by Dan Decker
My primary purpose today was to get the context of the murder scene. I would have the police report in a few days, but there were times they missed things.
Often there were key pieces of environmental information that put evidence in context that gave it a different meaning that the police had either ignored or failed to notice
The dirty dishes Timothy had complained about were still in the sink, which made sense because there had not been anybody to do them. I could smell them when I stood right in front of the sink but it wasn’t bad. I took a couple pictures before I opened the refrigerator. A rank smell came from inside, at first, I started to wonder if maybe the investigators had missed something before I saw an uncovered bin of what looked like potato salad. I snapped several shots and shut the door before checking the freezer. There was nothing there of any relevance either, but I still took pictures.
I might decide to pay Winston to do a look through too, but I was on the fence at this point, primarily because the retainer Timothy’s mom had promised had not yet come through.
Even though it might turn out to be wasted effort, I wanted to document everything so I had my own evidence to review—not just the prosecution’s—when I was putting together my theory of the case. The cupboards and under the sink were next. Again, I found nothing significant.
After I was done with the kitchen I slowly spun around, trying to imagine what it would have been like for Gordon and Timothy to interact here.
Timothy had a strong reaction when I asked for his impressions of his roommate, far stronger than I had predicted. It had almost seemed as if he’d been happy to have his roommate go. This was difficult to admit because I liked Timothy and did not want to believe he could do something like this. I had known some people to get worked up about dirty dishes and other messes around a shared apartment, but the reaction I had got from Timothy seemed out of proportion to a roommate who was just a little slovenly. The place was pretty well-kept otherwise.
There had been pictures of Gordon in the newspaper, so I knew what he looked like, but I did not yet have a full physical description. Was he taller than Timothy? Was he heavier? The picture had made him seem of average height and build.
Winston had not turned up anything that lead me to believe Gordon was ever violent, but I examined the kitchen closely, looking at the cupboards while checking for signs of anger. They seemed to have nothing but normal wear and tear.
I went over the walls carefully with both hands, looking for places where they might have been repaired, but to the best of my observation, they appeared to be in good condition. There was one hole but it matched up with the doorknob so I didn’t think much of it.
Once I was done I stood at the sink and looked down. I was still not convinced it was just the dishes that had made Timothy so angry with his roommate. There had been heat there and the small pile in the sink could not have been the reason for the tension.
When I moved into the living area I took several pictures before opening the blinds. I looked outside and tried to imagine Gordon or Timothy standing here looking at the same view.
What had they said to each other?
There were industrial buildings outside and I had a great view of several cement trucks, but that was it.
I turned around the room, taking pictures from the middle as I tried to envision Gordon and Timothy getting into fights and arguing.
There was a sizeable 48-inch television on one wall, with huge speakers to either side. I decided these belonged to Gordon, because my impression of Timothy was that he did nothing but study.
Did Gordon have late-night parties that made it hard for Timothy to sleep?
That could also be irritating, but I still didn’t think that was the whole picture.
The couches were rundown, like they had been picked up from a Goodwill store or had gone through multiple tenants. The cheap imitation leather had tears in the fabric and strange stains.
I would never sit on these, let alone live here. Even during my law school and undergrad days I had been particular. I would have taken one look at this situation and moved on. And I would never have chosen a roommate that would keep me up at night.
I wondered what the story was there. Something about that just didn’t add up.
I went over the walls with my hands here too. It was probably overkill, but I had cases in the past where damage had been done to the walls and patched up. That information had been critical to a successful resolution for my client.
I lifted up a cushion of the couch and found the usual crumbs and coins, along with other odd bits.
Under the next cushion I found a tube of lip gloss stuck in the corner. Wondering if it had been found by the police but ignored as irrelevant, I snapped a picture and then took out a pair of tweezers and picked it up, taking several more pictures before putting it into a Ziploc bag. Timothy had given me permission to remove stuff from his apartment, but I would have done it anyways with something like this.
It could be this was completely unimportant or it might also be that it belonged to the murderer or somebody who knew the murderer.
Most likely it was left by the crime scene team.
I might tease Stephanie about it later.
Using a flashlight from my briefcase, I went to my hands and knees beside the couch to look underneath, but did not see anything of interest.
The couch was in the middle of the floor so there was no need to look behind it, but the loveseat was up against the wall. I performed a similar examination underneath the cushions and found nothing.
When I looked underneath with my flashlight, something shiny was in the back, so I picked up the couch and moved it out of the way.
My breath caught in my throat when I saw what it was. I was looking at an empty piece of brass.
“Bingo.”
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Jun 7 – 12:03 PM
I hesitated for several long moments, uncertain about what to do. I could not believe I had found something the police had missed. It was difficult to see them overlooking something like this.
If they missed this, what else didn’t they find?
