All the while, the mortician, who with his comically dour expression and all-black outfit looked like he should be cast on “The Addams Family,” had been hovering over the body like an overly protective parent.
Streeter told the mortician to have the autopsy physician swab the areas he’d encircled in black ink. “They need to use swabs moistened with distilled water and only one swab should be used for a single area,” he added, knowing how country bumpkins could screw up scientific evidence.
The criminalist made a point to look at the victim’s wrists to check for any hair loss, indicative of tape having been wrapped around her wrists at some point as bindings, but found none.
With help, Streeter rolled the stiff body onto its side. Examining the buttocks, he noted what appeared to be fecal matter on and around the rectal area. There had not been fecal stains on any of the garments he’d seen, leading Streeter to conclude that Jane Doe had been killed at some point after her clothes were off.
Streeter told the El Dorado detectives what other evidence he needed from the autopsy. “Her entire head of hair should be collected, if at all possible, so that I can examine it for any traces of duct tape. As for fingerprints, I’d like for her hands to be removed and delivered to our Latent Fingerprint Section.”
One of the detectives arched an eyebrow.
“Some of the items recovered at the scene may have palm prints on them,” Streeter said, by way of explaining his unusual request. “I want us to have a complete set of impressions for elimination purposes. And an X ray might help us in identifying her.”
Streeter had noticed something strange about the four fingers on her right hand: they were missing the last joint, and had no fingernails. He thought X rays could determine if the shortened fingers were the result of postmortem animal activity or a birth defect.
Streeter called Sacramento from the mortuary, this time reaching Biondi.
“I’m in South Lake Tahoe. I’ve just seen a Jane Doe found here yesterday that you may want to see before the autopsy. Nude female body dump off Highway 50, ligature strangulation.”
“Think it’s our guy?”
Streeter had saved the best for last.
“Ray, her clothes are cut.”
DETECTIVES Kay Maulsby and Joe Dean arrived at the South Lake Tahoe mortuary at 4:00 P.M. After looking at the body, they went to the sheriff’s substation to see the clothing. Then, they returned to the mortuary for the 6:00 P.M. autopsy.
They all wore masks, and for Maulsby, her most outstanding memory of her first autopsy would forever be the terrible stench that emanated from the decomposing corpse.
The pathologist began by making a cursory physical inspection of the body. He noted numerous scrapes and bruises on her arms and legs and a deep bruise on her right hip.
The ligature around her neck, a black material, turned out to be one of several pieces of a chiffon jacket recovered at the scene. At the back of the victim’s head, the ligature was entwined around a section of tree branch. Strands of the victim’s medium-length, slightly curly blond hair were caught in the ligature. The placement and tightness of the ligature, the pathologist remarked, was sufficient to cause death.
The victim had been gagged with a piece of her own pantyhose. A portion of nylon had been stuffed into her mouth, then tied so tightly behind her head that when it was removed it left a deep furrow in her skin.
With the ligature and gag off, facial photos were taken in the hope of having an artist reconstruct a likeness of the victim.
It would take someone with a good imagination, Maulsby thought. She worried about becoming nauseous and making an embarrassing spectacle of herself. She maintained her composure by staying intently focused on everything being said by the pathologist, who explained each of the invasive procedures he performed in a dispassionate play-by-play narrative.
Her partner, Joe Dean, left the room early; to go to the crime scene while it was still light out, he said. It was a good out, one Maulsby would have liked to have thought of first. Instead, she made it her mission to learn every possible detail she could about the murder of Jane Doe.
As for the rape-kit exam, pubic and scalp combings were taken and her fingernails were scraped, although no apparent debris was found underneath them. It was impossible to check for evidence of rape. The vagina and cervix were completely gone, testimony to the fact that insects first attack available body openings.
Examining the victim’s head, the pathologist found a subdural hematoma 3 inches in diameter.
