Inside, I felt sick. How could somebody do this to another human being? I asked myself, although it was really no more horrific than any other case I’d worked on.
I took another look at the bones, especially the facial expression. Although there was nothing left except bones, I could clearly envision the victim dying in pain. The mouth was open, but there were no teeth.
“There are no teeth!” I cried.
“Yes. That is one of the most horrific parts. The person who did this probably pulled this woman’s teeth out, from what I can tell by looking at the mouth,” replied the forensic scientist.
I thought I was going to throw up. Why would somebody do that? Perhaps it was to make sure the body was not identified. That was the only explanation I could think of right now. Other than that, torture. Now that the victim had no teeth, I could not even compare the victim’s teeth with any dental records. This case was getting harder all the time, but I could feel myself growing even more determined. I felt a strong connection to the victim for some reason. I made it my new personal goal to make sure that whoever did this be caught and held accountable, dead or alive.
Chapter 15
My first step was to conduct some door-to-door research around the area, to see if anyone knew anything about this mysterious unidentified woman. I hoped and prayed there would be someone old enough to remember the disappearance of a woman in the area. I was not completely certain that the dumping ground was in fact anywhere near the place where this woman lived, but the killer obviously knew the area well, or else they would not have been able to find this place, since it was in the middle of nowhere. It would be virtually impossible to discover this place by accident when looking for a place to dump a body. This murder was planned, I was sure of that. Somebody wanted this woman dead for whatever reason, so I desperately needed to figure out who she was. Then I could work from there.
I started with the door-to-door enquiries, but to my great misfortune, no one knew a thing about it. For years people had been walking their dogs through this field, completely ignorant of the fact that they were walking over a dead body. It was a shame that no one had tried to regenerate the field, because if a farmer had found her years before, we would have had half a chance of identifying her. Certainly, much more of a chance than I did now. Since the door-to-door enquiries did no good at all, I decided to return to the station, and wait for the autopsy report.
Later that day, the post-mortem information came back, and it revealed that the woman probably died somewhere between 1980 and 1990. That was useful to a certain extent, because if I were to find a lead, I could use it to help search for the identity of the woman. However, it didn’t help me get any closer to figuring out who she was, which was the most important thing. All I needed was one person to come forward and say that they knew of this mystery woman. Someone did know, I was certain of that. Someone had to know the details of her disappearance. The report also said that she was probably between the ages of twenty and thirty-five. That narrowed it down slightly, but it still didn’t help much. I had planned to use the missing person’s database to see if I could get a lead on this, but asked Mitchell (not the boss, the other Mitchell) to go instead, as I was still busy analyzing the autopsy details.
The report also contained the grisly details of the woman’s death, such as where on the body she was stabbed, how deep the wounds were, what type of instrument was used, and so on. It proved to be of little use, even though I now knew exactly how she died. I had previously deduced that the person who killed her was a psychopath, though a very clever one, as they had gotten away with it—up until now, at least. I hoped this person was still alive so they could be punished for this horrible crime. No one deserved to die this way.
Mitchell returned with several files full of the details of women between twenty and thirty-five who went missing between 1980 and 1990 in North Dakota. Finally, things were narrowing down a bit, as there were only thirteen missing people that fit the criteria. For the first time I was beginning to get excited, since I now had pictures and different pieces of information to go on. Sadly, none of the files gave any details about a woman in a pink dress, though some had been out at parties the night they vanished. Others were at home, so I was able to narrow things down even further, but I still had seven women on the list. I was closer, but sadly, not close enough, as I could not come up with a convincing argument, with evidence, that any of these women in the files was actually the one found in that field. I assumed that most of these women were probably dead themselves, but I knew deep down that one of them was the woman we had found. Although it was possible that the woman was not reported missing, it was improbable, as there was likely to be someone who noticed her disappearance and reported it.
Seeing nowhere else to go, I decided to launch a public appeal in order to see if anyone knew this woman. This was probably going to be the most challenging part of the case. The television and radio companies stormed in, eager to report the discovery of this mystery woman. They gave details of where she was found, and the pink dress she was wearing. I was hoping that someone would be able to recall the dress, even though there was no mention of it in any of the missing person’s files. I knew this was a long shot, but worth a try because I had nothing to lose and no leads to follow.
Luck was on my side, because the very next day a visitor arrived at the station, wanting to talk to me about the missing woman.
“Hello,” I said to her as she walked in.
She was a small, plumpish woman, aged around fifty I guessed. She wore cheap clothes, her hair was greasy and her face full of spots, but she approached me in a friendly manner.
“My name is Lesley Kurtis,” she said, quite nervous about talking to me.
“Hello, I’m Tammy Williams. Please don’t be nervous about talking to me,” I said, eager to see what this woman knew. “I understand that you have some information about the woman we found?”
“Yes,” Lesley replied, taking a seat. “And I think it might be very useful to you.”
