The Discovery
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Somewhere in Arizona...March 6, 1996... 6:08 A.M.
The police car slowly rolled up to the corpse along the side
of the desert road. For miles around, sand dunes silently stood
waiting, as if for someone to take away the body. From within his
vehicle, Officer Rogers could see that the corpse was that of a
young woman. As he pulled over, Rogers radioed back to
headquarters that he had arrived at the scene. The desert was
cool at night, and he had not packed a warm enough jacket; there
had not been time. Approximately fifteen minutes earlier, a call
came into police headquarters. A traveller passing down the road
had seen the body and called the police on his cellular phone. It
was evident that the traveller had not waited to see what would
happen. Instead, Rogers was alone with the corpse. Exiting the
vehicle, he went over to feel the woman's neck... there was no
pulse. Eventually, a detective and an investigation team would
arrive to examine the crime scene. Until then, there was nothing
he could do except wait for the coroner to come and remove the
body.
Crime scene... March 6, 1996... 6:23 A.M.
In a little over fifteen minutes, the C.S.U. (Crime Scene
Unit) unit, headed by Detective Sergeant Miller, and composed of
Detectives MacArthur and Varnes, arrived at the crime scene. Two
other patrolmen, who had arrived just minutes before and were
under the command of Lieutenant Foley, had already surrounded the
area around the corpse with yellow police tape. An inquisitive
tourist or curious passerby could accidently taint evidence by
approaching the crime scene. Once the crime scene was secured,
the detectives, knowing that there were no eyewitnesses around to
question, began to photograph the crime scene. They started out
taking long shots from several angles, and eventually moved in
for detailed photos of the body. Unfortunately, because of the
corpse's location, there was not too much trace evidence (such as
fibers or hair), or really anywhere to fingerprint. Aside from
the victim's pocketbook, which Detective Varnes was going through
to search for identificatin, the only thing that struck Detective
MacArthur as interesting was a fancy brooch that the victim was
wearing. He removed it carefully, wearing plastic gloves, and
slid it into a plastic evidence bag which he initialed. By the
time the County Coroner's truck came to take the victim away, the
police were done with their preliminary investigation of the
crime scene. The coroner and his assistants took measurements of
the temperature, weather, and exact location of the body, slid it
into a body bag, and drove it away for an autopsy. The
investigation into the death of the as-of-yet unidentified girl
had begun.
Both pictures, as well as the graphical "bars", are used with permission from Que Corporation and are taken from the CD-ROM accompanying their book
Using HTML by Tom Savola.
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