by Ann Rule
ONCE THE SEARCH WARRANT arrived, the CSI team who waited on Bogan Gates Drive moved through the silent brick home, gathering anything that looked as if it might be evidence. Crime Scene Technician Amber Roessler and Forensic Investigator Ray Rawlins photographed the bedroom and Jenn Corbin’s body, while other technicians took more photos of the house, videotaped the scene, and took measurements that would allow them to triangulate the position of vital elements later. Whatever was there now would never be exactly the same again. It was absolutely essential that they photograph the master bedroom and the entire interior and exterior of the Corbin home. They would bag even the most unlikely items into a chain of evidence, labeling and sealing everything separately so it would all be sacrosanct, no matter how many hands the possible clues passed through. And each person who touched them would initial them.
At 3 P.M., almost eight hours after Dalton Corbin ran across the street to get help for his mother, the CSI crew secured the scene. Jennifer Corbin’s body still lay where it had been found many hours earlier. It seemed somehow callous to leave her there, but the investigators had no choice; all they could do for her now was find out how she had died, and every detail about her death, no matter how seemingly inconsequential, was important to them. If she had taken her own life, they would be able to verify that. But if someone had killed her, they would know that, too, and if that was the case, they were determined to find that person. In a homicide investigation, nothing can be taken for granted, and things are seldom what they seem.
Reporters monitoring police calls in Gwinnett County notified their editors about a death on Bogan Gates Drive, noting that it seemed to be a suicide, and that was the way it appeared in local papers and television news. Although those who really knew Jenn shook their heads in denial, strangers in the greater Atlanta area heard “suicide” and accepted it.
Marcus Head and Ray Rawlins hadn’t known Jenn Corbin when she was alive. Now, they would meet her in death. Head would work backward to trace what events, if any, could have made her desperate enough to take her own life. Or what secrets lay hidden in her life—or in a killer’s life—that might have marked her as a murder victim.
But all of the Gwinnett County investigators’ minds were open; they would consider every eventuality. And hopefully they would come to know Jennifer Barber Corbin almost as well as those who had known her in life. Maybe even better.
Once the crime scene technicians had finished their work, Rawlins and Head entered the house again. The front door opened into a foyer, with a formal dining room to their left and an office on their right. They noted that the Corbins’ house was very clean, and decorated by someone who had been proud of it, someone who had the creativity and ability to blend furnishings that were both expensive and practical into a warm and welcoming home. The two men tried to ignore the Christmas decorations. It was bad enough that two little boys had lost their mother, but to lose her at Christmastime made it even worse. Those kids would undoubtedly think of this day and feel their loss every Christmas for the rest of their lives.
Rawlins and Head crossed the foyer and headed toward the back of the house. A hallway led off to the right, and they followed it to the master bedroom. It was a rather grand suite with dark wood furniture, bedside tables with marble tops, and a king-sized canopy bed with massive carved posts and an ornate design in the headboard. The drapes and bedding were a Tommy Hilfiger design, with a pattern of cabbage roses and paisley shapes.
Next to the bed, somewhat incongruously, there was a jeroboam-sized Absolut vodka bottle, now serving as a bank for coins. The lights were on, and so was the television set.
Jennifer Corbin lay diagonally across the bed, her tall form graceful, her face calm. She rested mostly on her left side. There seemed to be no sign at all of a struggle, although her position wasn’t that of someone prepared to sleep. Her upper back was parallel to the headboard and her feet angled off to the far side of the bed. There were three pillows on the bed; the comforter covered her only from her waist to her ankles. One of the pillows was fluffed up, but there was a deep oval indentation in the middle.
Jennifer’s left arm was underneath her body, except for her hand, which was near her left breast. Her right arm was bent at the elbow so that her forearm rested across her waist. The grips of what looked to be a .38-caliber revolver were beneath—and a few inches away from—her right hand. It rested on the comforter. However, the barrel was almost hidden beneath the comforter.
