Jean: The Box Cutter Murders Ch. 03

"Well, that is useful information. No one else saw Inesa after she left with the three men. Did Marian tell you anything else?"

"It's probably not important, but she mentioned that one of the men was constantly hanging back and writing in a notebook. The descriptions of other two men match Jamel and Youssef. I didn't see any mention of a David having a notebook when he was arrested. What if David wasn't with them? Maybe we should be looking for someone who keeps a journal?"

"No, it was David. Everyone that knows David will tell you that he is always writing in a notebook. A couple of years ago, I looked over his shoulder and saw what he was doing. The writing was code or maybe gibberish. The only thing recognizable was an impressive sketch of a young woman at the party. I don't know why the police didn't find his notebook. If David saw Jamel and Youssef kill Inesa, the notebook could break the case wide open."

"Do you have any ideas where I should look for his journal?"

"If the police don't have it, then I would have to assume David hid it somewhere. It certainly wasn't in the room where Inesa was murdered. Perhaps Jamel or Youssef took it. I doubt David left it at home when he went out with his cousins. David would never leave it behind unless he had no choice."

"You can forget about me sneaking into their apartment to search for a notebook that might not even be there. The last time I played Nancy Drew, I got to entertain a limo full of football players on steroids. Youssef scares the crap out of me, and Jamel isn't much better."

"Jean please, I would never intentionally put you in harm's way. The football players were an accident. No, what I think you should do next is completely safe. I want you to pay a visit to the coroner's office and review the autopsy report. The police file doesn't list a notebook as part of the physical evidence collected at the scene, but it doesn't mean they don't have it. There is also no mention of any lab work on the biological samples that were collected by the police. Maybe you can talk to the person who conducted the autopsy and find out if they left anything out of the report. The Medical Examiner's Office is understaffed, and I'm sure the DA wasn't interested in pushing any unnecessary analysis. After all the police arrested a blood-soaked suspect lying in an alley next to the crime scene. What more did they need?"

"Where's the Medical Examiner's Office? Do I need an appointment?"

"It's next to the University of Pennsylvania campus. I'll call a contact in the office and have him meet you there tomorrow afternoon. I'll set it up for 3 since you'll need to transfer buses to get there."

Michael made his phone call, and we spent the next hour going over questions I should ask the coroner. I took detailed notes. Michael treated me to dinner at his favorite bar. He said it was a reward and an apology. I listened to the famous professor discourse on the inequities of the American judicial system for nearly two hours before I could escape.

I spent the rest of the evening with my head in a book on contracts' law. I noticed that for once Dana had bought coffee to replace what she had borrowed. I was looking forward to a strong cup of coffee before my morning class. I didn't need it to study since I had taken another tablet of speed. It finally wore off around 3 AM, and I caught four hours of sleep before my class on contracts. I had to take another tablet of speed to stay awake during class. It had me so energized, I even volunteered the answer to one of the professor's hypotheticals. He nearly tripped over his feet when I raised my hand. He staggered to his chair when I rattled off a reasonable answer. I didn't have a lot of time to make it to the Medical Examiner's Office, but I did take the time to scarf down a Philly cheesesteak sandwich from a food truck on campus. Maybe if I ate more of these greasy gut busters, I might gain back some of the weight I had lost.

#

I made it to my appointment with ten minutes to spare. Instead of my normal ragtag outfit, I was reasonably well dressed in pressed khaki shorts and a blouse. I read a brochure on their mission while I waited in the empty reception area. Promptly at three, a young man in his late thirties walked into the room and greeted me. He was wearing a badge that indicated that he was Dr. Dan O'Malley. The black and white badge failed to capture his flaming red hair.

He held out his hand and said, "Are you, Jean? You can call me Dan. Michael said to expect a young woman. He didn't mention that you were so attractive."

I blushed and held out my hand, "Pleased to meet you, Dan."

"Michael asked me to go over our report on Inesa Munteanu with you. It's one of the most horrendous murders I have seen. Are you sure you're up for this?"

"I used to work in a hospital laboratory. I've seen just about everything. Michael thinks your report is important for proving David's innocence."

"I hope the police have the right man. I'd hate to think someone capable of this level of savagery is still out on the street."

Dan led me into a small conference room. The room was empty except for a metal table, four chairs and a wastepaper basket lined with a plastic bag. There was a cardboard file storage box on the desk. The lid was off, and I looked inside. The box was barely a quarter full.