Had it been introduced into the apartment after they had done their investigation?
A lot of times if they believed they had the killer and the evidence needed to convict, they didn’t always do as thorough of an examination as they might have otherwise done.
I bent over with my tweezers and was about to pick it up when I thought better of it. I needed to treat this as if I had just found something of critical importance. This wasn’t some lip gloss left behind by a crime scene tech. At the very least, I needed a witness to back up what I had found and where I found it.
It would probably be best if I did not touch it at all. This evidence might be precisely what I needed to exonerate Timothy, perhaps there might be a fingerprint on the shell that belonged to the murderer.
I had to be careful. I did not want this evidence thrown out because I messed things up. Conversely, if it turned out Timothy had done the deed, I didn’t want to be accused of trying to hide or destroy evidence.
I pulled out my phone. Winston answered a moment later as if he been waiting for my call. The guy must really not have much to do at the moment.
“What do you need?”
“Do you have time to go through Timothy Cooper’s apartment with me? I’m already here.”
“Sure thing.” I gave him the address and hung up.
I hesitated, but finally took a picture of the shell casing. The rush of the discovery made it challenging to think, I was not immediately sure what my responsibility was with regard to this discovery of evidence. I had learned it was best to slow down when my mind got worked up.
Why would the brass be over here?
If Gordon had been killed in his bedroom, wasn’t it a little strange to find the empty brass in this room?
Timothy had said he had found the body in the bedroom and the disclosures from the police had likewise documen
ted the bedroom as the location of the body.
Did somebody throw it over here?
There was also the outside possibility this had nothing to do with the murder, as a kid growing up in Montana, I had sometimes found used brass and played with them.
An innocent explanation did not seem likely to be the case here.
I examined the expended cartridge as close as I could without picking it up, taking care to not even breathe on it.
It looked like a 9 mm, but I had to know for sure. I had already touched the couch, it would not hurt to move it again.
I was glad I was wearing latex gloves as I carefully walked around and picked up the other side of the loveseat, moving it slowly until I had a clear view of its rear.
I let out a low whistle. It was indeed a 9 mm cartridge.
I have no choice but to turn this over to the police. If it had clearly been something other than what had been used to kill the victim, I might not have worried about it.
This was one of those times where some attorneys might have just overlooked the evidence or gotten rid of it, afraid it might be the final nail in the coffin for their clients.
But I could not do that, not only from an ethical perspective, but because I believed deep down that Timothy did not do it.
This could be instrumental in setting my client free.
There was no way to know.
I knew of some attorneys, under the justification of providing zealous representation, who would not have had a moment’s hesitation about throwing it away.
Sometimes I hate the practice of law. It would have been very easy to do just that; it would have been a lie to say the temptation was not there.
I took a picture.
I was under obligation to turn this over to the police, of this I no longer had any doubt. The only question was, did I have a duty to turn it over immediately? Or was this something I could hold onto until an opportune moment presented itself?
I shook my head and muttered under my breath.
If I waited longer than a day or two, I was certain I could run into some potential problems from an ethical perspective, something Frank Ward would be only too happy to take advantage of. And that was something I was not willing to do. I was not going to risk my law license for any client.
I moved on to Gordon’s bedroom while I waited for Winston to arrive. I wanted to get a feel for the room immediately, afraid my opportunity to experience the scene firsthand might evaporate. I suddenly had a sense of urgency that had replaced my laid-back examination from before. This came in part from the fact that the police would soon be swarming over this place again, irritated I had found something they had missed and looking for ways to pin the blame on me.
I should’ve done a video the moment I walked in, that way there would be no doubt. It had been a mistake to do this without Winston. How was I to know the police had messed up?
I pulled my camera out and took pictures while I examined Gordon’s bedroom, wanting to make sure I took as many as possible. I could always delete any unwanted pictures later and it was not like I didn’t have extra memory cards if I needed them.
There was dried blood splatter on the wall and all over the bed. It appeared Gordon had been standing when he had been shot, judging by the height of the blood.
There was a hole right in the middle of the most prominent splotch that I assumed had been the final resting place of the bullet.
I spun slowly, standing where I believed Gordon had stood when he had been shot. Judging by the way blood had dried on his unused bed, I figured he had been beside it and that his body had fallen on top. Up until this point I had not yet reviewed the crime scene photos because I had wanted to form my impressions of the scene unbiased by anything else, but I was curious to know the exact position of the body.
If it had fallen facedown, it could mean Gordon had not seen his murderer. However, if the body had been facing up, he would have known who had shot him.
Come on, Gordon, tell me what you know, I thought in a silent plea to the victim’s ghost.
I tried to look past the dried blood and gore, wanting to understand the context of this room. I feared that once I let the police know about their mistake, I would not get back in before the trial. This might be my one and only opportunity to get into the head of the killer and to understand the victim in the place where it happened.