“She received a hard blow to the head before death,” he commented. “It wasn’t fatal, but it may have caused unconsciousness.”
The pathologist attempted to cut off the scalp intact, as requested by Streeter, but the condition of the deteriorating skin prevented its complete removal. Sections of the scalp were removed, however. The victim’s jaws and teeth were also removed so that her dental work could be X-rayed for identification purposes. Inked prints were taken of each foot and her hands were amputated above the wrist bone.
An internal examination revealed that Jane Doe had a healthy heart and other major organs, and no natural, preexisting conditions that had led to her demise. Toxicology results would come back negative for drugs and alcohol.
The pathologist estimated the victim’s age at between sixteen and twenty-one. She was 5-foot-3 and about 115 pounds. She’d been dead two to four weeks. The cause of death was listed as “ligature compression of the neck.”
“You know, the ligature was constructed so that it could be tightened and loosened with the stick,” said the pathologist, removing his soiled rubber gloves and stepping to a nearby sink. “It could have been tightened down until she blacked out, then released to bring her back.”
Maulsby tasted bile.
“You mean he could have toyed with her?”
The pathologist looked over his shoulder at Maulsby as if that thought hadn’t occurred to him.
“You could say so.”
“How long do you think—”
“No way of knowing,” the pathologist said, working up quite a lather with the disinfectant soap that momentarily overpowered some of the unpleasant odors in the room.
It was too dark to stop at the crime scene after the autopsy, so Maulsby and Dean headed directly back to Sacramento. They were both starving, neither had eaten since breakfast, but they were not tempted to stop. The smell from the autopsy room had permeated their clothes.
Maulsby returned first thing Monday morning to South Lake Tahoe, where she met El Dorado’s lead investigator in the case: Detective Jim Watson.
In his late thirties, Watson was a six-footer with a compact build, sandy hair, and ruggedly handsome features out of an L. L. Bean catalog. Although he had a pleasant personality and was considered easy to get along with, Watson was the conscientious type who went through the day exuding an intense commitment to complete whatever tasks had to be done. His okay-we’ve-talked-about-it-now-let’s-do-it attitude tended to brush slower-moving objects aside, although he usually managed to do so without offending or making waves.
Watson took Maulsby to the crime scene.
Old Meyer’s Grade Road was a remnant of the old highway used decades earlier before a new section of U.S. 50, which it roughly paralleled, had been completed. Three miles long, the sloping two-lane paved road was gated at each end and locked. It was opened to vehicular traffic only when the state road department occasionally used it as a bypass during avalanche control on U.S. 50. Local residents in the sparsely populated surrounding hills used it daily for walking and jogging.
Jane Doe’s body had been found in a woody area off the road about 600 yards downhill from the top gate, where Watson parked.
“He either parked here or down at the other gate, which is more difficult to find,” Watson said. He explained that there weren’t any highway patrol units patrolling on this section of Highway 50 at that time of night.
As they walked down the road, Watson pointed
to white evidence cards with numbers on them stuck in the earth alongside the road. Articles of clothing had been strewn along the way; first her panties, then her black jacket, her dress, a black patent leather high heel.
“I think he took her down to the scene alive and made her walk,” Watson said. “It’s too far to carry a body. I checked the bottom of her feet. They weren’t scratched at all. She obviously had her shoes on.”
“Undressing her as they went?” Maulsby asked.
“Or he undressed her at the scene and then walked back to his car, throwing her clothes along the way.”
Watson led them off the road to a clearing about 35 feet into the tall pines. Amid scrub brush and large boulders, evidence cards dotted the landscape like so many craters on the moon.
“We found her over there,” Watson said, pointing to a small clearing next to a rotted-out log. A rudimentary outline of the body had been made in the matted-down grass.
An inhospitable place to die, Maulsby thought. In the dark, alone with a serial killer, forced to walk down a deserted road to what she had to have known would ultimately be her death. Doubtless, the end had not come quickly for her. The killer had brought her to this godforsaken piece of ground so that he could take his time.