Dan sat down next to me and started pulling items out of the box. He took out a document describing the evidence seized by the police and the location of each item. Only the laboratory reports and small samples were in the coroner's box. There was no mention of a notebook anywhere.

"Dan, I don't see David's notebook listed. According to his aunt, he never went anywhere without it. Did someone forget to catalog it?"

"I met with everyone involved at the District Attorney's office. We reviewed all the evidence. Sorry, I don't recall any mention of a notebook."

I shook my head and tried to understand what the missing notebook meant for David's case.

Dan started unpacking the box. The first item was a summary report of the Medical examiner's findings. He slid it over in front of me and recited the main conclusions. Inesa had died from blood loss. The killer or killers had tied the young woman's body to a metal frame bed. She had been stretched so tight both of her shoulders were dislocated. She had repeatedly been slashed down the front of her body with a box cutter. Each succeeding incision with the adjustable blade had been deeper. The cuts ran from the top of her sternum all the way to her anus. The killer had attempted to overlay the cuts one on top of the other. She had bled out over a period of hours. Inesa had hoped for a better life in America. Instead, she died a slow painful death.

The investigators had taken over a hundred photographs. They had collected blood samples from the bed. They had also collected material from under her fingernails that might have resulted from her scratching her assailant. A sample of semen found in her vagina was also obtained.

Dan said, "The Medical Examiner's Office is understaffed thanks to city hall cutting our budget. We stopped processing the samples when the DA's office said they had enough evidence to convict the suspect. We did establish that the blood samples on the bed were consistent with the victim's blood type. We had no reason to believe any of the blood samples belonged to the accused. The box cutters had been wiped clean of fingerprints. We never tested the skin cells under her fingernails. The semen sample was considered low priority since she had been working as a prostitute that night. We never got around to testing it either."

I shook my head in astonishment. Maybe I had seen too many shows on TV. I had always assumed everything was tested. I knew that very little evidence had been presented at the trial. David's bloody shirt had figured prominently. People had seen him with Inesa that night. He had been arrested the next morning sleeping in the alley next to the building where Inesa had been tortured and killed.

Dan said, "I can show you the photographs if you have the stomach for it. Personally, I would recommend passing on the photographs, but it will be easier to understand the report if you see them. It's your call."

I took a deep breath and said, "I think I need to see the photographs."

Dan laid one photo after another in front of me. "OK, the first photograph shows a view of the room from the doorway. You can see the victim on the bed. She was found covered with a sheet up to her neck. Her arms were bound together and stretched above her head by a come along pulley. The second photograph is from the foot of the bed. It doesn't show anything new except for a clear view of Inesa's face contorted in agony. It also shows the sheet soaked with a streak of blood up the middle. The next few photographs show the rest of the room. It is bare except for some empty cardboard boxes and bits of garbage. It looks like someone had a fire going on top of a metal garbage can lid. There are the remains of a chicken that was probably cooked on the fire. We don't know if the murderer made the fire or if it was made by some earlier homeless person."

He laid out a set of photographs of Inesa's wrists and ankles with white nylon cord securing her to the bed frame. The four knots were identical.

"The killer tied a knot called a round turn with two half hitches. Sailors use it to attach a mooring line to a dock post. It is a constrictor knot meaning the harder you pull on the line, the tighter the knot gets. Also, it is one of the very few knots that can be tied or untied with tension on the line. It doesn't jam, and it doesn't slip."

I said, "One of David's cousins called him a Boy Scout. Is this a knot he could have learned as part of his scout training?"

"Definitely, it is a very common knot but not one an inexperienced person would tie."

The next photograph was gruesome. The sheet had been pulled aside. Inesa's torso was covered in blood. A deep bloody slice ran from her neck down to her genitalia. Her legs were spread apart and tied to the corners of the bed.

"The next several photographs are close-ups along the cut. Maybe you should skip those."

"Dan, I need to understand the crime scene if I want to get David off. Please continue."

The next photograph showed the top of the incision by her neck. The one after it showed the rest of the sternum. Dan pointed out some interesting features on the photograph showing the top of her abdomen just below the sternum.

"Here you can see multiple parallel cuts along parts of the incision. All the cuts started at the top of the manubrium which is the uppermost part of the sternum. The victim must have been struggling, and the murderer couldn't always make the blade follow the track of the previous cut despite the tightness of her restraints. The non-overlapping cuts provide evidence that each of the cuts was made at a different depth. The murder weapon has a retractable blade that can be changed in 1/8" increments. The initial incision was at the first setting and only 2 to 3 millimeters deep. That's a little less than an eighth of an inch since the murderer probably held the knife at an angle. It's a little deeper than the epidermal and dermis layers combined. In other words, it cut through the skin into the top of the subcutaneous layer. We also believe that the first shallow incision stopped just above the mons pubis."

