much, it seemed kind of eerie.

  It took a phone call from downtown minutes later to convince the detectives that what they were seeing wasn’t just some strange coincidence.

  Herfordt, the other detective on Mois’ team, was still at the office. He was anxious to get out to the crime scene but was begrudgingly doing more paperwork, he and homicide Sgt. Sheila Cech trying to determine the possible identities of the victims in the house. Cech looked online at county property records and found the registered owner of the house: Roger A. Brumback. To get a better idea of who he was, she simply typed his name into Google.

  Among the top results popping up on her screen was one for a Dr. Roger A. Brumback, M.D. It showed he was a physician affiliated with Creighton University’s medical center. Digging further, Cech determined that Brumback had been a department chairman at Creighton: the pathology department.

  It was like a bolt of lightning. Cech instantly knew the potential significance of her finding. In fact, years later, Herfordt recalled Cech’s words as she turned to him from her computer screen.

  “He’s back.”

  CHAPTER 10: SERIAL KILLER AT LARGE

  Mois and Warner were still barely into their work at the Brumback crime scene when Lt. Fidone relayed the word from Herfordt downtown. For the first time, Mois learned of the victims’ Creighton pathology link.

  “Wait, this is Roger Brumback, and he works at Creighton in pathology? That’s what you’re telling me?” Mois said as he huddled with his boss.

  “It sure looks like it,” Fidone replied. “This is his house.”

  “OK, we’ve got a problem,” Mois said. “We’ve already made observations here that are extremely similar to Dundee. They are significant.”

  With the signature knife wounds and Creighton connection, it didn’t take a criminal justice degree for anyone to realize these latest killings could well be linked to Dundee.

  It was also clear what they now needed to do. The detectives decided that Warner would immediately break away and begin exploring the ties between Brumback and Hunter. By 2 p.m., Warner was on the phone with Bill Hunter, telling him there was a high probability the two cases were linked. By 5:30 p.m., Warner and a whole team of detectives were at Hunter’s front door, some six miles away from the Brumback house.

  Bill Hunter had been floored to learn of Brumback’s death, hearing of it after Brumback failed to show up to deliver a scheduled parting lecture at Creighton the same day the bodies were discovered. Hunter in his gut now knew there almost had to be a Creighton tie to the killing of his son — something he’d always found impossible to grasp. But he still couldn’t think of what, or who, it was.

  The investigators talked with Hunter for hours, learning about his now-deceased former boss and anyone in his orbit. Were there any students or staff members with a possible grudge against both Hunter and Brumback? They went over the Russian again. The Russian’s major beef had actually been with Brumback. So in the minds of Warner and the other detectives, he was definitely back on the radar. Hunter also mentioned a couple of residents who had been fired more than a decade earlier after a prank against a fellow resident. It had been so long Hunter couldn’t recall the name of one of the students.

  As crime scene lead, Mois continued his work at the Brumback house — he would spend three days there — and again attended the victims’ autopsies. By now he had already followed the trail of blood droplets, gun parts and open drawers to piece together the likely sequence of events in the Brumback home: Roger accosted and shot at the door, the clip falling out of the gun in the struggle. Mary coming to her husband’s aid. The bludgeoning with the inoperable gun, which breaks. Knives taken from the kitchen, the killer leaving a drop of Mary’s blood behind. Mary’s desperate, futile fight to fend off the knife. The coup de grace knifings of both victims.

  Mois and other detectives also quickly determined the Brumbacks had died two days earlier, on Mother’s Day. Talking to the Brumbacks’
children, they learned the victims were clad in the same clothes they’d been wearing during their Mother’s Day video chats with their kids.

  Additionally, Ryan Davis’ neighborhood canvas had revealed a neighbor around the corner who reported hearing possible gunshots coming from the direction of the Brumback home on Mother’s Day. Since it had been the middle of the day in a neighborhood that was typically a no-fly zone for gunfire, the neighbor had just assumed it was a lawnmower backfiring. The approximate time he heard the shots — just after 3:30 in the afternoon — gave investigators a pretty good idea when the attack had occurred.

