by DL Benning
—Chapter 9—
Detective Roman
Tom Roman was born and raised in Grantwood, Illinois. He spent most of his childhood there and in the nearby neighborhood of Homers. As an adult, he lived in Ford Heights. Detective Roman was a cop’s son and a fireman’s grandson. That’s how it was done in those days—careers and callings spanned generations. Tom knew from a very young age that he wanted to be a cop. When he was a kid, he would stay up late to hear his father tell stories with the colleagues he called friends. The officers would come by after dinner on Friday nights. They would have a few beers, play cards, and tell stories of their favorite cases. Most Fridays, Tom’s dad would let Tom sit with them until it was time to go to bed. Tom savored these Friday nights.
When it was finally time for Tom to go to bed, he would kiss his father on the cheek and slowly make his way to the staircase. He always stopped halfway up the stairs and sat down to keep listening. He could not get enough of their stories, even though he had heard most of them many times before. About an hour later, his mother would be ready for bed, too. She would stop and kiss his dad on the top of his head, which always made his dad smile. She always closed her eyes at the same time and would whisper to his dad that she loved him. That usually made the other guys start teasing his dad. Tom’s mother would just laugh and head for the stairs. She would shoo Tom up the stairs, chiding “Tommy, it’s time for bed.”
Detective Tom Roman served his community for more than forty-seven years. He loved his job. He came up through the ranks, starting as a beat cop and eventually working his way up to Head of Detectives. He had a full career and earned countless service awards. He also volunteered at his church. He loved helping women, children, and the elders.
Tom and his wife had five children. One of their sons grew up to be a police officer, too. Another son died in the Vietnam War, and it broke their hearts. Tom never forgot the night he received the fateful message. Two uniformed Marines came to his door and delivered the news. His family was never the same.
Detective Roman remembered these unsolved murder cases very well. Failing to solve them was the only regret of his career. He knew in his gut that Fred had murdered those women. He knew it. He felt it in every cell of his body. He could tell by the darkness and the evil in Fred’s eyes. Roman tried for years to break Fred, but Fred was unbreakable. Roman wanted nothing more than to handcuff and fingerprint that little runt himself.
The unsolved murder cases were all the same—the same type of victim, the same cause of death, and all had contact with Fred. Detective Roman would never forget the day they found the first young woman in the forest preserve. He had just gotten to the office that morning. He had barely finished pouring his first cup of coffee when he received a call on the radio that a body had been found. A couple of young boys had been playing in the woods and stumbled upon the dead body. He was sure that grisly discovery would traumatize them for the rest of their lives. Detective Roman put his cup down and headed over to the forest preserve right away.
He pulled up to the scene slowly so he could take a visual account of who was there. He saw the three young boys who must have discovered the body, with adults who looked like the boys’ parents. Several local police officers were marking off the crime scene. An ambulance was parked nearby with its lights on but no siren. The boys were shivering under their parents’ coats and police blankets; they were being comforted by their mothers. Everyone was trying to make sense of what was happening—had happened. It was a sober environment, one he always hated to see.
As he walked toward the police officers, he politely nodded to the families. A fellow officer came to brief him on what they knew so far. Detective Roman walked over to the families and did his best to reassure them. The boys did the right thing by telling their parents, he told them, and the parents did the right thing by calling the police straightaway.
He knelt by the woman’s body and lifted the blanket. He could tell by the condition of the corpse that it had been there for several weeks. He scoured his recent memory, attempting to recall police reports of missing women in the area. Nothing came to mind. He took the boys’ statements, then told the parents to take them home and hug them extra tight.
He waited with the police team while they finished marking the crime scene and gathering potential evidence. While he waited, he started looking around the area himself. Even though he was confident his team would find every possible clue, he still liked looking around on his own. He went back to the body and looked at the young woman’s decaying face. Who did this to you? He asked her silently, hoping she would answer somehow.
A few hours later, he was back at the police station looking through the open files of missing women. When he opened M’s file and saw her picture, he instantly knew he had identified his victim. Her family had reported her missing almost a month earlier. He wrote down the parents’ address, grabbed his coat and hat, and left to go tell the girl’s parents the unthinkable. Their precious daughter had been found raped and murdered. No matter how many times in his career he’d had to deliver this type of heart-wrenching news, it never got any easier.
He drove up to the Swansons’ home, took a deep breath as he got out of the car, and walked up their cobblestone sidewalk. He knocked softly on the door. There were a few lights on in the house. The door opened slowly. M’s father looked at the detective and then down at his own feet, already knowing what he was about to hear. Detective Roman saw him bracing for the news that he had hoped would never come. The man’s wife made her way to join him at the door. She stopped when she saw the detective and screamed “No! No!” Before Roman could utter a single word, they knew something horrible had happened to their precious daughter.
Still, they invited him inside. The three sat down at the kitchen table, and Detective Roman shared with them what he knew so far. M’s parents confirmed the picture was their missing daughter. He asked if they could accompany him to the morgue to identify her body. They nodded, got their coats, and drove with him to the hospital. The trio walked silently through the hospital and down the elevator to the basement morgue. Detective Roman’s heart ached for them. No parent, he thought, should ever have to endure this type of loss.