The two investigators frowned, wondering again how the gun could have ended up in that position. It didn’t seem probable—or even possible—that it had dropped from her hand at the moment of firing and ended up underneath the covers. Certainly, she would not have been able to slip it there. It would take the autopsy to say definitely, but, with her head wound, they believed she had died instantly.
Because they did not know the actual manner of Jennifer Corbin’s death, it was essential that her position and the position of the gun and the path of blood flow be noted. Her head was tilted a little to the left. Blood had drained from her nostrils and traveled in an uninterrupted line slightly upward to cross her left lower eyelid and then drip down onto the mattress. There was no other blood on her face or mouth. This would indicate that she had not moved or, more accurately, had not been moved after she was shot, unless she had lain in one position until the blood had dried, and that was unlikely. The blond hair on the right side of her head and across the rear of her head was stained scarlet.
It would now take experts in blood patterns and ballistics to determine the angle of fire, how far the gun had been from her head, and whether Jenn or someone else had fired the gun.
Inexorable postmortem indicators would help them narrow down the time of her death. Those portions of her body that were uncovered were cold to the touch now, and rigor mortis—that stiffening that comes soon after death—had already begun. It would render her body completely rigid for forty-eight hours or so, and then slowly dissipate.
Ray Rawlins saw that livor mortis, or “lividity,” had begun. This phenomenon of death is a reddish-purple, mottled stain that occurs when blood settles in the lowest part of a body after the heart stops pumping. There was no secondary shading, no lighter pink blushing. (If a body is moved after lividity begins, the darker marking will remain fixed, but a lighter mottling will show that someone changed the victim’s position some time after death.)
The entry wound of the single bullet was on the right side of Jenn Corbin’s head—toward the back—and there was a “near-exit” wound on the left side with a small piece of bone protruding from the skin there. The bullet itself was apparently still lodged in her brain, just short of exiting. Jenn’s eyes and the tissue around them were bruised and swollen, the “raccoon eyes” that are expected after a bullet wound in the head. This was not a sign that Jenn had been beaten, although it might appear that way to a layperson.
Her hands showed no evidence of defense wounds; her nails were well kept and unbroken, the skin smooth, and without scratches.
Either Jenn had committed suicide, or, if she had been murdered, she never saw it coming. This might offer some faint comfort to her family. She had not died afraid.
Ray Rawlins carefully removed the revolver from where it lay partially under the comforter. He marked the cylinder on both sides of the frame, and then released it. There was a spent shell casing beneath the hammer; it would prove to be just like the three unfired cartridges—all round-nosed projectiles. One chamber held neither a spent cartridge nor a jacketed slug. This method of loading a weapon is sometimes used as a safety measure. If the trigger should be accidentally pulled, there would be no bullet in the chamber.
The gun was a Smith & Wesson .38-caliber blue steel revolver. The serial number was 397676. With any luck at all, this number would let them trace ownership of this weapon back to the day it first left the Smith & Wesson factory. There were no visible fingerprints on the rough-textured grips, or the barrel.
At 3:15 P.M.,
Ray Rawlins officially pronounced Jennifer Corbin dead. It was a mere formality. The paramedics from Fire District #14 had already examined her body and told him that she was deceased.
Marcus Head helped Rawlins slip paper bags over both of Jennifer Corbin’s hands, which they then secured with evidence tape. If there was GSR (gunshot residue) there, or any skin from a killer under her fingernails, the bags would ensure that no evidence would be lost between her home and the Medical Examiner’s Office.
Carefully, they wrapped Jennifer’s body in a new linen sheet and then slipped it into a brand-new “disaster bag.” This was a preventive measure so that there would be no loss of fibers or residue before she reached the Gwinnett County Morgue.
Quietly, Jennifer’s neighbors watched as she left her home for the last time. The home she had loved was surrounded now by yellow police tape.
