No Way to Die
Page 11
“Thank you,” she said. “I’m quite happy with the way my career turned out.”
“Sounds like you should be,” I said.
“I’ve been very fortunate. Now, as to the issue at hand . . .”she said.
“Well, let me start by saying you’re right about what we’ve been hired to do,” I said. “The police closed the case, based on the physical evidence. They’ve made a determination that the death is a suicide. We feel that there are enough extenuating circumstances to suggest that what appears to be a suicide might actually be a homicide. But if it was a murder, the physical evidence would have had to have been manipulated—staged even—to make it look like a suicide with no apparent tracks leading back to a murderer.”
“And again, assuming a murder,” Richard added, “the degree to which the physical evidence must have been manipulated is certainly not something I’ve ever seen.I’ve seen it tried—things like ‘she jumped from the window; I didn’t push her’ or ‘she must have mistaken her pills; I didn’t switch them’—those kind of things. But I’ve never seen someone try to disguise a murder as a suicide with a gun and leave no telltale physical evidence—nothing at all. Have you ever seen anything like this before?”
“Well, you’re never completely without tracks,” she said, “without something that would have given a killer away. There’s always something, if you know what to look for. But the problem is that on occasion, the tracks are very subtle or so well hidden that they’re missed. Let me explain.
“If you just shoot somebody in the head and then run over and put the murder weapon in the hand of the victim and expect the police to think it’s a suicide, you’re fooling yourself. That’s an easy murder to spot. The wound angle is wrong. The wound pathology is wrong. Blood spatter, contact burns, powder burns—it’s all wrong. Any halfway-decent crime scene investigation and autopsy will smoke this out. I can say definitively that this did not happen in your case.
“Instead, if you want to make a murder by gunshot look like a suicide, the very distinct forensic and pathological signature of the gunshot wound itself makes it such that, somehow, the victim needs to be the one who actually fires the fatal shot. And, as you can imagine, since that’s not likely to happen voluntarily, the murderer has to be in actual physical control of the victim long enough to be able to manipulate the events. Once the murderer is in control of the victim, the evidence is fairly easy to stage. They put the murder weapon in the hand of the victim and somehow get the victim to raise the gun to their head and pull the trigger. Then all the physical evidence matches up to a suicide. The only possible clue might be a small amount of powder-burn shadowing on the gun hand of the victim, depending on how the murderer actually manipulated the trigger of the weapon. But this shadowing might be very small or even nonexistent.”
“So if that’s happened, how do you figure it out?” I asked. “What are the tracks?”
“The tracks are found in the way in which the murderer put the victim under control,” she said. “Those are the tracks you look for. And that raises the question of how you can get somebody under control long enough to murder them while still leaving the smallest possible amount of forensic evidence. There are three major ways this is done—drugs, mechanical restraint, and electrically induced restraint. The goal in each case is to either incapacitate or at least restrain a victim long enough to manipulate the flow of events so that the resulting forensic evidence seems completely authentic. In other words, get them under control, and then keep them under control long enough to put a gun in their hand and lift it to their head and pull the trigger. And do it such that the end result looks just like a typical suicide. Each of the three methods could be used for this, but each has problems. Let’s look at them individually. We’ll start with drugs.
“If you wanted to kill someone using a gunshot, and you wanted to use drugs to immobilize this person, and then afterward have the act completely undetectable, you’d have to overcome three problems. First, you’d have to be able to administer the drug to an alert, healthy man in such a manner that there’d be no telltale sign. Since alert, healthy men aren’t in the habit of allowing this to happen to themselves, this is not easily done. You can probably remember several cases where nurses have murdered their patients using drugs—usually either something like pancuronium or succinylcholine. But in these cases, the patients are usually elderly, already hooked up to an IV, and very often asleep at the time of the injection. Because the IV's already in place, there’s no new injection site to be discovered by a forensic pathologist in the course of an autopsy.
“Next, you’d have to get a drug that acts fast enough to immobilize someone without them calling for help or making a fuss while the drug sets in. There are some drugs that can do this. Most injectables take a minute or two to take effect. Some inhalants, though, can act very quickly, presuming you are able to get the concentration high enough. The most common way to do this is with a mask. If you dose a person with an ether-family anesthetic like desflurane, they’ll go out like a light. But with the exception of a surgical patient, who’s going to hold still and allow the mask to be placed over his mouth and nose? The ensuing struggle would most likely leave some sort of marking on the victim. There was no mention of any trauma like this to Thomas Rasmussen.”
She paused and took a sip from a bottle of water Toni had given her. “I suppose,” she continued, “it’s theoretically possible that a killer could have somehow piped an immobilizing gas into the interior of the car. This could have raised the concentration of the drug inside to a high-enough level to induce unconsciousness, but it seems that the victim would have probably had time to sense this before he blacked out—most delivery agents have an odor.