  As in the Dundee murders, detectives would once again find the killer had gotten in and out of the house without leaving any physical evidence, no fingerprints or DNA on the knives or anywhere else. It buttressed for Mois what he had suspected five years earlier in Dundee: that the killer wore gloves as he worked.

  Perhaps they were medical gloves. Indeed, now that there seemed a heightened possibility the killings were related to Creighton’s medical school, that offered an obvious possible explanation for why all four victims were cut in the same way. Certainly a medical professional could know how lethal that would be.

  Despite such speculation, the potential Creighton pathology connection did not completely steer the investigation. Detectives still had to be open to all possibilities. But the Creighton link to the killings only grew the next day, Wednesday. That’s when Herfordt answered the phone in the homicide unit. On the other end of the line was a man, speaking in an accented and apologetic tone.

  “I don’t want to bother you guys,” said Dr. Againdra Bewtra. “It’s probably nothing. I’m embarrassed to even be calling you.”

  Bewtra proceeded to tell Herfordt about his wife’s work in Creighton’s pathology department with Drs. Hunter and Brumback. And then about the Mother’s Day burglar alarm at their home.

  Bewtra told Herfordt he and his wife still saw the incident as probably nothing. But others at Creighton were adamant they should call police. It was a good thing. Herfordt and Fidone certainly saw the significance of this call.

  Fidone immediately dispatched detective Oscar Dieguez to interview the Bewtras and check out their home. In what would months later prove a critical move, Dieguez also had a crime lab technician swab the back door for possible DNA.

  With this latest development, the detectives added it all up. Not only were there now double-homicides in the homes of a pair of Creighton pathologists, another Creighton pathologist had an apparent break-in at her home about an hour before the Brumback killings — what Chhanda Bewtra would later refer to as “a very close shave.”

  The news of the Bewtra break-in was suppressed by Omaha police, no burglary report going public. But as it was, Omaha and its news media were already buzzing about the Creighton link between Roger Brumback and Bill Hunter. This was the most sensational crime story in the city in years. While police officials were careful not to publicly fuel such speculation with the bare-bones information they put out for release, behind the scenes even they now had to acknowledge the truth.

  There was a serial killer at work in Omaha. And he was targeting Creighton University pathologists.

  CHAPTER 11: THE TASK FORCE

  The dozens of reporters and photographers chattering in the auditorium of Omaha police headquarters fell silent when Chief Todd Schmaderer entered the room. Standing behind a podium, historical photos of Omaha officers who had fallen in the line of duty as his backdrop, the chief announced he was forming a multi-agency task force that would probe the recent Brumback killings and possible links to the 2008 Dundee murders.

  There was urgency in Schmaderer’s voice. He had visited Creighton days earlier, seeing the terror in the eyes of the pathology department staff. They were extremely shaken by Brumback’s death and the suspected ties to the Hunter murders five years earlier. There was palpable fear that any of them could be next.

  The chief said he understood “the fear and the anxiety in the community right now.” But there was confidence in his tone, too. He said the resources behind the task force were formidable. “I would not want this task force coming after me,” the chief declared.

  Schmaderer, 41, was still new to this job, having risen to the rank of chief only the previous year. But the 17-year department veteran had already been impressing both rank-and-file cops and others in the community with his problem-solving skills, savvy decision-making and ever-calm demeanor. Schmaderer wasn’t a suit-and-tie kind of chief, coming to work most days in the same sharp, crisp blues the beat cops wore. That’s just how he was dressed when he stood before the media that day.

  Coming six days after the discovery of the Brumbacks’ bodies, Schmaderer’s confident words were meant to assure an uneasy public. But they also masked a fear.

  If there was a serial killer at large, Schmaderer believed there was a very real possibility he could strike again. The chief wanted to make him think twice about that. “We always felt he was in a very acute state of mind,” Schmaderer would recall years later. “We felt the next killing could occur at any time.”