“Go on,” I said.
“Well, I think the missing woman was Eve Roberts, if you don’t know that already.”
I remembered the name from one of the missing person’s files. She had gone out for a party that night, but the person who reported her missing could not recall what she was wearing.
“And why do you think that?” I asked Lesley.
“Because she was wearing the pink dress the night she went missing. I remember it. I am...was a very good friend of Eve’s, and when she went missing I knew she’d been murdered. It was just so unusual of her,” Lesley replied in a fairly shaky voice.
I was beginning to get very excited now.
“And why did you not say any of this before?” I asked her.
“Because one of my other friends said she sorted it out. She said she told the police everything and that there was no need to speak to them. I’ve only just realized that she never mentioned the dress. I know that it’s Eve. It has to be,” replied Lesley, getting fairly excited.
“Right, and can you tell me about the time she went missing?” I asked her.
“I can’t really remember,” she said.
“Can you remember the last time you saw her?”
“Well, we were at the party just a few miles away from here, in a club. A lot of people were quite drunk. Eve went out for a cigarette, and that was that. She never came back in.”
Lesley started to cry now.
“It’s okay,” I said, reassuring her.
I thanked her for the help she gave me, and gave her my contact details should she think of anything else. I now had the name of the victim, because Eve went missing in 1988, and she was twenty-eight years old. In a way, come to think of it, she looked quite a lot like the skeleton. I now had the name of the victim, and I prepared for the rest of the journey ahead.
Chapter 16
My first task was to find out if any of Eve Roberts’ r
elatives were alive. I telephoned Lesley again and informed her that the body we had found was indeed Eve’s, and asked her if Eve had any living relatives. Lesley told me that Eve had a sister, who was now quite old. She gave me her contact details, and I went out to find her sister, whose name was Evelyn.
When I first met Evelyn, I noticed that she looked really upset. She must have been told the news, I thought to myself. This was confirmed when she opened the door to allow us inside, as she said to us, “I have been waiting for this news for twenty-four years.”
She picked up a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her eyes dry. I knew she felt like it was a giant weight lifted off her shoulders. However, justice was not yet served, so although Evelyn knew what happened to her sister, and how she died, the killer was not yet found, and that was my main purpose for coming to see her.
I had done some research about Eve and discovered that she had divorced and filed an official complaint about her ex-husband, stating that he had assaulted her on several occasions. However, before any further action could be taken, Eve was killed. This made me very suspicious of her ex-husband, whose name was Kurt Roberts.
“Mrs. Drake,” I asked Evelyn, “I know this is hard for you, but I need to talk to you about Eve.”
“Of course,” said Evelyn, gathering herself together. “Come on inside, please.”
She invited me inside, along with Graham Mitchell, and we sat down with her. I decided that I needed to get this out of the way for her as quickly as possible, so I asked the questions straight away.
“We need to establish when you last saw Eve, if you can remember,” I asked the poor old woman.
“Of course I can remember,” replied Evelyn. “It was the day she went missing, or died, as we know now. God, I still can’t get over it. Deep down, I knew that she was dead, but I had hoped it was a quick and painless death, not like this. Who could do such a thing?” she asked.
“In time, we’ll find the answer to that,” I replied, trying to reassure her. “But for now, we need to establish a few basic facts about Eve’s life, particularly about the day she went missing. Can you tell us if she made any unusual calls, had any plans, or if she was behaving strangely?”
“No, that’s the thing! She was behaving normally. I just don’t understand,” Evelyn replied.
“Did Eve have any enemies?”
“Well, there was the obvious one,” said Evelyn. “Her husband was horrible. He hit her a few times, you know?”
“We’ve read the files about that,” I said, trying not to go into any details, “do you really think he was capable of killing her?”
“Well, it’s been decades since I saw him last. I saw him just before the divorce, but I don’t know where he is now. But he was a very aggressive man, and it was his way or no way. That’s what it was like around him.”
“Okay,” I said. “And is there anyone else who hated Eve?”
“I don’t think so. Not with a passion, anyway.”
I decided to leave things there.
“There is one more thing,” said Evelyn.
I was intrigued.
“Go on,” I said to her. Mitchell was ready with his notepad.
“Well, I think Kurt was stalking Eve.”
“Why do you think that?” I asked her, rather interested by this revelation.
“Eve carried pepper spray. And another thing—a few days before Eve died she was on the telephone to Kurt. I was round her house, and she mentioned his name a few times.”
“What did she say to him?” I asked, somehow thinking that this piece of information could be important.
“Well, I remember a bit that has stuck with me ever since. Eve said to Kurt, ‘I know it’s you. I know it’s you standing at my window all the time.’ Then she hung up.”
“Did you asked her about it?” I asked, mildly intrigued.
“I tried to, but she just changed the subject and talked about something else instead. I tried to help her, I really did, but now I realize if I would have tried harder, maybe she wouldn’t have died!”