“But in all cases, you’d have to use a drug that left no chemical or biological trace—what we call ‘markers’—in the body for a pathologist to discover during an autopsy. Some agents—succinylcholine comes to mind—metabolize very quickly and are thus very difficult to discern. But in this case, the metabolization period was cut short because of the gunshot wound. I’ve reviewed the toxicology report very carefully, and I agree with the findings of the pathologist who did the study—there appears to me to be no evidence of any unusual drug present in Thomas Rasmussen at the time of his death.
“In any case, what I find to be the most troubling aspect of a two-stage murder using drugs to incapacitate and then a gunshot to murder is simply, why bother with the gun? If you’re going to go to the trouble of drugging somebody you ultimately want to kill, it’s probably easier to use the drugs themselves to kill the victim and have it appear, at least initially, to be a death from natural causes. Several drugs can pull that off. Unless the ME knows specifically what to look for, the actual cause of death could go completely unnoticed. No gunshot required.
“Based on all of these facts,I think it’s safe to say that Thomas Rasmussen was not drugged and then shot.” She stopped and looked around, and then said,“Any questions?”
“Yeah,” I asked, eyeing her warily. “How many sneaky ways do you know to kill someone?”
She smiled. “Several.”
I looked at her. “Please remind me never to piss you off.”
She laughed. “It wouldn’t pay,” she said.“Okay. Moving on. The next way I’ve seen people murdered in what we used to call a ‘staged suicide’ was by means of mechanical restraint. I can almost immediately dismiss this for a few reasons. First, I’ve only ever seen it used twice, and never inside a car. The restraints need to be set up in advance if they’re to withstand the resistance of a man. It’s usually a two-step process. A quick-acting drug is administered to induce unconsciousness. Then, while immobilized, a person is put into restraint long enough for the drugs to metabolize and disappear from the system. Presumably, the person wakes up and finds themself restrained. Then, the person is shot—or rather, made to shoot themself. This is a pretty elaborate setup—in terms of both time and space. The time is ruled out by the fact that w
e know the victim drove to the scene in his own car during the short window of time between when the jogger passed through the lot and when he returned. There wouldn’t have been time to immobilize a person with drugs, wait for the drugs to metabolize, and then, with the person restrained, murder him. Besides, there’s absolutely no evidence that Thomas Rasmussen was restrained in any manner. Based on this, I’d also be willing to say that Thomas Rasmussen was not restrained before being shot.”
She looked at us. “I know I covered that one quickly, but in my experience, it’s rare, and, particularly in your case here, it just doesn’t fit.”
“That leaves us with the electroshock restraint,” I said.
“That’s right. It’s possible to immobilize a person using a high-voltage, low-current shock. This is commonly done with stunguns and with Tasers. But there are a couple of problems with this method, too. First, the effect of the electric shock varies depending on the person and on the duration of the charge. You couldn’t count on the fact that a person who’s been shocked and temporarily immobilized would remain incapacitated long enough for you to manipulate the gun into position. Remember, the gun needs to be placed in the victim’s hand, the hand with the gun then needs to be moved to the head, the gun needs to be pointed, and the trigger needs to be pulled. All of this is necessary to create the evidence typically seen at a suicide: contact wounds, burn marks, powder burns, that sort of thing. There’s a good chance the immobilized electroshock victim would become able to defend himself at some point while the perpetrator was arranging the murder.”
“Can he just be shocked again?” I asked.
“He could, but then you get into the area of markers. Typically, stunguns and Tasers leave a distinctive oval-shaped, burnlike mark that’s pretty easily discernible. The prominence of the mark becomes more pronounced the longer the application.”
I thought about this for a moment. Kenny and Doc came into the office. I introduced them, and they took their seats.
Carolyn continued. “There is a way, though, that a person could be immobilized for a lengthier period with no burn marks.”
“How’s that?” I asked.
“If a person was shocked with a stunwand. A wand is a baton-type device that has the entire surface energized—not just a tip or a point. This creates a much larger contact patch and a more diffuse marking, if any at all.”
“But after the victim is shocked, how long would he be immobilized?” I asked.
“Anywhere from a few seconds to maybe thirty seconds,” she answered.
“Then what?” Toni asked.
“What if during that initial shock period, a second perpetrator attached sticky electrodes to the victim, like you see in an EKG. If those electrodes were attached to a different shock machine, then the perpetrator could re-shock the victim every time he started to recover.”
“Wouldn’t they leave a burn mark?” Doc asked.
“Not if the pads were covered with a standard EKG electrode gel. The typical Taser burn occurs because of tiny gaps between the electrode and the skin. The EKG gel is designed to eliminate the gap. No gap—no burn.”
“So you’re saying that, theoretically, bad guy number one zaps Thomas with a wand and immobilizes him,” I said.
“Correct,” she answered. “Thomas wouldn’t even have had to get out of his car.”
“And before he can recover, bad guy number two simply reaches in and slaps two little electrodes on Thomas, and then they’ve got him?”
“Exactly. They could hold him incapacitated for a long period of time. Much longer than they would need to manipulate the evidence.”
“But how could they touch him to put the gun in his hand if they were shocking him at the same time?” Richard asked.
“The electric shock won’t travel from one person to another,” she answered. “Police officers routinely place handcuffs on a suspect while their partner is actively shocking the suspect to keep him immobile.”
