Coroner's Journal (7 page)

I motioned to Ben to ask if it was okay for me to go in. He gave me the nod and I entered the crime scene proper. There was no hurry, as neither crime-scene investigators nor detectives had arrived yet. But I lifted up the tape and walked in. I always had a certain feeling of control, if not security, inside the yellow tape. It's all psychological, of course, and that sense of security is often a false one.

The body of Calvin Brooks, a middle-aged black male, lay in the middle of the lot. Evidently he had been involved in some type of altercation. His weapon was reportedly an iron crowbar. His opponent, armed with a gun, had shot Calvin and fled the scene. This would become a police legend, and I could hear it already—the one about the guy who brought a crowbar to a gunfight.

Calvin was lying face up and flat on his back. He had a light tan jumper on over a black T-shirt. A coat in this heat could mean only one thing: he was up to something. Maybe he was concealing a weapon or some type of contraband.

A seasoned officer would have questioned this right away.
A coat? In this weather?

He had sustained a single gunshot wound to the head. A pool of blood had oozed from the wound and added to the stains on the pavement. I crouched down beside the body to do an evaluation of the injury. I was examining it to determine the distance that Calvin had been from the shooter. Holding my magnifying glass and SureFire flashlight, I was looking for any sign of stippling. In close-range gunshot wounds, the powder can actually burn little speck marks into the skin. I was also looking for any unburnt powder grains. Different brands of ammunition often have different types of gunpowder. The grains can be round, flaked, or cylindrical. Needless to say, this type of search requires concentration.

A question came from my left: “They shot him, huh?”

It is not unusual for someone to be peering over my shoulder. It's usually a homicide detective. I was just doing a preliminary assessment of his injuries. I would not even touch Calvin's body until all photographs were taken and the homicide detectives had seen the scene in its undisturbed state.

I responded, “Yes, someone did, but not at close range.” I then pointed to the crowbar that was halfway hidden up Calvin's right coat sleeve. “I don't think he had the chance to get any licks in. So I doubt your shooter will have any injuries. I don't see any overt signs of damage to the hands, so I don't think there was a fistfight or physical struggle with the assailant. He couldn't have swung a fist with that crowbar up his sleeve. We'll bag the hands anyway when we get ready to do a more complete examination. . . . Maybe they were waiting for him—I don't know. What do we have so far?”

When I turned to my companion, I did not recognize him. I thought I had been talking to either a detective or one of the crime-scene officers—wrong. This guy was a black male dressed in typical civilian workclothes. He seemed amiable enough, but I was immediately on guard.

In other words, he scared the crap out of me. My adrenal glands prepared me for the fight-or-flight response.
I'm in a parking lot with a murder victim and this unknown. Is he the killer, a relative, a friend, an onlooker? I'm caught off guard. The police officers are inside the tape but they are miles away if this guy decides to do me and produces a gun or a knife.

So there we were, the two of us, stooped over Calvin's dead body.

I politely asked him, “Who are you, sir?” and followed up with, “I don't think we've met.”

He responded in a calm but determined voice, indicating to me that he was a relative of the deceased. He also indicated to me that “they” knew who killed him. He seemed calm, but I have seen people go from calm to uncontrollable rage in a millisecond. Such violence can be precipitated by saying the wrong thing or making the wrong gesture. Once triggered, that person tends to strike out at the closest target. That would be me. Now, I don't know this guy, and maybe he is who he says he is and maybe he's not. He certainly has exhibited poor judgment by walking past the tape.

I knew this was a dangerous situation. I didn't know if he was armed or not.
I've got the .32 Kel-Tec semiautomatic pistol in my right pocket, but I'd have to straighten out my leg to get it. That might be a giveaway as to my intentions.