Evelyn broke into tears. I sat her down and spent some time with her, trying to calm her down before I left.
The next thing we had to do was trace Kurt Roberts. He was around somewhere, and I knew it. I knew that at this point in the case it was probable that he was the murderer.
We found him. He was living in the next town to us. We approached him as he was standing talking to someone in the middle of the street. We were able to trace him so easily because we went to his apartment first, and a neighbor told us that he had gone out downtown. I was prepared for a chase.
Just as we expected, when we approached him he said, “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“We’d like you to answer a few questions down at the station, if you don’t mind,” said Mitchell. As I had expected him to do earlier, he made a break for it, and it turned out he was a fast runner. It took a few minutes to catch him, then twice as long to escort him back to the car.
When he entered the interview room later that day, his arms were folded, and he was glaring at us.
“Do you remember a woman named Eve Roberts?” I asked him.
“What do you think?” said Kurt, trying to be clever with us.
“Well, she was your wife. Now, you are divorced from her. Can you tell us why that is?”
He looked at us for a few seconds, remaining quiet, and then he said to us, “Well, you’re the police officer. You work it out.”
“Believe me, I will!” I said. “And if you don’t start talking now you’ll soon find yourself charged with murder!”
“Murder! Who the hell has been murdered?” he said, trying to look confused.
“Your ex-wife,” Mitchell told him.
“Which one?” asked Kurt.
Mitchell and I looked at each other. He was clearly a stupid man.
“Eve Roberts was killed almost twenty-five years ago,” I replied.
“Do you remember her disappearance?”
“No,” Kurt replied.
“Well, she was murdered shortly after she dumped you, and she was about to go to court because she claimed you were abusing her! That looks pretty bad for you, Kurt. You better talk.”
I was getting excited, it would be a pleasure to charge this man with the murder, but the trouble was, he was not necessarily the killer.
“I don’t know nothing,” he said, folding his arms.
“Also, Eve claimed that you were stalking her.”
“No comment,” said Kurt.
Unfortunately, we continued to try to talk to him, but he kept saying, “No comment.” Although usually that was a sign that the person was guilty of a crime, I thought that Kurt might just be too lazy to speak to us anymore. So, we looked into his criminal history, and he was clean. I couldn’t believe it. We had to release him without charge. I was devastated, but before he left, I warned him I would be keeping a close eye on him.
However, I had something else to be shocked about, as well. In a surprise twist to the investigation, I received a call from the boss.
“Are you sitting down?” D.I. Mitchell asked me.
“I can be,” I replied. “Why? What’s up?”
“Because you’re about to be in shock. In the field where Eve Roberts was found, we’ve discovered another seven corpses.”
Chapter 17
It took us five days to identify each individual murder victim, but we got there in the end. It was difficult, because just like Eve Roberts, each victim was missing their teeth. I was certainly not expecting this to happen—I was dealing with a complete and utter psychopath.
The first victim of the extra seven we identified was Irene Ford. When she went missing, she was forty-eight years of age. She had short, brown hair and was a mother of two. She was a nurse, although she was found wearing casual clothes. She lived around the Minot area. On the day she went missing, the last person to see her was her h
usband. She had told him that she was going out downtown, but no closed-circuit cameras could confirm that she ever even made it to town. Some suspected that she took a shortcut home, and that was it for her. I would look into more detail about this later. As far as forensics could make out, she was beaten to death with something metallic, especially across the skull, but also the spine. She went missing and likely died in 1990.
John Crawford was age forty-nine when he went missing. He worked in a petrol station and lived just outside of town. He had a wife and son—his wife was long gone, but his son was still alive. It was his wife who last saw him. He said goodbye to her before leaving for work, but he never showed up for his shift. His family had always believed that he’d been murdered, and they had launched several search parties over the years to look for him. He was shot in the head in 1990, but also suffered two shots to the chest. He was killed with a shotgun.
Aged thirty-seven and third in the group of seven new victims was Sienna Stewart. She had very long, blonde hair, and she was loved by all. Although she had little family, she had many friends and was a very sociable person, so it was very unusual when she didn’t make contact with anyone for several days. She disappeared in 1989, and died apparently from electric shocks to the skull. The forensics team thought she may have been subjected to torture using some powerful electricity source. The last time she was seen or heard from was a phone call to her mother, who died long before her body was found.
The fourth victim was the most shocking, and that was of a fourteen-year old boy whose name was Kieran Bradley. He was an aspiring Olympic cyclist and had many friends in the school he attended. He was killed in 1988, just after Eve Roberts went missing as well. He was choked to death, as forensic scientists found that several dozen cotton balls had been forced down his throat. He was a very popular child at school, which surprised me a bit because he had worn glasses. He definitely didn’t fit the stereotypical nerdy nearsighted kid. Telling his parents about the discovery and how he had died was horrific and I will never forget their faces.
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