The house had only four rooms. All the rooms were built in a row, hence the term “shotgun shack.” As my north Louisiana grandpa used to say: “You could shoot a shotgun right through the front door and the pellets would fly out the back door without hitting anything in between.”
The living room was unkempt and cluttered, and that was where the sole light available to us was, an exposed bulb hanging from a single ceiling fixture. The couch and stuffed chair were both torn and tattered, having seen better days. What looked like an abandoned dresser supported the TV set, which was tuned to a sports channel, blaring away. It was very annoying. The whole place had the acrid reek of stale nicotine and urine.
I walked across the ill-fitted linoleum rug and peered into the next room, which was the bedroom of the deceased. For those folks not familiar with it, a linoleum rug is sort of a poor man’s floor tile. It comes in a big heavy roll that looks like thick oversized plastic and has some sort of pattern on it. It is frequently rolled out over a wooden floor. In a short time, the ridges in the floor indent the linoleum and then cracks start to show up. The bedroom was dark indeed. I stood at the entrance of the room and shined a beam of light into it. There were only two pieces of furniture in the room—a bed and a nightstand. The mattress was devoid of any sheets or blankets.
I discerned some movement in the area of the head. “What the hell?” I focused my beam on the old lady’s head. “Rats!” Her head was covered with rats! It was a horror movie come to life.
The rats were taking advantage of an easy meal. They were eating her head! I stomped the floor and they scurried away—reluctantly. The uniformed officer’s response was limited to the same repeated phrase: “Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit!” We approached the bed and he pointed to the area on her forehead that was missing. There was still a telltale quiver to his voice as he continued. “It’s bigger now,” he said. “And her eye is gone.”
I started jotting down notes in my handy three-by-five notebook, to be later transcribed on a computer. I’ve filled scores of them. I looked closer and fished a magnifying glass out of my “possibles” bag, which, apart from my car trunk, holds everything I might possibly need at a crime scene:• flashlight
• backup flashlight
• mini alternate light source
• a scalpel to cut a hole in the right upper quadrant of the abdomen and into the liver
• a thermometer to push into the hole in order to get the core body temperature and maybe help determine the time of death
• gloves
• more gloves
• blunt scissors to cut off clothing (and never cut through a bullet hole)
• paper towels to sop up blood, in order to see a wound
• Polaroid camera (in case my forensic pathologist wants a view of the scene)
• reference cards for entomology (maggots and the like)
• binoculars (in case the killer threw a weapon up on the roof )
• GPS to record the exact site the body was found if out in the woods (you can drive a small metal pipe into the spot and come back years later to the exact spot with a GPS and a metal detector—vegetation grows quickly here)
• body bags of various sizes
• evidence seals
• toxicology collection kits
• insect collection kits
• boots
• rain gear
• insect repellent
• insect foggers (an exposed arm can suddenly turn black with mosquitoes down here)
• Glock handgun, 9mm (once I became coroner; Louisiana law grants only the coroner carry rights)
• extra pair of glasses
• disinfectant
I pointed out in my notes the gnaw marks left by the rats’ teeth and noted the fact that there was no bleeding. All of these injuries occurred after death. They were postmortem injuries. Oddly, standing over a woman whose face had just been eaten by rats, I felt a vague relief—that she had not sustained this trauma prior to her death.
The officer’s attention was suddenly diverted to the front room. One of the woman’s sons had stumbled into the house and was yelling that he wanted to see his mother. He was very drunk and was ranting that he was a Vietnam veteran and nobody had the right to keep him away from his mother; the tension at the scene started to escalate. I was in the doorway of the bedroom. The officer stood in the living room between the drunken son and me. I gripped my flashlight tightly. It was the only weapon I had. The headline of the morning paper flashed before my eyes: DEPUTY CORONER & POLICE OFFICER KILL SON OF DECEASED. It looked like it was about to be party time when another son appeared.
Son number two was more rational and seemed willing to help with the situation. He calmed his brother down in a composed, assertive manner and introduced himself.
I expressed my sympathy to the family and told him I needed to examine his mother and take her to the morgue. He understood and accepted this. I also asked about electrical outlets and he assured me there was one in the bedroom that worked. It was on the side wall and under the bed—the bed under which the rats had retreated. I told him about the rats. I had no intention of putting my hand under there to find an electrical outlet.
This is when he made the revelation that we needed to let the “rat dog” out. Rat Dog was kept in the bathroom. He had been barking sporadically since we had entered the house. Needless to say we felt the dog was best secured right where it was. However, bowing to the wisdom and experience of the helpful son, we agreed to let him release the dog.
He opened the bathroom door, whistled, and hollered, “Get ’em, Rat Dog!” Apparently that was the animal’s name. To my amazement, Rat Dog, a medium-size black-and-white mixed terrier, bolted out of the bathroom and raced right under the bed. The rats scattered as he herded them into the back room, which inexplicably contained stacks of lawn mowers.
With that, the helpful son deftly reached under the bed and plugged in my light. The whole room was immediately illuminated, as was the destitution of the situation. The woman was malnourished and had essentially died of end-stage dementia. I doubt she weighed eighty pounds. She had not been properly cared for and should have been in a nursing home.
