Spirit Of The Badge

Spirit Of The Badge Page 5

by Ingrid P. Dean

  I also surmised that he was good looking. Since the skull was dredged out of the river in 1992, I figured he must have been in the water for some time to become completely disarticulated and skeletal. Therefore, I guessed his hairstyle would be from the late 1980s or early 1990s. I decided to sculpt a longer, falling-behind-the-ears hairstyle, in brown, since that is the dominant hair color of the Caucasian race. I also gave him brown eyes—both an intuitive and practical guess. I reminded myself that a reconstruction doesn’t have to look exactly like the person—but there has to be something about it that triggers a sense of recognition in just one person who sees it and thinks, Hmmm, that might be so-and-so.

  Finally in April 2004, the reconstruction was ready to be released to the media. I held a press conference and was shocked to find that almost every media source in the metropolitan-Detroit area showed up to get the story. The following days were filled with newscasts, phone calls, and interviews.

  About a week later, a District Sergeant who worked as an accident re-constructionist in my district phoned me. He had seen a photo of my reconstruction in the Detroit Free Press and it reminded him of a young guy who had gone missing from the Algonac area when he was a road patrol officer there. He said the guy’s name was Shawn Raymond.

  Since this was my first real tip, I didn’t have any particular feeling or hope that this was going to go anywhere. I went to the Clay Township Police Department and asked if I could see the Shawn Raymond case. The officers were all too familiar with the case. Shawn’s file revealed that his mother had reported him missing after he was not seen for two days. Shawn was nineteen at the time and a recent graduate of Algonac High School. There were several photos of Shawn in the file, including one of his high school yearbook photos. I noticed he was an incredibly good looking guy, with feather-brown hair and a glowing white smile—just like I had imagined.

  I didn’t immediately see a resemblance between the clay sculpture and Shawn, though I did notice Shawn’s dental charts. There was crucial information on these charts. The skull and Shawn had the same two bicuspids removed for orthodontic purposes. This was a clue I could not ignore. I immediately took the case back to my post and began calling to locate Shawn’s dentist to get x-rays for comparison.

  The first dentist led me to a dead end, literally. His wife sorrowfully informed me that her husband’s practice had closed after his death and she had destroyed all the remaining records, including the x-rays. My stomach lurched. I thought, Is this the end of my investigation?

  I feverishly pressed the keys on my telephone to call Shawn’s orthodontist. Amazingly, he was still practicing in the area. And, yes, he still had Shawn’s file, which included panoramic x-rays of Shawn’s teeth. I picked them up a day later.

  I was ready to put my anthropology degree to the test and compare the dental films. As I drove the x-rays back to the post, I phoned my dad, who has thirty years experience as a trooper, detective, and forensic artist. I chatted with him nervously, telling him, “It’s got to be him. There are so many coincidences!”

  My dad urged me to be calm. “Now, settle down. This is only your first tip,” he said.

  Back at the post, I scotch-taped the bite-wing x-rays I had taken at MSU to my office window and then, with hands shaking, taped the panoramic film from Shawn’s orthodontist file underneath it. Undeniably, even to my little-trained eyes . . . it was a match! Now all I needed was the final okay from an ontologist—a forensic dentist. I sought one out in the area and made an appointment to meet with him at his office the following day.

  Morning seemed like it would never come. I had several conversations with my dad, who continued to tell me, “Don’t get your hopes up too high.” But I was beyond help. In my mind, I knew it had to be Shawn. There was nothing that was going to convince me otherwise (except, maybe, this expert I was about to meet).

  As I drove to his office, I tried to calm myself down. I had thoughts like, What if it isn’t him? What if I have to start all over again? My stomach was in complete knots. A soft rain was falling as I approached the parking lot and turned in. I made one last call to dad and told him, “I’ll phone you with the answer as soon as I’m out!”

  When I met the dentist, I sized him up to be on his last year or two before retirement. He was elderly. He had me set the reconstruction on a stool and took his own panoramic films of the skull through the clay. I guess he didn’t like the bite wings I brought with me as proof. When his x-rays were developed, he held up Shawn’s films and the freshly taken films to the fluorescent lighting above him. He nonchalantly said, “Nope, that’s not him.”

  I was dumbfounded. My heart sank. I fought off tears and began to tremble. Here I was, in my professionally tailored uniform, holding a human skull encased in twenty-five pounds of clay, and I was fighting to choke back tears. I mumbled to him, softly at first, “No, you’re wrong . . .”

  As my vision cleared and I regained my composure, I took a quick glance at the films he still held in his hands. Still fighting tears of disappointment, I stated clearly and louder, without reservation, “No, you’re WRONG!” I snatched the films from his hand. He had been holding one of the films backward! I handed them back to him the correct way. He raised the films toward the lights again and—without hesitation—said, “Yup, that’s him!”

  The trip from his room to my car seemed like I was running in slow motion. Once I was in my car, I dialed my phone. “Dad, it’s him!” And, for the next half-hour, I sobbed. At least my tears were of joy and not sorrow. I was so glad that Shawn was found, and I was thankful that his family would find out that he was no longer missing, that his remains had indeed been identified.