EVEN AS their mother’s death investigation was in its first hours, Dalton and Dillon Corbin waited nervously beside their grandfather Max at the Gwinnett County police headquarters at 770 Hi Hope Road in Lawrenceville. It was an ironically cheerful address for an agency that dealt with so many tragedies.
It was still only early afternoon on December 4, but the day seemed to stretch on endlessly for Jenn’s family, especially for her sons.
Investigator Curtis Clemmons led Dalton into an interview room that was designed for children. There was a small round table there, a wooden chair scaled just right for an almost-seven-year-old boy.
A hidden camera caught every nuance of this interview. Dalton looked so young and vulnerable, but he was clearly trying to answer Clemmons’ questions the best he could. He gave his name: Dalton Fox Corbin. And his address: 4515 Bogan Gates Drive in Buford, Georgia. He knew his birthday, March 12, 1997, and his phone number.
Clemmons wasn’t nearly ready to ask Dalton the hard questions that must come later. First, he had to create an ambiance of trust and approval. He kept his voice soft and encouraging, complimenting Dalton on his intelligence. He meant it sincerely: Dalton was obviously very smart. Dalton seemed to be enjoying this part of their conversation, and yet he sat perched like a little bird on his chair, alert and ready for flight.
“Do you wear glasses or contacts?” Clemmons asked. It wasn’t a necessary question, but each query that didn’t remind Dalton about what had happened seven or eight hours earlier seemed to make him feel more secure with Clemmons.
Now the investigator held out a series of colored slips of paper. Dalton easily identified them all, as he did with the drawings of animals that came next.
“Good…good,” Clemmons said.
“What class did you like best at Harmony School?” Clemmons asked.
“Kindergarten!”
“What’s your favorite food?” Clemmons asked, knowing the answer already from having talked to scores of children.
“Pizza!”
He asked Dalton if he knew the difference between a “good touch” and a “bad touch,” giving examples of being punched in the nose, or being hugged by his grandfather.
Dalton knew. His mother had taught him carefully how to protect himself. And he knew the difference between the truth and a lie.
He also realized what questions were coming next. Suddenly Dalton dropped his head and rested it on his folded arms. Neither Clemmons nor the little boy in front of him wanted to broach the subject of Jenn Corbin.
“Do you know why you’re here today?” Clemmons finally asked.
“’Cause my mom got killed this morning,” Dalton said. “When I woke up, I went to go see my mom, and I was right by her and there was blood right here.” He pointed beneath his nose. “I couldn’t wake her up so I wanted to call 911.”
There, it was out, and like Pandora’s box, the bad things could not be put back. And even with that, it was heart-wrenching to watch. A child cannot grasp the permanency of death. Dalton came as close as any seven-year-old could, but he could not imagine all the years ahead without his mother. He spoke calmly, as he answered Clemmons’s questions. He knew it was 7 A.M. when he went to wake his mother, and that his brother Dillon was asleep. “He woke up,” Dalton said, “when he heard me saying ‘Mommmmm!’”
He knew the TV in his mother’s room was on, and that Dillon had come into her room, too.
“Anyone else there?”
“My dog. Zippo.”
“Did you hear any noises last night?”
“Uh-uh. [No.] I went to sleep about ten o’clock. And my dad killed her.”
Clemmons was careful not to betray any shock at this answer; he didn’t so much as move his hands or shift his body. He asked Dalton why he thought his father had killed his mother if he hadn’t seen it happen. Dalton explained that it was because his father’s car was usually at their house every morning, but on this morning it was gone.
“Who told you that?”
“I figured it out myself.”
“Did you see your dad?”
“No.”
Dalton said that his parents had been fighting a lot, and he repeated that his father had killed “my mom” and then left, and went to his Uncle Bob’s house.
But was Dalton describing what he had seen and heard, or was he confabulating? Could he really separate one day from the next as he tried to recall the interactions in his family over the past nine or ten days?
“All I heard was my mom, dad, and my brother eating supper at six o’clock,” he told Clemmons. “We ate steak and ice cream, and my mom went to bed and my dad went to work. He’s a dentist.”