Mrs. Swanson waited nervously in the hallway while Detective Roman brought Mr. Swanson into the morgue. The mortuary clerk pulled back the blanket, and M’s father nodded silently. It was her. He looked away quickly—he was terribly shaken—and dropped to his knees, sobbing. Detective Roman put a hand on his shoulder and waited patiently for him to stand up.
The detective escorted the grieving couple back to the police station. Once there, he asked if they could answer some questions about their daughter. They both agreed. He had some fresh coffee made for them, and they sat down to talk about M and her life. M’s parents told Detective Roman that she had moved back home a few months ago. She had a good job. But one day she went to work and never came home. They described in detail the night she went missing. The last person to see her alive may have been a waitress at the local coffee shop. He recorded all this information and drove them home.
Roman walked the couple up to their front door in silence. As he shook the father’s hand, he promised that he would find the person who murdered their precious daughter. M's father looked him in the eye and thanked him for caring. Detective Roman watched as they walked into their house and wondered how they would ever recover from this enormous loss. He knew firsthand the pain of losing a child.
That night, he went home and read through his notes. First thing the next morning, he stopped at the local coffee shop. He wanted to find the waitress M’s parents said may have been the last person to see her alive. The manager was eager to help and found the schedules from the prior month. He recognized M’s picture. She was a lovely girl, he said, and a regular patron of the coffee shop, so she must have worked nearby.
Holly was the waitress who had served M the night she disappeared. Detective Roman waited at the coffee shop until Hol
ly showed up for her morning shift. He watched the manager tell her what was going on. She cast a worried glance toward the detective. He could tell she was very nervous, so he tried to make her feel at ease. He assured her that she had done nothing wrong, and that he would protect her at all costs.
Holly did her best to remember M and the details from the night of her disappearance. M had come to the coffee shop often. She always sat by herself in a booth. Always ordered coffee with milk, not cream. Holly remembered that the night M went missing, it had been storming. She also remembered a man, maybe in his early twenties with a slim build, talking to M and then joining her in the booth. Holly didn’t think much about it until she heard the next day that the girl had gone missing. She heard a news story about a missing woman. Later, when she saw M’s picture, Holly remembered her. She said the police had already interviewed her a month ago when M first disappeared.
Detective Roman went back to the station. He took M’s picture into his hands and stared into her face. She was a pretty, young woman, but her eyes seemed sad. He read through all the details in her file. There were notes from interviews with her girlfriends and her coworkers. It seemed she had no enemies and was well liked by all who met her. Over and over in the notes, he saw references to a slim man in his early twenties. Several people who were interviewed mentioned him.
He decided to pay a visit to M’s former roommates. They were nervous and very emotional as they talked about their friend. He asked more questions about the slim man. The young women provided a detailed description. They said his first name was Fred, but they were not sure of his last name. M and Fred were not romantically involved, the girls assured the detective, but the two did talk at the dance hall sometimes.
From there, the detective went to the dance hall. The manager studied M’s picture for a few moments. He remembered that she would come in often with her girlfriends. He was not sure he remembered the slim man that was mentioned, but he said there was always a group of girls that seemed to enjoy themselves with M.
As Detective Roman was leaving, a busboy stopped him. The busboy had overhead Roman asking about the slim man. The man’s name was Fred Federoski, and he was a regular. The busboy described Fred as a bit of a loner who was always watching the girls. The detective asked if he was certain about the young man’s name. The busboy nodded and said he was very sure.
Detective Roman rushed back to the police station and conducted a search on Fred Federoski. Bingo! He lived in Ford Heights and was in his early twenties. He grabbed his coat and hat and headed to the address he’d found on file. He pulled into Fred’s driveway and carefully approached the front door. Roman knocked several times before an older woman finally answered. Roman introduced himself and asked if Fred was home. The woman was very curt. Fred was not home, she said sharply, and then demanded to know why the detective was looking for him. Roman told her he was working on a case. He hoped Fred could help him by answering some questions. Roman left his contact information with the woman and returned to the station.
It wasn’t until Detective Roman’s third visit that he was able to catch Fred at home. Fred was confrontational and demanded to know why the detective was looking for him. Detective Roman explained that a woman’s body had been found in the forest preserve. The detective proceeded with caution. She might have been someone Fred knew, Detective Roman said, and Fred might have information that could lead to her killer. Fred was very calm and asked for the victim’s name. The detective said it twice, and both times Fred showed no expression or emotion. He insisted he did not know her.
Detective Roman’s police instinct kicked in. He knew instantly that Fred was lying. It was a gut feeling—one every seasoned detective gets when they intuitively know something’s not right. The detective asked that Fred accompany him back to the precinct. Roman was surprised to see both Fred and his mother get into the car.
Back at the police station, Detective Roman showed Fred the picture of the dead body. Still no reaction. But while Fred was looking at the picture, the detective caught a glimpse of the older woman out of the corner of his eye. Fred’s mother had snuck a quick second look at the crime scene photo. He could tell she recognized something. She tried to hide the look on her face. He wondered if she recognized the girl… or maybe the blanket. Neither Fred nor his mother admitted any connection to the case.