  Note: Facial reconstruction requires both scientific and intuitive work to successfully identify someone. Features such as the nose, lips, style of hair, etc., are almost strictly intuitive guesses.

  Breaking the Rules

  While on patrol, an oncoming vehicle sped by me at almost 100 miles per hour. I had a feeling that something was wrong, that this wasn’t just a speeder gone wild. I made a U-turn and promptly stopped the vehicle. A man jumped out of the driver’s seat and frantically ran toward me. He cried desperately, “My son has been stung by a bee and he’s dying! Can you help us, please? He’s in back of my car. He can’t breathe!” I saw the boy’s head resting on his mother’s lap; he was gasping for air.

  The couple did not realize that the hospital they were heading for had recently closed its doors. Even though I was a fairly new trooper and still conditioned to following protocol, I decided to use my God-given power of discretion. There wasn’t any time to wait. I piled both parents and their son in the backseat of my patrol car and headed for the nearest hospital.

  I drove faster than I’d ever driven before—even faster than in Recruit School. The boy was suffocating. It was obvious his throat was swelled up. And he appeared to be losing consciousness.

  Boisterous from adrenaline, I said to the boy, “Hey, look! All the cars are pulling over for you! Wow, they see our lights and sirens! How do you like being in a patrol car and riding so fast? We’ll be at the hospital in no time, sweetheart.”

  I was probably more excited than his parents. I don’t know how I kept my voice from cracking. I kept urging the parents to keep him awake. I was so scared for the boy.

  It was summertime and traffic was bumper-to-bumper with all of the tourists in town. As I wove safely between the vehicles I thought divine intervention must be at hand. We didn’t encounter any backups or typical delays.

  Other thoughts rushed through my head, though, like Will I be reprimanded or fired for this? I knew calling an ambulance would have taken too long, but I was breaking departmental rules. I considered pendi
ng lawsuits. I finally shut out those thoughts and silently affirmed, I don’t care if I’m written up. They can fire me, if they want. The boy is hurt. I know I’m doing the right thing by following my instinct.

  We arrived at the hospital in less than ten minutes, and the boy was rushed to emergency care. The parents thanked me repeatedly, and then I left. I returned to my daily business, though I wasn’t looking forward to seeing my desk sergeant. I was certain I would be confronted.

  Later that day, when I returned to the Post, I was surprised to learn that the boy’s parents had stopped by to thank me again. Fellow troopers greeted me with smiles and the desk sergeant actually patted me on the back and said, “Kudos, kiddo. Good job, but get back to work.” At the end of my shift I went home and thought the incident was forgotten.

  When I turned on the eleven o’clock news, however, I saw the boy’s attending physician talking with a news reporter. I thought to myself, Wow, this made the news? and I turned up the volume on the television.

  The doctor said, “. . . by far the worst case of anaphylactic shock I have ever treated. If that trooper hadn’t brought the boy here so quickly, or had waited even five more minutes, this boy would not have survived.”

  I chuckled and thought, Well, that’s cool. I hope my boss is watching this, because everything I did was against the rules! Then I shut off the TV and went to bed.

  I was content. Divine guidance had directed me—and the boy was alive and well.

  Since I had broken departmental rules, I was disqualified for any life-saving award. But, one month later, I received a letter of appreciation from the governor himself! I laughed. The parents were so appreciative they had called the governor. I framed it and hung it on my wall. To this day it reminds me that no badge or trophy can ever bring me the same joy as knowing those parents brought their boy home safely. Any material award would now be a total insult.

  The Bone Lady

  We are called to a drowning. A snowmobile with two riders has gone through the ice. We dive in and find the snowmobile but no bodies. The sheriff contacts Sandra Anderson, a famous woman known for finding bones and bodies in water. This is my first contact with the Bone Lady.

  Sandra brings her dog that can smell dead bodies in the water. She says her dog can smell the gasses emitted by dead bodies, even in water. After a couple of hours she announces, “The dog is indicating the bodies are not out there.”

  “How can you tell?” I ask.

  She says, “Well, I can tell by the way the dog acts.”

  A week later one of the bodies shows up—only about 150 feet from where we were searching. This is my first red flag that something is wrong with the Bone Lady.

  My next contact with her is in regards to a woman, Cherita Thomas, who had been missing since 1980. We believe she is a homicide victim.

  Detective McGregor and Dave Marthaler (FBI) take Sandra in the woods to search for Cherita’s remains. The first time they search the woods, nothing is found. They take Sandra to the same area a second time, and they start finding bones. I photograph the bones and e-mail the photos to a forensic anthropologist. He says they are animal bones.

  I recall Sandra telling me that her dog would never hit on animal bones. Another red flag is raised.

  I start to get bad vibes about the Bone Lady. She always wants to return to a site . . . she never finds bones the first time, only on the second or third visit. And, these are areas that have already been thoroughly checked.

  By this time, the crime team has discussed other missing people with Sandra. We have provided all kinds of information to her, and she continues to return to the same areas where she’s already been.

  Miraculously, we start to find human bones. We even bring in the FBI Recovery Team on one of the searches.