“He works at night?” Clemmons asked, with just a touch of surprise in his voice.
“He’s been stealing things from my mom—like her new cell phone and records.”
“After dinner, you went to bed at ten? Did you hear your mom or dad fussing?”
“No. The last time they argued was last Wednesday.”
“When you went to bed, was your dad still home?”
“Yeah, he was sleeping right next door to me. My mom and dad sleep in different rooms.”
“For how long?”
“Mmmm—since last weekend.”
CAREFULLY, CLEMMONS REVIEWED what Dalton had told him. The investigator knew what Marcus Head had learned so far because Head had briefed him, but he was scrupulously careful not to suggest anything at all to Dalton.
“You, Dillon, your mom, dad, and Zippo, your dog, were home? You ate dinner at six, and you went to bed at ten. You watched TV for four hours and went to bed?”
“Umm-hmm. [Yes.] Sometimes I sleep in my bedroom, and sometimes in the toy room with Dillon.”
Dalton was sure that his father was home when he went to sleep. But when he woke up, he was gone. He said he had seen the gun in his mother’s bed, but he didn’t touch it.
“That’s good,” Clemmons said fervently, knowing that the gun was still loaded at the time.
Dillon had wanted breakfast, too, but their mother couldn’t hear them. Dalton knew that she was dead. And that was when he ran over to the Comeaus across the street. He had tried to call 911, but the phone wouldn’t work.
“Did you wonder why the phone wasn’t working?”
“Maybe my dad cut it off.”
“Has your dad been mad at your mom?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He thinks my mom is a liar. They argued all the time from last Wednesday until today. They talked about living in separate houses and getting an attorney. Yelling at each other.”
“How did that make you feel?” Clemmons asked quietly.
“I felt sad.”
Dalton said his dad had talked to him about the possibility of a divorce. “He said ‘I love you, and I always will love you.’”
This was a tough interview for a man who was a father himself. Clemmons asked Dalton again if he had heard anything strange during the night just past. The little boy thought his parents were talking about his father taking Dalton’s computer away, and there was something about his mother’s t
aking his father’s bank account away.
“There was an argument last night?”
“Yeah.”
“How did you feel?”
“Scared. My mom was holding my hand. She always holds my hand when I’m scared, and it makes me feel better.” He said he’d asked his mother to eat dinner right next to him. “I do that when I’m scared. And she does.”
Dalton Corbin had tried to figure out exactly how his mother got killed, but he wasn’t really sure. He hadn’t actually seen anything happen, but he had been an observer of a marriage that was clearly disintegrating. He studied his hands now and crossed one finger over another until they were all crossed. Did this make him feel safer, or was it only a nervous habit? Probably a little of both.
His memory was uncertain. He hadn’t heard anything during the night. No, his father never said he would kill his mother. Nor had Dalton ever seen his mother with a gun. He didn’t see the murder, or hear the murder, but he knew…this small boy believed his father came home to sleep and then he got a gun and killed his mother in the morning.
“How do you feel about your mom?” Clemmons asked gently.
“I’m really sad.”
DILLON WAS ONLY FIVE, but his turn was next. The camera caught him as he sat at the little chair in front of the round table. He swayed back and forth, muttering to himself: “Ummm. Ummm. Some. Some.”
While he waited for Curtis Clemmons to come back into the room, Dillon laid his head down on the table, and then he dotted the tabletop with each finger in turn, as if he was leaving little circles there. He looked so tired as he rested his head on his arms like Dalton did. He seemed nervous.
When Clemmons came back into the room, Dillon looked up politely. He was just as bright as his older brother. He knew his middle name, “Avery,” his phone number, address, colors, and animals. But he was totally confused about how his life had changed in one horrible watershed moment. He knew his mother was dead, but he was not at all sure about the sequence of events. He parroted a little of what Dalton had said, but Dillon often contradicted himself.