“She was face up on her left side,” Watson said. “Her right arm was behind her back and her left arm was draped across her left thigh.
“Right here,” he said, pointing to a spot about 2 feet away from the outline of the victim’s head, “we found a short piece of white cord. Two more pieces of the same cord were found back up the road. One piece next to her dress and the other one near her panties.”
Found near the body, Watson went on, was a pack of Newport cigarettes, a white lighter, and two condom packets.
Maulsby wanted to know if the condoms were used. When she worked Sex Assaults, she’d heard of savvy rapists who used them to avoid leaving semen evidence.
“One package was open but not used,” Watson said.
It was her first murder scene since working Homicide, and Maulsby made notes and took in all the information she could. Still, she was happy to leave. As they returned to the car up at the gate, she wondered how in the world the killer had found such a desolate place.
Later that week, Maulsby went to see Jim Streeter, who had received and was evaluating all the physical evidence from the Jane Doe crime scene.
Streeter was in his lab taking tape lifts off a piece of the latest victim’s jacket—it had been found cut into four sections, including the one used as a ligature. The material was laid out on a lab table atop a single sheet of white butcher paper. Holding a piece of Scotch tape between his fingers, Streeter tapped it on the garment two or three times, then suspended the length of tape across a small plastic dish. He pressed the ends of the tape down on the sides, then placed a lid over the dish, which would later be placed under a microscope for examination of hairs and fibers. In this way, every square inch of each garment from the crime scene would be methodically covered by tape lifts.
When his hands were free, Streeter took Maulsby to the opposite side of the lab. There, he introduced her to his mute assistant, long retired from the retail business, now serving a higher calling. A bald mannequin used to help examine damaged garments was wearing Jane Doe’s pink, sleeveless dress, which Streeter had already processed for tape lifts.
“Here’s a classic example of what I’ve been calling nonfunctional cutting,” Streeter said enthusiastically. “Assume the attacker wanted to get to her breasts and pelvic areas immediately. What would be the best way?”
It was a quiz, Maulsby could see. She pointed to the zipper that ran diagonally across the front of the dress from the left shoulder down to the lower right hem.
“Uh-huh. But what does this guy do? He cuts up from the bottom seam a couple of inches on the left side, then stops. It accomplishes nothing. Then he cuts along the shoulder seam on the left side and down the back about six inches. He cuts likewise along the other shoulder. See what I mean? They serve no obvious purpose.”
“So he didn’t cut her dress off?”
“Not in my opinion. See, the cutting is just the way he plays. I think he cuts the dress while it’s on her, then unzips it when he’s good and ready. Several teeth are missing at the bottom, as if the zipper was forced.”
Streeter moved toward another lab table.
“This is her pantyhose.”
Maulsby counted five pieces of nylon, including a section that contained the reinforced crotch liner. Each was inside its own plastic evidence bag.
“This section here—it’s a foot and part of a leg—was used as the gag. They look cleanly cut to me, not ripped or torn. If I had to guess, I’d say she was wearing them when they were cut.”
Streeter asked Maulsby if she was familiar with the Sabrah case.
“I’ve read the file.”
“You remember her pantyhose was cut?”
“Yes.” Maulsby also recalled that Sabrah had been found with her wrists still bound by pieces of her nylons.
“Well, it’s the same artist at work here. Sabrah’s pantyhose was cut in the same exact fashion.”
“What about her panties?” Maulsby asked.
“They aren’t cut. But I can tell you they came off her while she was still alive.”
“How do you know that?”
Streeter told her.
The criminalist next showed Maulsby the three pieces of white cord found at the scene. They measured between 17 inches and 23 inches, he said, and appeared to be a common nylon cord available at any hardware store.
The detective picked up each piece of cordage, looking for stains or marks, but saw none.
Before she left, Maulsby asked Streeter if there had been any progress on identifying Jane Doe.