I had just assumed, based on the time of day, that Gordon had been sleeping when he had been shot, but that was clearly not the case.
Why had he been awake? Had there been somebody else here? Had he been studying or watching a movie?
Timothy had not mentioned if Gordon had a girlfriend, but it seemed likely he had a relationship with somebody, considering how active he had been socially. The pictures I’d seen of him in the newspaper made me believe he had been a decent looking guy. He had probably had a girlfriend or two over the course of his life. He was not what most women would have called movie-star handsome, but he had likely done well enough.
Was it some bitter affair that had gone bad? Or was it a drug deal from the past that came back to haunt him?
It felt a little strange, but I opened up his drawers and begin to carefully go through them, trying to leave everything as undisturbed as possible so the police would not try to charge me with contaminating the scene after the fact. This was something the police would have done as well, but I did not want to miss anything.
The empty brass had awoken me like a jolt of lightning. It was almost like I was the first investigator on the scene.
Stephanie is going to be so mad when I tell her what they missed.
A smile crossed my face. There was a silver lining. I might have to tell the police what I had found, but I could go about it in my own way.
I would make sure to do this in person.
A rap at the door drew my attention but I didn’t go right away and took a bunch more pictures, including a number in the bathroom. It was only after I had finished that I went to the door. If by chance the police had returned of their own accord and were going to demand I leave, I was not going to lose my opportunity to have my own pictures of the crime scene.
I checked through the peephole to make sure it was Winston before I opened the door. If it had been anybody else, I might not have answered. If it had been the police, I would not have let them in until I had formulated a plan on how I was going to handle the situation.
Once Winston was inside I slid the door shut as quietly as I could and deadbolted it, something I had neglected to do when I had first entered.
Whiston lifted an eyebrow. “I’m surprised you came without me.”
“You’re here now.” I did not have to explain to him how I handled things, the issue now was handling the situation. “Have you ever heard of the police missing spent brass?”
The look of shock on his face made me smile. “No! Not possible. Those guys are thorough, I know the lead crime scene tech, he’s a real pro.”
Winston had been a cop at one point, but had left long enough ago that he no longer thought like he belonged to them. He had enough years between him and that experience to recognize that the police sometimes made mistakes. Apparently, he had never seen them do anything quite like this.
I pointed him towards the loveseat. “I haven’t disturbed it because I wanted another witness before I did anything further. If this is what exonerates my client, I don’t want to get it thrown out because we messed up.”
Winston let out a low whistle. “Don’t pick it up. Don’t touch it.” He looked at me. “You didn’t, did you?”
What kind of fool did the guy take me for?
“Of course not.” I thought of the lip gloss, but decided not to mention it, I didn’t want him to harangue me for that. I had just assumed it would be innocuous, but given this new evidence, it put the lip gloss in a different light.
Winston reached into his backpack without unslinging it fully from his shoulder and pulled out a pair of latex glove
s.
He knelt in front of the empty brass while being careful not to touch anything other than the floor. He stayed more than a foot back as if it were a poisonous snake that would kill him in one bite.
He went around to the other side. “9 mm too, just like the murder weapon.”
He spent several minutes looking at it from a variety of different angles, even moving the loveseat further to approach it from a new angle. “Was this the exact location you found it?”
“I was looking under the couch. It was right there. Haven’t breathed on it.”
Winston got to his feet. “I know you like this Timothy kid, but you need to prepare yourself for the possibility he did it. It does not look good to find this here, especially when he is the only one with access.” He shook his head. “I haven’t found any other viable suspects.”
“They might have missed the brass, but not the gun. I have to believe they would’ve found the gun too; he would not have been in the right frame of mind to properly hide it.”
“I don’t know. You’re right though, hiding the gun but leaving behind the spent brass, where’s the logic in that? Where was the body found?”
I nodded towards the bedroom. “He was on the bed in there. His brains are on the wall.”
Winston rubbed his chin as he approached the bedroom. “I would not expect to find the brass here but the shooter could have stood outside so he would not get anything on him.”
“Could you stand there,” I asked, “right beside the bed?”
Winston hesitated as if he were going to say no, but he obliged and went to where I pointed.
I stood in the middle of the living room and held up a hand with my fingers formed like a gun. I had a clear shot on Winston; not only that, the blood spatter behind him lined up with my position.
Winston and I stared at each other.
I had first assumed the shell had been kicked there after Gordon had been shot, but now that I looked at Winston over the top of my makeshift pistol, I surmised that the shooter had been in the living room when Gordon had died.
I mimicked the sound of a pistol and imagined the shell ejecting from over the top, flying to the right, and landing behind the sofa loveseat.