In Louisiana, a coroner is also a conservator of the peace, which means I am technically a “police officer.” At least that's what some coroners say. The corollary is that I would rather be judged by twelve than carried by six. As such, most of us are armed, and we need to be. I train with firearms, and I try to stay prepared. The law also specifically allows the coroner to carry a weapon. But it's the unexpected that gets you. It is impossible to guard against everything. I just try to use common sense and keep a cool head.

No one seemed to be paying attention to what was going on over here. I did not want to alarm this guy or escalate this into a full-blown confrontation. I needed to get him and the scene secured. I've had years of experience with talking down violent psychiatric patients—not that this guy was a psych patient. He was an unknown to me. I know that for every action there is a reaction. By staying calm, I wanted to establish a nonthreatening atmosphere. I stood up, slowly. At least now, I was standing and had a better chance if things went bad all of a sudden.

I introduced myself, and asked, “Would you mind coming with me to talk to the officer in charge?”

Much to my relief, he agreed, though he had no intention of telling the police anything. “They gonna have to find out for themselves.” Translation: Calvin's relatives would take care of this if they found the killer first. And they had the advantage of knowing who it was.

We eased over to Officer Ben Odom, my old buddy, and I introduced the guy and explained the situation. Ben was calm and polite, yet firm. He asked the guy if he had any weapons on him and gave him “the look.” The guy said he was unarmed and that Ben could check him if he wanted to do so. He escorted the guy out of the crime scene and had one of the rooks check him for weapons. He then stationed him with one of the other uniform officers for “safekeeping.”

Once everything was relatively secure, Ben sort of went ballistic. He had what is euphemistically referred to as an “attitude adjustment” with the cops who were supposed to be guarding the crime scene. He was angry that the guy had gotten past security. Calvin's brother just walked right through. Ben Odom was embarrassed by the breach of the crime scene and furious that I had been placed in danger. He's a testy person anyway, and the heat wasn't helping his mood. His explanation and apology to me was terse and to the point: “Sorry 'bout that, Doc!”

Though it came later on in my career, it was the first—and only—tutorial I needed in the importance of securing a crime scene. The rest of the process was fairly routine after that. Detectives finally arrived, then the crime-scene unit, and we worked the area and put Calvin in a sealed and tagged body bag. At about four A.M., he was off to the morgue for autopsy at daybreak and I was heading home to take my boy to school. I try to do that at least one morning out of the week.

It would be impossible for him to understand the world I just stepped out of. We'll chat about school and stop to get doughnuts at our favorite Korean doughnut shop. And I'll just be a dad to my son and try to leave the street behind while I'm with him.

Frequently debates erupt among detectives and forensic investigators about how much criminals learn from TV shows such as
CSI, Law and Order,
or
Crossing Jordan.
I've heard detectives curse those shows for “making our jobs harder” by teaching the criminal how to get away with a crime. I don't think little snippets on
CSI
really make much of an impact on criminals' behavior. For one thing, criminals don't understand the foundation of the science of forensics and therefore tend to make stupid mistakes.

My experience has been that criminals generally learn just enough to botch the cover-up attempt. Do these FX forensics shows give people ideas and encourage crime? I doubt that. Attempts to manipulate forensic evidence are not new, and from what I have experienced they are not very sophisticated. In any case there are definitely thorns on that bush—such attempts often support the concept of premeditation at trial.

My wife DeAnn, son Michael, and I were having dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Las Palmas, a Mexican place with fabulous enchiladas. We were into our first basket of chips and salsa when I got the call. I hate that look of disappointment on their faces when it comes. From a practical standpoint, we've learned to go to dinner in two cars just in case I get called away.

I ended my phone call and made the announcement: “Somebody burned up in a hotel room. I gotta go.”

They both seemed somewhat resigned to it. De admonished me to be careful and Michael said he would get my order to go. We exchanged “I love you's,” and I was off.

All I had at the time was: “Somebody burned up in a motel room.” But as the events of the evening unfolded, the plot sickened.

