A fiber is the smallest unit of a textile material that has a length many times greater than its diameter. Fibers can occur naturally as plant and animal fibers, but they can also be manufactured.
When two people come in contact or when contact occurs with an item from the crime scene, there’s a possibility that fiber transfer will take place. The transfer is not automatic and will not always take place. Some fibers don’t shed or don’t shed much. A big factor in the transfer of trace evidence is the length of time between the actual physical contact and the collection of clothing items from the suspect or victim. If the victim remains immobile, very little fiber loss will occur, whereas the suspect’s clothing will often lose transferred fibers quickly. The longer the passage of time between the crime and the processing of the suspect, the greater the likelihood of finding transferred fibers on the clothing of the suspect decreases.
Fibers are gathered at a crime scene with tweezers, tape, or a vacuum. Typically, they come from clothing, drapery, wigs, carpeting, furniture, and blankets. They are first determined to be natural, manufactured, or a mix of both. Natural fibers come from plants and animals. Synthetic fibers such as rayon, acetate, and polyester are made from long chains of molecules called polymers. Determining the shape and color of fibers from any of these fabrics is done by examining them beneath a microscopic.
In the Atlanta Child Murders case the only clue being found with any consistency, a clue that would only be valuable if a suspect was uncovered, was the presence of trace evidence on several of the bodies and their clothing.
The fibers were sent to the Georgia State Crime Lab for analysis, where Larry Peterson was able to isolate two distinct types—a violet-colored acetate fiber and a coarse yellow-green nylon fiber with a distinctive trilobed quality found in few carpets.
When the discovery of the fibers began to be reported in the newspaper, the killer began stripping the bodies and throwing them into the river, most likely in an attempt to wash away the trace evidence.
Once he became a suspect, Wayne Williams’s home and car were searched and provided numerous fibers and human and canine hairs similar to those authorities had been collecting from the victims’ bodies—beginning with a tuft of carpet fibers in the tennis shoe of Eric Middlebrooks. The floors of the home where Williams lived with his parents were covered with yellow-green carpeting, and he had a dog. When comparisons from the samples removed from the victims were compared to those of the Williamses’ home, they showed good consistency.
FBI experts analyzed samples from the Williamses’ rugs with special equipment and the help of DuPont, and were able to ascertain that the fibers came from a Boston-based textile company. The fiber, which is known as Wellman 181B, had been sold to numerous carpet companies, each of which used its own dye. This led to the discovery that the most likely source was the West Point Pepperell Corporation in Georgia. The company’s Luxaire English Olive color matched that found in the Williamses’ home.
The company had only made that type of carpet for about one year, distributing about sixteen thousand yards of it throughout the South—a very small amount adding up to about only eighty homes in Georgia or 1 in 7792 homes in Atlanta.
With the help of Chevrolet, investigators determined that there was a 1 in 3,828 chance that a victim acquired the fiber from a random contact with a car that had this carpeting installed.
Then both the odds from the home and the car were calculated—a figure that came to nearly 1 in 30,000,000.
Of course, Williams’s defense team attempted to discredit the fiber evidence with the argument that a particular fiber might be in the home or vehicle of any number of people.
But when I considered the probability of a person having a particular carpet with a very unique type of fiber, the same person a particular bedspread with a particular set of light green cotton fibers blended with violet acetate fibers, and that same person also driving a 1970 Chevrolet station wagon and owning a dog who shed the type of hairs found on the victims, the evidence was overwhelming.
When I read that Larry Peterson’s fiber analysis work in the case had been reviewed favorably by the world-famous microanalyst Walter McCrone—someone I was familiar with because of his work on the Shroud of Turin—I was even more convinced.
Another expert called in to consult on the fiber evidence had a connection to me, Florida, my dad, and even Susan’s dad. Lynn Henson, a quiet young woman and an expert on fibers and threats who worked in the Florida State Crime lab in Tallahassee, had been called in to analyze the evidence and help provide a decisive evaluation.
Henson—whose testimony the year before figured prominently in the Florida trial of Ted Bundy that both Dad and Susan’s dad, Tom Daniels, had worked on—testified in Williams’s trial that synthetic fibers found on one of the victim’s bodies showed no significant differences from the samples taken from Williams’s home and station wagon.
Suddenly, I was homesick for Florida—for my town, my family and friends, for Anna and Merrill, and a million other things I couldn’t even name.
I was overwhelmed with the urge to pack up everything, jump in the car, and head home.
Maybe I should.
I had promised Frank I’d go home next week for Thanksgiving, and though until this moment I hadn’t really planned on going, what if I went home and didn’t come back?
The longing for home, for any kind of comfort I could find there pulled me like never before in my entire life. But I wasn’t running, wasn’t hiding, wasn’t going home until I had done everything I could do for both cases I was working on. I couldn’t.
I couldn’t leave, but what I could do was call home. I could at least do that.
But the moment I placed the receiver back on the cradle to make the call, my phone began ringing.
Snatching it up before it could wake Rick, I whispered my hello into it.
“Who the hell you been on the phone with?” Margaret asked.
“No one. What’s wrong?”