I had seen many situations like this before. At times the person stays or is kept in the home because moving the elderly person to a nursing home would mean that the Social Security check would no longer come to the house. That check may be the major source of income for the household. Poverty has many victims—that’s the harsh reality. And then again she may simply have refused to go to a nursing home, and the family accepted that as her wish.
We have all sorts of agencies to deal with such issues, but for whatever reason, the safeguards didn’t work for this poor woman.
As I drove past her house again, I thought to myself: I’ll be glad when they finally demolish it.
SECURITY BREACH
Crime scenes can turn volatile in an instant. A killer may even come back to the scene while it is being processed. It happens. Or a distraught relative may crash through the yellow boundary tape, bent on seeing the deceased and/or extracting revenge for the death. Sometimes, they just walk right in.
As I recall, it was late into the night. The time when most people are sound asleep and certainly not aware of the violence unfolding in their city. I got out of my vehicle at the death scene, and I was greeted by a veteran police officer who had been a homicide detective for many years. He had gone back into uniform due to some twist of politics within the department. I don’t know the details, and really don’t care to know. Bottom line: he’s a damn good cop and he knows how to secure a scene.
The humidity and heat were about five clicks past sweltering. It was one of those nights when you could actually see the humidity, that smoggy haze that clings to everyone and everything. Everyone had that sweaty look. I don’t mean “glistening,” either—I mean plain old uncomfortable sweat. The kind that makes you as irritable as a rattlesnake. This kind of
heat and humidity also tends to fog the brain. I made the mistake of asking Officer Ben Odom how he felt.
After giving me a gruff rundown of current events, he sputtered out some derogatory comments about the heat, humidity, and the mosquitoes.
Okay, then, glad I asked.
I was standing at the street boundary of the parking lot of a local convenience store. The yellow crime-scene tape had been strung up accordingly. Even at this ungodly hour, the inevitable crowd had gathered. I took my usual survey of the area and noted that there were about a half dozen uniformed officers spaced at intervals about the perimeter. “It couldn’t get more secure than this,” I said.
I motioned to Ben to ask if it was okay for me to go in. He gave me the nod and I entered the crime scene proper. There was no hurry, as neither crime-scene investigators nor detectives had arrived yet. But I lifted up the tape and walked in. I always had a certain feeling of control, if not security, inside the yellow tape. It’s all psychological, of course, and that sense of security is often a false one.
The body of Calvin Brooks, a middle-aged black male, lay in the middle of the lot. Evidently he had been involved in some type of altercation. His weapon was reportedly an iron crowbar. His opponent, armed with a gun, had shot Calvin and fled the scene. This would become a police legend, and I could hear it already—the one about the guy who brought a crowbar to a gunfight.
Calvin was lying face up and flat on his back. He had a light tan jumper on over a black T-shirt. A coat in this heat could mean only one thing: he was up to something. Maybe he was concealing a weapon or some type of contraband.
A seasoned officer would have questioned this right away. A coat? In this weather?
He had sustained a single gunshot wound to the head. A pool of blood had oozed from the wound and added to the stains on the pavement. I crouched down beside the body to do an evaluation of the injury. I was examining it to determine the distance that Calvin had been from the shooter. Holding my magnifying glass and SureFire flashlight, I was looking for any sign of stippling. In close-range gunshot wounds, the powder can actually burn little speck marks into the skin. I was also looking for any unburnt powder grains. Different brands of ammunition often have different types of gunpowder. The grains can be round, flaked, or cylindrical. Needless to say, this type of search requires concentration.
A question came from my left: “They shot him, huh?”
It is not unusual for someone to be peering over my shoulder. It’s usually a homicide detective. I was just doing a preliminary assessment of his injuries. I would not even touch Calvin’s body until all photographs were taken and the homicide detectives had seen the scene in its undisturbed state.
I responded, “Yes, someone did, but not at close range.” I then pointed to the crowbar that was halfway hidden up Calvin’s right coat sleeve. “I don’t think he had the chance to get any licks in. So I doubt your shooter will have any injuries. I don’t see any overt signs of damage to the hands, so I don’t think there was a fistfight or physical struggle with the assailant. He couldn’t have swung a fist with that crowbar up his sleeve. We’ll bag the hands anyway when we get ready to do a more complete examination. . . . Maybe they were waiting for him—I don’t know. What do we have so far?”
When I turned to my companion, I did not recognize him. I thought I had been talking to either a detective or one of the crime-scene officers—wrong. This guy was a black male dressed in typical civilian workclothes. He seemed amiable enough, but I was immediately on guard.
In other words, he scared the crap out of me. My adrenal glands prepared me for the fight-or-flight response. I’m in a parking lot with a murder victim and this unknown. Is he the killer, a relative, a friend, an onlooker? I’m caught off guard. The police officers are inside the tape but they are miles away if this guy decides to do me and produces a gun or a knife.
So there we were, the two of us, stooped over Calvin’s dead body.
I politely asked him, “Who are you, sir?” and followed up with, “I don’t think we’ve met.”