“And while bad guy number two keeps him immobile,” I picked back up, “bad guy number one puts the gun in his hand, lifts his arm to his head, and pulls the trigger.”
“That’s correct. They might need to work on his arm a little, depending on whether or not his muscles were contracting at the time, but by manipulating the current, it would be possible.”
“And after the shooting, they strip the electrodes off, wipe off the gel, and they’re done?” Toni asked.
“Exactly,” she said. “No one the wiser.”
The room was quiet for a second before Richard asked, “And there’s no other sign left behind? The shocking won’t leave any evidence?”
“Very-low-current shocks like this could leave two types of evidence,” Carolyn said. “First, the burns that we talked about. But as I said, I think it’s possible to administer the shocks without risk of burns if you simply use an EKG gel. The second potential marker—and I say potential because it’s not conclusive in all people—is that the LDH enzyme is often elevated after muscular contraction. But I would also note that any sort of muscular contraction could raise the LDH level—even running.”
“Did Thomas have an elevated LDH level?” I asked.
“Above normal,” she said. “Not wildly so—nothing inconsistent with someone who’d just finished a run—but still, above what we’d expect to see.”
“Thomas didn’t just finish his run,” Toni said. “He hadn’t even started.”
“Exactly,” Carolyn said.
Everyone sat there, thinking for a moment. Then Richard said, “So you’ve walked us through a method that could enable a couple of guys to incapacitate and then murder someone in what you call a ‘staged suicide,’ all the while leaving virtually no tracks.”
Carolyn nodded. “Yes.”
“But it is possible that the elevation in the LDH enzyme could have been caused by electric shock?” I added.
“Correct,” she said. “It’s not much, but it’s there.”
“So am I to assume that you wouldn’t rule out electroshock restraint as a method?” I asked.
She thought for a few moments and said,“Knowing what I know now about the victim’s background, I’d say no, I wouldn’t make a ruling one way or another. I’d have probably left the case open pending the answers to background questions. Any way you look at it, it’s a tough case.”
* * * *
Richard and I walked Carolyn to the door after the meeting broke up. After we thanked her, I walked back to my office, across the hall from the conference room. Doc was still in the conference room, peeking outside through the window.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m watching those two guys in that car outside.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re watching us.”
“Who’s watching us?” Toni asked, walking into the room.
“Those two pipuchos in the white Chevy,” he said, nodding toward a car in the parking lot below us.
I peeked around the edge of the window so I could see the car. “Why do you think they’re watching us?” I asked.
“They’ve been there for thirty minutes,” he said. “I saw them drive up when the lady doctor was in here. They’ve got binoculars and a camera. They’ve been scoping us out clear as day, taking pictures of the building, the cars, everything—ever since they got here.”
We watched them for a minute.
“It might not have anything to do with us, Doc,” Toni said.
“Might not,” he agreed. “Except when you guys walked out front a minute ago with the lady doc, those guys went nuts taking pictures and making phone calls.”
“Is that right?” I asked, looking at the car. I could barely make out the two men inside, but I trusted Doc’s vision more than my own. The question, though, was why would someone suddenly feel the need to start spying on us? I don’t particularly like it when people start sneaking around and spying on me.
“Kenny!” I called out. “Come here!”
“There’s a couple of guys in the parking lot scoping us out,” Toni said.
“Really,” he said, moving toward the window. “Where?”
“Stay back,” I said, holding my arms out, although I wasn’t quite sure why I felt the need to stay out of sight in my own office. “Can you run their plates?”
“Sure,” he said. He grabbed a notepad from the conference table and said, “Give me the number.”
I strained to see it, “I think it’s 8-3-2—I can’t quite make out the rest.”
“It’s 8-3-2-victor-gulf-lima,” Doc said, rattling the number off as if he were holding the plate in his hand.
I looked at him. “Really?” I said.
He just smiled back.
“I’m on it,” Kenny said. “Give me a minute.”
I watched the guys in the car while staying hidden from their view. Two minutes later, Kenny returned. “It’s registered to none other than Madoc Secured Technologies LLC in Bellevue,” he said.
“No shit,” I said. “That’s interesting. Other than the people in this room, there are only a handful of folks who know we have any interest in this thing—my dad, Katherine Rasmussen, John Ogden, and Holly Kenworth.”
“Plus the police,” Toni added.
“Plus the police,” I agreed. “Only a few people, anyway. Yet somebody already told these guys that we’re involved.”
“And they felt the need to come and check us out. It had to have been Holly,” Toni said.
“I’m inclined to agree.” I watched the car for a few more minutes. I don’t like to hide from bad guys. It makes me feel like I’m playing defense. I like offense better. The more I watched these guys and thought about it, the more agitated I became, until I reached a point where I decided enough was enough.
“Well, to hell with this shit,” I said, stepping directly in front of the window and staring pointedly at the car. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to sneak around in my own fuckin’ office.” I paused for a second, and then added, “As a matter of fact, I’m going to go down there and ask them what the hell they want.”