“Camille’s little boy Kenny,” she said. “He’s missing.”
Chapter Forty-four
A single squad car was outside Second Chances. It was the only indication at all that anything was going on.
Margaret, Susan, Rand, and Lonnie were standing at the corner of the building near Scarlett’s when I ran up.
“He never made it to his mama’s shop from the bus stop,” Susan said.
“Is anyone in there with her?” I asked.
“Her other boy,” Lonnie said. “She ain’t about to let him out of her sight.”
My heart sank even more as I smelled the alcohol on Lonnie’s breath.
“Is this related to Cedric and the other boys from a few years back?” Margaret asked.
“It’s gotta be, doesn’t it?” Lonnie said. “But . . . why wait so long in between? Why now? What does it mean for Cedric? Why would he––”
“I’m gonna go see if I can help,” I said.
“Want me to go with you?” Lonnie asked.
“Are you okay to?” I asked.
His eyes locked on to mine and he nodded.
“Sure then. Thanks.”
My legs felt weak as we walked the two short store fronts to her shop.
“You okay?” Lonnie asked.
I shook my head.
“Me either.”
“When’d you start drinkin’ again?”
“Little while back,” he said. “Been hidin’ it. Couldn’t today.”
The little bell jingled as we walked in the door, and Camille looked up, her red, impossibly tired eyes moist, her thin, light skin drawn.
“Get him the fuck out of here,” she said when she saw me. “Get the fuck out of here. This is your fault. You did this. Stirring all this up again, making my little boy a mark. Get him out of here now.”
“Come on,” Lonnie said, grabbing me by the arm and helping me as my knees began to buckle. “Let’s go. She’s just upset.”
He got me turned ar
ound and headed out the door.
“We’re out here if you need us,” he said over his shoulder.
“Find Mickey,” she said. “Get Mickey here now.”
“Okay,” he said. “You got it. Anything else, we’re right outside.”
When Margaret and Susan saw Lonnie helping me, they ran to meet us.
“What’s wrong?” Margaret said. “What happened?”
“Are you okay?” Susan asked.
“He’ll be fine,” Lonnie said. “Camille’s just upset. Looking for someone to blame.”
“She’s blaming you?” Susan said.
“Come on,” Margaret said. “Come in here and sit down.”
Margaret held the door and Lonnie and Susan helped me in.
“I’m okay,” I said. “I can walk. I was just . . . I’m okay. Can I use your phone?”
“Sure honey,” Margaret said. “Help yourself.”
I walked over on steadier legs, picked up the phone and paged Mickey.
While I waited for him to call back, Susan brought me a cup of coffee.
“Thanks.”
“What’s going on, John?” she said.
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve got to,” she said. “You know more about all of this than everyone else put together. Why now? Why so long after Cedric and the others were taken?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I wish I did.”
“I bet you do,” she said. “If you just let yourself think about everything. I bet you know.”
“I don’t.”
“You have to,” she said. “We’ve got a little boy missing and a snowstorm on the way.”
Thankfully, the phone rang.
I snatched it up.
It wasn’t Mickey, but a supplier looking for Margaret. I quickly got a number and told him she’d call him back later.
All around us the bar was chaos and confusion. Everyone was talking over each other in emotion-strained voices.
“There are too many interruptions here,” Susan said. “Too much noise. Go back to your apartment and work on it there. I’ll talk to Mickey when he calls. I’ll have him call you at your place.”
“I need to call Remy Boss too.”
“Are you kidding? I heard the way that prick spoke to you yesterday. He’s not gonna do shit. You know that.”
“Bobby Battle then,” I said. “Since I can’t call Frank. Some detective needs to know. This can’t be handled like just another missing kid case.”
“So call him,” she said. “From your place.”
I nodded. “Okay,” I said. “I’m not sure I can come up with anything, but I know I can’t here. Thank you.”
As I turned to leave, I saw something I had hoped never to.
With Margaret’s attention at the door and our attention on the phone and each other, Lonnie had reached behind the bar, removed a bottle of bourbon, and was pouring himself drinks and knocking them back as quickly as he could.
“Lonnie, no,” I said.
“Can’t take it no more,” he said. “It’s all too much. All of it. I’ll stop drinking when they find that little boy, then I’ll figure out what to do with the rest of my life, but for now I’m gonna drink.”
Chapter Forty-five
I didn’t know what Susan expected from me, but I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to do it.
I was an alcoholic college dropout who had gotten the best friend I had in Atlanta shot and maybe killed. I was barely an adult—some would say I wasn’t yet. What could I do?
I could try.
I could go over everything again, add in everything new, including little Kenny’s disappearance, and see if anything made any better sense.
Where was Mickey? Why hadn’t he called back yet?
As I was pulling everything off my second wall to reexamine and repost, my phone rang.
It was Susan.
“Still no word from Mickey,” she said. “Cop took Camille’s statement and has just left. We’ve convinced Lonnie to switch over to coffee, but he was able to pour a lot down in him before we did. We’re all closing early out of respect—but we would’ve had to anyway. Snow’s coming sooner than expected. News is telling everyone to get supplies and get inside and stay there. Get back to work. I’ll keep you updated and have Mickey call you the moment I hear from him.”