  Before going to the podium, though, Schmaderer had chosen his words carefully. For while the chief wanted to send the killer a message, he didn’t want to provoke him, either. Those who watched Schmaderer that day had no idea of the linguistic tightrope he was walking.

  As outlined by the chief, the 21-member task force would be led by Deputy Chief Mary Newman, a top department administrator with decades of experience in criminal investigations. She would be assisted by detective bureau Capt. Kerry Neumann and homicide lieutenant Fidone. A dozen of Omaha’s top detectives would work under them, including Mois, Warner, Herfordt and Davis. There would also be direct outside assistance, with both the Nebraska State Patrol and FBI providing detectives.

  The FBI’s role in the case was significant. The agency had been active in Dundee from the beginning. But the FBI now officially classified the case in its parlance as a 306: a serial murder investigation.

  In the FBI’s rules of engagement, that had meaning. Under federal laws controlling the FBI’s jurisdiction, the designation allowed the agency to bring additional federal assets and powers to the local case, including the ability to place suspects under interstate surveillance. “Due to the similar manner of these homicides and the link between four of the victims with Creighton, there exists the strong possibility these murders were committed by the same subject,” read an internal FBI memo authorizing the agency’s participation.

  The task force set up in a former conference room on the sixth floor of police headquarters. Windows into the conference room were covered over with white paper, Schmaderer making it clear he didn’t want internal leaks or rumors to jeopardize the investigation. Computers were brought in. A smart board against a wall listed the latest assignments and to-dos. Over time, the other walls would fill with colorful pictures, maps, flow-charts and other work products.

  The task force would be free to go wherever the facts led. But from the start, Schmaderer and Newman outlined several points they wanted addressed.

  No. 1 was clearly Creighton. With the pathology department link to the crimes, the Omaha detectives this time subpoenaed all of the department’s personnel records —something they did not do during the Dundee investigation five years earlier. Two detectives went to Creighton and started copying personnel files for all employees in the department dating back to 2000, just before Brumback arrived. “We need to look at everybody there,” Newman said.

  In addition, the task force was tasked with giving a fresh look at all the Dundee suspects. That included Shirlee’s daughter’s boyfriend, the suspect in the 2007 case where a knife was left in the victim’s neck, and, of course, the Russian. Where were they when the Brumbacks were killed? Did they have alibis?

  On that front, Warner was the natural choice to get back on the trail of the Russian. In fact, before Warner was
even ready to contact the Russian, the detective was in for a surprise. Just hours into the investigation, the Russian actually called him.

  The Russian told Warner he had heard about Brumback’s murder. Anticipating Warner’s interest, he asked whether the detective wanted to interview him again. And though the Russian insisted he had nothing to do with Brumback’s death, he intriguingly professed to not being particularly unhappy that Brumback was now dead. There was indeed a grudge there. Given this phone call, Warner now had to wonder whether he was dealing with a serial killer who was playing mind games with him. It was all very strange.

  Other assignments were handed out, not all of them as sexy as tracking the embittered Russian. There were lots of routine checks that needed to be made. No task was too big or too small. This was not a time for egos.

  In that light, Derek Mois received his initial assignment from the task force: talking to friends and acquaintances of Mary Brumback. Was there anything in her background that could make her a target? Was it possible she and Roger had marital problems? Any other skeletons in their closets? It might not have seemed the most promising of avenues for finding a serial killer. But Mois also knew it was nitty-gritty detective work that must be done.

  During his casing of the crime scene, Mois had seen papers on Mary’s desk showing she was involved with Creighton’s chapter of the PEO Sisterhood, a worldwide charity seeking to advance women’s place in education. Mois tracked down a number of Mary’s PEO sisters and arranged to sit down with them for interviews.

  Collectively, these women were some of the kindest, most considerate do-gooders Mois had met in his life. And all the PEO sisters described themselves as extremely close to Mary — almost like real sisters. If there was anything unusual going on in her life, each of them said, I would know about it.