  We are on a suspected location and the dog is marking areas. To indicate the location of a bone, the dog puts its nose to the ground and then lies down. Sandra sticks a flag in the ground wherever the dog does this. We start searching the flagged areas. Several of us are down on our knees in one area, when the Bone Lady says, “The dog is indicating there is a bone over there.”

  “Where? Where is he indicating?” I ask.

  She says, “Over there. Right where he’s at . . .”

  I look again. “We’ve already looked over there. There’s nothing there. Where do you mean?”

  And she says, “Right there. The dog is sitting on it.”

  “How can you tell the dog is sitting on a bone?!”

  “I can just tell. He’s sitting on it. Reach underneath and grab the bone!”

  I thought, Yeah, right. I’m going to reach under the dog and find a bone . . . this is a joke!

  She sees the look on my face and says, “I’m serious!” She moves the dog up and low and behold, the dog was sitting on a bone!

  The anthropologist on the scene determines it is a finger bone. “Yeah, it’s definitely human,” he says. Then he sticks it up to his nose and says, “Smell this.”

  I look at him incredulously as I think, Right, the dog’s ass was just on it and now you want me to smell this bone . . .

  He says, “Seriously, tell me what it smells like.”

  I put it under my nose and sniff. “Smells like chlorine bleach.”

  “I was thinking more like ammonia, but yeah, bleach or ammonia,” he says.

  “Why would this bone smell like ammonia or bleach after all these years?” I ask.

  We discuss the possibilities. The best reason we can surmise is that the murderer poured chlorine bleach or ammonia on the body when it was decomposing to get rid of the smell. We search further and find more human bones.

  Meanwhile, we are still searching for Cherita Thomas. John Lucy and Jenny Patchin from the crime lab have joined us. The Bone Lady is here too. On one of our previous searches, Sandra was told about two hunters in a white Ford Bronco who have been missing since 1969. Well, she confused Oscoda County where that case happened with Oscoda, Michigan, which is far away in Iosco County. One of the finger bones she discovered on this search was wrapped in camouflage material—as if there was still flesh on it. It seemed to me as if Sandra was finding evidence for every crime we told her about in this one area, like it was a mass dumping ground for bodies in Iosco County.

  Anyway, everybody on the team believes the bones Sandra finds are real. They are excited about the discoveries; I am getting strong feelings the whole time that something just isn’t right.

  Sandra marked areas in a nearby stream a year ago. As we are walking along, the dog hits on something in the stream. Sandra sticks flags in the water and says, “Let’s come back to this. Let’s go search another area first, then we’ll come back here.”

  “Whatever,” I say, although I think it is odd.

  We follow Sandra and the dog to some other areas. She wants to look at what she calls coyote dens. She thinks coyotes drag body bones to their dens. In the bank of the streams where muskrats live—that is what she thinks is a coyote den.

  Underneath a stump someone finds a broken bone. Everybody gets excited, “Hey, man, look we found an arm bone!” The anthropologist confirms it is an arm bone.

  Sandra then announces, “Well, I’m going to go back down to the creek.” She meant where she had earlier planted the flags in the water. Realize, John, Jenny, Sergeant McGregor, and myself have already sifted this area with screens—right down to the hard bottom of the stream. They removed the muck, etc. and did not find anything.

  I decide to accompany Sandra to the stream. She kneels down in the water and says, “It’s gotta be right here, gotta be right here. The dog says it’s by my foot, dog says it’s by my foot . . .” I see
her hand go to the back of her leg. “It’s gotta be by my foot.”

  Jokingly, I grab her foot in the water and say, “Hey! I got a WHOLE foot!”

  “No, no, seriously,” she says, “it’s gotta be right down here by my foot.” I take my hand off her foot, and sure enough, there is a bone right by her foot.

  The bone looks really old and brown. “Oh, you’re so good!” she says. “You’re always finding bones! Now, let’s check this other area where the dogs say there’s something.” She kneels down in the water and starts searching.

  As I watch Sandra in the water, I realize she always wears leg warmers with her boots untied halfway down. There is usually a lot of bulk on top of boots. Sandra says, “It’s gotta be right down by my foot, the dog is saying something’s here.” So I reach in and, sure enough, there’s another bone.

  “Boy, these things look like they’re one hundred years old!” I say.

  “Maybe you found an Indian burial ground or something,” she suggests.

  I’m thinking, No, this is too coincidental . . . two times in the stream . . . in areas that have already been sifted . . . just her and me . . . no . . . something’s wrong . . . it’s all just too coincidental. Of course, I don’t say anything. After all, she is famous. She’s known worldwide for her work. I don’t feel like I know enough yet to question what she is doing, but I do have a sick feeling in my head and heart.

  All of us are at the “coyote den”—the Bone Lady, Dave, Allen, and me. Sandra starts poking a stick in an overturned tree and says, “The dog indicates something’s underneath there, something’s underneath here. It’s gotta be here . . . gotta be right here.”

  So, I get down on my hands and knees and start crawling into this hole. “Geez,” I joke, “I’m going to get my ass bit by some muskrat!”

 

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