As soon as we hung up, I called Bobby Battle.
“Figured I’d be hearin’ from you,” he said.
“You heard?”
“Yeah, and we’re doubling up our efforts. Because of the snowstorm,” he said. “Not because we believe there’s a serial killer at work. There’s not. Understand? There is no serial killer. Frank didn’t think so either. I gotta get back to work.”
The line went dead.
I hung up and returned to my wall.
Six black boys. All missing. All largely unsupervised, unparented. All with a connection to this area. Now over four years later, and after we start looking into it, another one. What does it mean? Is it even related? How can it not be? It might not be.
Absentee fathers set up for the abductions. No bodies. No evidence. Ada Baker getting calls from Cedric. No reports of any other mothers receiving calls. What does it mean? Cedric’s dad not having items planted. What does it mean? Maybe Cedric’s case is the anomaly, different from all the rest, the exception that proves the rule, the variation that points to the pattern. If so, what does it mean?
Why was Cedric running back toward the apartment complex? Who or what was he running from? What or who was he running to? What was his mom really doing during that time?
Did Daryl Lee Gibbons kill Cedric and or the other boys and bury them in the woods? If he did, why was Kenny taken and who had taken him?
Where were the bodies?
I stepped over to my little bookshelves in the corner and withdrew a forensic book and looked up methods of disposing of bodies, as I thought of what Wayne Williams said about how John Wayne Gacy did it.
My phone rang and I jumped.
Small voice. Crying. Distraught. Difficult to understand.
It was Frank’s daughter, Becca.
“John . . . my daddy’s not waking up. He won’t wake up. Oh, John, I don’t want my daddy to die. Please pray for him. Please help. Please don’t let God take my daddy.”
“I will,” I said. “I will right now.”
As soon as we hung up, I dropped to the floor and began to intercede for Frank. Sincerely, fervently, without self-consciousness and with no regard for dignity or decorum.
“Please heal Frank and return him to his little girl,” I pleaded. “Please help me find Kenny and return him to his mom. Please.”
Then something about the disposal of bodies resurfaced in my mind. What was it?
The phone rang again.
“He had no idea,” Susan said. “He’ll be callin’ you in a minute. We’re closing down here in about a half hour. You need me for anything?”
“I’ll call you if I do.”
“It better be in the next thirty minutes. Once I get home I won’t be able to get out again. I’ll be stranded. Everyone will. Whatever you do, do it fast.”
“You sure there’s nothing else you can tell me about Cedric’s disappearance?”
“Like what?”
“Where was he running? Who to? Who from?”
“I don’t know. I’ve told you.”
“I need to go,” I said. “Don’t want to miss Mickey’s call.”
Mickey called a couple of minutes later.
“John, what the hell’s goin’ on, man?”
“Where are you?” I said.
“Don’t be mad. I’ve been following up on some leads. Not far from where Daryl Lee was,” he said. “I’ve got to get on the road to make it back before the storm hits, but I wanted to tell you a couple of things.”
“Okay.”
“You’re not gonna like them.”
“Tell me anyway and quick.”
“Did
you know Summer Grantham’s been involved in cases like this before? She sort of specializes in missing kids. She’s been a suspect in a couple of them. She’s not right, man. She has what she claims is a daughter, but she’s a runaway—or so they claim. I’m not so sure Grantham didn’t take her. Anyway, she’s not her biological daughter. Grantham’s been quoted in some old newspaper articles I found as saying God put her here on earth to save at-risk kids. I think that’s what she thinks she’s doing, man. And get this—when Cedric and the other boys disappeared, she lived in Memorial Manor.”
“Why’re you down close to Stockbridge?” I said.
“On my way back from McDonough. Been tryin’ to find her place. Wanted to be sure before I told you. I think she has Cedric. Maybe the others too. I don’t know. But him for sure.”
“What makes you think that?” I said.
“The other thing you’re not gonna like,” he said. “I’ve got a deep undercover journalist buddy of mine. He’s hardcore. Nothing he won’t or can’t do. He specializes in deep background so he doesn’t have to be concerned about whether something’s legal or not. Doesn’t matter. Understand?”
“Get to the point, Mickey, we’re running out of time here.”
“I had him bug Ada Baker’s phone when she refused to let the police do it.”
“You did what?”
“Yeah. The calls are real man. They’re coming from a kid who sounds like he could be Cedric. The call came from McDonough—where Summer lives. No one was home. Do you think it was because she was there taking Kenny? Should I go back? Kenny, man. What a sweet fuckin’ kid. I mean, fuck.”
And then it hit me.
“Summer doesn’t have him,” I said. “But I think I know who does.”
Chapter Forty-six
“The night Cedric disappeared,” I said, “he came here.”
“Snow already comin’ down,” Annie Mae Dozier said, looking past me into the night. “Won’t be long ’til everything grind to a halt.”
She had just opened her door to my incessant knocking, and was now watching the snow through blinking eyes and big glasses.
BLOOD CRIES: a John Jordan Mystery (Book 10) (John Jordan Mysteries) Page 17