He responded in a calm but determined voice, indicating to me that he was a relative of the deceased. He also indicated to me that “they” knew who killed him. He seemed calm, but I have seen people go from calm to uncontrollable rage in a millisecond. Such violence can be precipitated by saying the wrong thing or making the wrong gesture. Once triggered, that person tends to strike out at the closest target. That would be me. Now, I don’t know this guy, and maybe he is who he says he is and maybe he’s not. He certainly has exhibited poor judgment by walking past the tape.
I knew this was a dangerous situation. I didn’t know if he was armed or not. I’ve got the .32 Kel-Tec semiautomatic pistol in my right pocket, but I’d have to straighten out my leg to get it. That might be a giveaway as to my intentions.
In Louisiana, a coroner is also a conservator of the peace, which means I am technically a “police officer.” At least that’s what some coroners say. The corollary is that I would rather be judged by twelve than carried by six. As such, most of us are armed, and we need to be. I train with firearms, and I try to stay prepared. The law also specifically allows the coroner to carry a weapon. But it’s the unexpected that gets you. It is impossible to guard against everything. I just try to use common sense and keep a cool head.
No one seemed to be paying attention to what was going on over here. I did not want to alarm this guy or escalate this into a full-blown confrontation. I needed to get him and the scene secured. I’ve had years of experience with talking down violent psychiatric patients—not that this guy was a psych patient. He was an unknown to me. I know that for every action there is a reaction. By staying calm, I wanted to establish a nonthreatening atmosphere. I stood up, slowly. At least now, I was standing and had a better chance if things went bad all of a sudden.
I introduced myself, and asked, “Would you mind coming with me to talk to the officer in charge?”
Much to my relief, he agreed, though he had no intention of telling the police anything. “They gonna have to find out for themselves.” Translation: Calvin’s relatives would take care of this if they found the killer first. And they had the advantage of knowing who it was.
We eased over to Officer Ben Odom, my old buddy, and I introduced the guy and explained the situation. Ben was calm and polite, yet firm. He asked the guy if he had any weapons on him and gave him “the look.” The guy said he was unarmed and that Ben could check him if he wanted to do so. He escorted the guy out of the crime scene and had one of the rooks check him for weapons. He then stationed him with one of the other uniform officers for “safekeeping.”
Once everything was relatively secure, Ben sort of went ballistic. He had what is euphemistically referred to as an “attitude adjustment” with the cops who were supposed to be guarding the crime scene. He was angry that the guy had gotten past security. Calvin’s brother just walked right through. Ben Odom was embarrassed by the breach of the crime scene and furious that I had been placed in danger. He’s a testy person anyway, and the heat wasn’t helping his mood. His explanation and apology to me was terse and to the point: “Sorry ’bout that, Doc!”
Though it came later on in my career, it was the first—and only—tutorial I needed in the importance of securing a crime scene. The rest of the process was fairly routine after that. Detectives finally arrived, then the crime-scene unit, and we worked the area and put Calvin in a sealed and tagged body bag. At about four A.M., he was off to the morgue for autopsy at daybreak and I was heading home to take my boy to school. I try to do that at least one morning out of the week.
It would be impossible for him to understand the world I just stepped out of. We’ll chat about school and stop to get doughnuts at our favorite Korean doughnut shop. And I’ll just be a dad to my son and try to leave the street behind while I’m with him.
TV VS. REALITY
Frequently debates erupt among detectives and forensic investigators about how much cri
minals learn from TV shows such as CSI, Law and Order, or Crossing Jordan. I’ve heard detectives curse those shows for “making our jobs harder” by teaching the criminal how to get away with a crime. I don’t think little snippets on CSI really make much of an impact on criminals’ behavior. For one thing, criminals don’t understand the foundation of the science of forensics and therefore tend to make stupid mistakes.
My experience has been that criminals generally learn just enough to botch the cover-up attempt. Do these FX forensics shows give people ideas and encourage crime? I doubt that. Attempts to manipulate forensic evidence are not new, and from what I have experienced they are not very sophisticated. In any case there are definitely thorns on that bush—such attempts often support the concept of premeditation at trial.
My wife DeAnn, son Michael, and I were having dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Las Palmas, a Mexican place with fabulous enchiladas. We were into our first basket of chips and salsa when I got the call. I hate that look of disappointment on their faces when it comes. From a practical standpoint, we’ve learned to go to dinner in two cars just in case I get called away.
I ended my phone call and made the announcement: “Somebody burned up in a hotel room. I gotta go.”
They both seemed somewhat resigned to it. De admonished me to be careful and Michael said he would get my order to go. We exchanged “I love you’s,” and I was off.
All I had at the time was: “Somebody burned up in a motel room.” But as the events of the evening unfolded, the plot sickened.
It was a warm October night in 2002 when I pulled into a motel on Airline Highway. The police, detectives, fire department, and arson investigators had beaten me there. I was waved through a parking lot of fire department and police vehicles. My circuitous route ultimately led me to the second floor and the detective. He didn’t look very happy.
Coroner's Journal: Forensics and the Art of Stalking Death Page 5