“So far, no match on dental with any of our missing persons,” he said. “I had her hand with the short fingers X-rayed yesterday. It’s a birth defect. Maybe that’ll help. El Dorado is planning to send out a flyer.”
Jane Doe had been Maulsby’s first face-to-face murder victim. The detective couldn’t shake the overpowering remorse she’d felt at the morgue, and again at the scene.
If the hills could only talk, she had reflected at Old Meyer’s Grade, what tales would they have told of the screams and struggles and crimes of a fortnight ago?
To Kay Maulsby, rookie homicide cop, Jane Doe was more than another female body dump.
That had been someone’s child lying there.
Somebody was surely worried sick about her.
Fourteen
Judy Frackenpohl feared the worst.
It was unlike her seventeen-year-old daughter, Darcie, not to call home every week or so—a curious contradiction considering Darcie had been a chronic runaway for the past two years.
Judy, forty, a short brunette with green eyes, was a single mom of two: Darcie, and her younger brother, Larry, two years her junior. Her two kids couldn’t have been more opposite: Larry, the good boy, quiet and appreciative, and Darcie, the wild seed, affectionate but rebellious.
Judy had a good job and rented a home in a middle-class suburb of Seattle. She’d been on her own financially and in most every other way since her divorce thirteen years ago. Her ex-husband had not been very good about paying child support but he’d been around for the kids on birthdays and holidays until his death, at age thirty-four, eight years earlier. He had been married for a third time but was living alone when diagnosed with terminal cancer. As he became sicker, he had no place to go. Judy had him move back in for the last months of his life, bringing in a hospital bed and caring for him. When he died, it had been difficult on both the children, then nine and seven years old. However, losing her father seemed to hit Darcie the hardest. Always a daddy’s girl, she remembered his promise to her after the divorce that he’d never leave her.
Darcie had not only her mother’s eyes and light complexion, but also her outgoing personality. Her nickname as a child was “Little Mis
s Big Enough” because she wasn’t afraid to do anything. In large crowds, Darcie would approach and talk to anyone. In the third grade, she was walking home from school one day when she had to go to the bathroom; she knocked on the door of the next house she came to and asked to use the toilet. A parent could worry about a willful child like that, and worry Judy did.
As Darcie turned fourteen, mother and daughter fought incessantly. Judy saw in her daughter an inability to come to terms with the major event of her young life: losing her father. On an emotional level, she seemed to resent that he’d broken his promise not to go away. Her mother was the first and best target of Darcie’s smoldering anger. Darcie went into counseling—individually as well as family—but nothing seemed to help. Darcie refused to accept her mother’s rules, cut school, and at fifteen began running away. Whenever she came back home, she seemed more impatient than ever with her mother’s values. The friends she brought home, misbehaving and troubled truants, were a parent’s worst nightmare. Darcie’s boyfriends were always black; Judy was convinced her daughter did this for shock value, as it hadn’t been occasional or gradual, but 100 percent all the time. Once, Darcie’s beau turned out to be an intelligent, college-prep student whom Judy liked. Perhaps it was an acceptance Darcie wasn’t seeking, as her very next boyfriend was the worst yet. Judy had the feeling that Darcie was dropping down the social ladder until she got to a level of society that she could be sure her mother would never approve of. Eventually, she stopped bringing anyone home. By the time she’d turned sixteen, Darcie was running away for weeks at a time, living in the streets, and becoming involved in prostitution.
A Seattle police officer called collect at 2:00 A.M. one night to tell Judy he’d just had a long talk with Darcie on the street and let her go. “I know she’s a listed runaway,” he said, “but I can’t force her to go home. We talked for more than an hour, and I have to tell you I don’t know why your daughter is out here. She’s not a heroin addict with caved-in veins. She just doesn’t belong on the streets.”
Trace Evidence: The Hunt for the I-5 Serial Killer Page 23