Detective Roman thanked them both for coming in so quickly. He asked them to please call him right away if they thought of something or heard anything that might be helpful. They agreed and left. He picked up the picture and studied the blanket; it was white chenille with flowers on it. He wondered if the blanket had belonged to Fred’s mother. He kept replaying the conversations with them over and over in his head. The mother’s look haunted him for years. He knew there was more they were not telling him.
Several years went by, and three more women had been murdered and raped, their bodies discarded in the same forest preserve. There were other similarities among the victims: all young, single, working women that lived in the same area. Some had even lived in the same boarding house. All the women often went to the same dance hall, and were all seen talking to the same slim, twenty-something man named Fred.
Fred was a sneaky little runt, and the detective never stopped watching him. Sometimes Detective Roman would follow Fred in his squad car for miles, trying to make him nervous. On one such occasion, Fred pulled into the gas station, and the detective pulled up right next to him.
The detective rolled his window down and said, “Fred, how are you doing?”
Fred ignored him.
The detective said, “I said, ‘How are you doing?’ son.”
Fred nodded and muttered, “Fine, Officer. Just fine.”
Detective Roman looked him straight in the eye and said, “Fred, you and I both know you killed those innocent young women. One day soon, I am going to prove it. I promise you that.”
Every time a woman went missing, Detective Roman went straight to Fred’s mother’s house. The routine was always the same. Fred would not be home when the detective came calling. He would show up at the station later with his mother in tow. Fred’s mother was a steel-hard woman. No emotion. They were a weird couple of nuts, Roman thought, and seemed like a perfect match for each other. He was not sure when the older woman’s husband had died. Fred had clearly been taking care of her for some time. He was oddly close to her. Too close, in the detective’s opinion. Detective Roman suspected the mother knew something was going on but was protecting her son.
One day, he asked Fred’s mother, “Do you think Fred killed those young women, ma’am?”
“My son is not a murderer,” she replied. “Get that straight. He is a loving, hardworking, kind son. You need to leave my son alone. Stop coming here. You are not welcome.”
The detective smirked and shook his head. He left without saying another word.
Detective Roman retired in the early 1970s, when he was sixty-seven years old. After retirement, he and his wife moved to Florida. Some days, he would still think about Fred, replaying the facts and images in his mind. It plagued him that he had never solved the cases. He had made promises to the four families that he never kept. He would be forever haunted by the looks in the families’ eyes when he delivered the horrific news that their daughters had been brutally murdered and left to rot in the woods. Those innocent, young women never got justice. Their deaths reduced to dusty, old case files that everyone had forgotten about. He felt helpless that he, a career law man, could not solve these crimes.
After Detective Roman retired to Florida, he exchanged letters with his family frequently. In their letters, they shared news from the community. Every time Roman heard about a missing woman back home, he wondered if Fred was responsible.
—Chapter 10—
The Search for Evidence
I had been meeting with the women from Fred’s past for several months. I was feeling pulled to his mother’s house. I wanted to find the evidence and n
ews clippings from the murders. The women told me that Fred had kept a memento from each of them, and that he had hidden them at his mother’s house. They told me I would find these trinkets in a cigar box in the northwest corner of the basement.
Even after knowing Fred for more than forty-five years, I had never stepped foot inside his mother’s house. In fact, I had never met the woman. My Aunt Mary had always hated Uncle Fred’s mother. Fred spent a lot of time at his mother’s house during their marriage. My aunt resented her mother-in-law, her mother-in-law’s house, and the tight grip she held on Fred. I don’t think I ever had a conversation with Aunt Mary that she didn’t complain about her mother-in-law and the amount of time Fred spent with her, even after his mother had been gone for almost twenty years.
Fred was strangely connected to his mother’s house. Every time I took him to his doctor appointments, he would insist I take him to his mother’s house to check things out. The house was close to the nursing home, so there was no way to avoid taking him. He always wanted me to come inside with him. Each time, I would refuse and tell him that I had forgotten the keys. On each visit there, he followed the same routine. He would walk up to the side door and give it a jiggle, then walk around to the front door to do the same. He would walk all around the property, look inside the garage, and then get back in the car. Seemingly satisfied, he would nod at me, and I would drive him back to the nursing home. I thought it was strange that he always wanted to go to his mother’s house, but he rarely asked to go to his own home, the one he had shared with Aunt Mary.
Despite the spiritual pull I felt to search the house, I was not looking forward to the assignment. The stakes seemed too high. What if I did find the evidence in there? What would my next move be? Could I really go to the police with my story? What if I was being ridiculous? My self-doubt was at an all-time high. The thought of entering that house was creepy. I felt like I would be trespassing. No one had lived there for almost twenty years, and I was not sure what I might find inside. I recalled horror stories I had heard about squatters taking over vacant houses. I worried about infestations of rats, raccoons, or possums. What if the inside of the house is full of spider webs? I shuddered at the thought.