It was a warm October night in 2002 when I pulled into a motel on Airline Highway. The police, detectives, fire department, and arson investigators had beaten me there. I was waved through a parking lot of fire department and police vehicles. My circuitous route ultimately led me to the second floor and the detective. He didn't look very happy.

We exchanged the usual amenities, then he got right to it. His voice was a little hoarse as he related the story: “Fire department is wrapping up. We can get in shortly . . . here's the deal so far. This may be a suicide. The guy who lives in the room had been talking suicide. He's supposedly depressed 'cause he's going to jail for some charges related to sex with a minor. So that's it right now. . . . Did we get you away from anything important?”

My response was a little on the sarcastic side. “Just dinner with my family.”

His was just a terse “Yeah, me too.”

This was a “special” crime all right. I was staring into the black abyss that was once a motel room—now burned out. My “street guide” was Leon Jarreau, a veteran arson investigator with the fire department. He explained: “We controlled the fire, found a dead body in the bed, and called you. We just verified he was dead, then we backed out.”

I must have looked hesitant to him by the way he asked, “You ready to go in, Doc?”

I wanted to say no. Especially after his caution to watch for any live electric wires, even though “we think we have all the power off, but you never can tell in these places.” I hoped he was joking, but I knew he wasn't.

This was not exactly a five-star motel. The odors drifting out of the gaping hole that was once a doorway were a mixture of burnt carpet and cheap furniture. I had smelled them before. I also knew that the combustion of such items produces carcinogenic gases as well as cyanide fumes. Of course, the firemen had a couple of big fans going to help evacuate those fumes. I was assured that the electricity to power those fans came from fire department generators.
Now, that's good to know.

I anticipated that I would soon be assaulted by the odor of burnt human flesh. I was not. As I entered, what I smelled was some type of petroleum. Smoke limited the illumination provided by my flashlight beam. The entire room was covered in soot. And there was that sickly squishing of the burnt, saturated carpet as I walked up to the bed that held the remains of our John Doe.

The fire had been intentionally set, and an accelerant was used, probably charcoal lighter. Since the room was relatively airtight, the fire had been limited by the lack of oxygen and had essentially smothered itself out.

There was a body wrapped in a bedspread, a blanket, and a sheet. It was totally wrapped—from above the head to below the toes. As I uncovered it, one layer at a time, I could smell alcohol. Indeed, alcohol had saturated much of the bedclothes. Strange, I thought. Maybe this was intended to promote burning. The victim was a young white male, probably in his early twenties. He was not burned. He was face down. He had livor on his back, and upon palpation it did not blanch. Strange!

When someone dies, the blood settles into the most dependent area of the body. So if you die on your back, gravity causes the blood to settle down into the skin on your back. It causes a reddish discoloration of the skin called “livor,” or “livor mortis.” Of course it is more difficult to see in dark-skinned individuals, but it is there nonetheless. After about eight or twelve hours, that blood becomes fixed in position. Now, once it is fixed, you can put pressure on it and it will not blanch, or turn pale—it is fixed. Also, you turn the body over and the livor will stay right where it is. This man had died at least eight hours before he was put into this position. The victim had died while on his back. Livor had formed on his back and had become fixed. Now he was face down. No policeman or fireman had touched the body. Something was amiss.

As I continued to examine the body, I noted bruises and abrasions around his neck. Then, to my surprise, I discovered the “meaning” of the crime and the crime scene: all of this guy's teeth had been knocked or pulled out. He had a mouth full of fractured dental nubs.

The entire scene had been staged for us. And it had been perpetrated by someone with the most naïve grasp of how we ID bodies. The plan was obvious. Find someone who looks similar to you. Spread the rumor that you are thinking about killing yourself and burning yourself up. Act depressed and crazy for a week or two. Get the chosen victim drunk and/or drugged. Kill him. Take out all his teeth to avoid dental identification. Burn the body up. Presto! You are now officially dead and you can safely disappear.