Dan slid the photograph of the top part of the incision in front of me. I was fascinated by his detailed clinical description of a horrendous murder. Even though a real person had been tortured for hours before being killed, Dan's description was abstract and technical.

"We estimate there was an interval of two to three hours between the first and second cut. Tearing along the incision indicates the victim was subjected to additional physical trauma after each of the first two incisions."

"I'm sorry. I don't understand what you mean."

"Jean, I cannot prove it, but I believe the victim was raped after each incision. The only evidence is the tearing and the presence of semen in the incisions."

"Oh, my God!"

"Maybe you've seen enough?"

"Sorry Dan, please continue."

"The second cut was made with the blade extended to the second position. The incision is 5 to 6 millimeters deep and cuts deeper into the subcutaneous layer. Of course, the top of the incision couldn't go deeper since the first cut had already reached the sternum. Once the blade dropped below the xiphoid process or bottom of the sternum, it plunged deeper. You can see the second incision lost track with the first incision at that point. The victim must have thrashed around when the blade plunged into her abdomen. The pain would have been intense. The blood loss would also have been greater than after the first incision but would have still only involved severed capillaries. She was still alive after the second cut. Again, the murder waited for several hours before making the third and final cut. The second incision also shows tearing and the presence of semen in the incision."

Dan looked at me and said, "Maybe we should stop here. I'm sure you understand the utter depravity of the murder without going further. The next photographs are far more horrific. You will not be able to get them out of your mind for the rest of your life."

"Dan, please go on. It's my duty to David and the victim as well."

Dan shook his head and selected a close-up photograph of Inesa's pubic region. The final deep cut ran down the middle of her mons pubis and continued through her vulva and perineum before reaching her anus.

Dan said, "The final two-inch-deep cut killed her. She bled out over an extended period. I suspect something forced her assailant to rush his methodical ritual. From everything I've seen, he was obsessive. I would have expected him to continue making incremental increases in the depth of the incisions. Even so, I cannot imagine the pain the victim suffered."

I was staring at the photograph. The analytical part of my brain was cataloging the steady stream of information flowing from Dan. Meanwhile, the emotional side of my brain was reeling in shock. Dan must have noticed my face going pale before I felt a watery metallic taste in my mouth. He pushed my head down over the wastebasket seconds before I puked out the partially digested fragments of my Philly cheesesteak sandwich. Remind me never to puke again when my stomach is filled with fried onions, peppers and pieces of steak.

Dan was an expert at handling puking clients. He carefully gathered my hair and held it away from my mouth. When I finished, he offered me a paper towel and a cup of cool water.

"I'm sorry. One minute I was following your expert opinion and the next my body betrayed me."

"Don't worry, Jean. Almost everyone has vomited while getting a briefing on this brutal murder. We can quit if you want. We covered everything except for the blood evidence and material we recovered from under the victim's fingernails. We didn't find any fingerprints other than the victim's."

I sat back and sipped the water. "What can you tell me about the blood evidence?"

"We started by testing Inesa's blood type. It was O-positive and matched the blood collected from the bed and sheets. At that point, the DA called and said he had enough to convict, so we stopped working on the evidence. We have a limited budget and too many cases. We only test physical evidence when we have a requisition."

"What about the material under her fingernails? Do you think she fought her attacker?"

"The material is definitely a mixture of skin cells and blood. The victim scratched someone, but for all we know, she may have scratched herself. Again, we did not test the material."

"Seriously? What if the blood type of the material from under her fingernails did not match David?"

"The problem with human leukocyte antigen tests is that most people fall into just two categories. O-positive and A-positive account for over 70% of the population. Unless someone has a rare blood type, the test would be useless."

"But you still have the physical evidence?"

"Of course, we have everything that was collected in storage. You can pay to have us test it, or you can convince a judge to order the tests."

I made a note to check with the woman who raised David to find out if she knew his blood type. I assumed that Professor Williams knew how to contact David's aunt.

Dan said, "This is probably not the killer's first victim. I'm not certain how many others there are because the ritual appears to be evolving. I found three similar cases in the North Philly area. The first case involved a young woman who was tied to a bed and disemboweled with one stroke of a kitchen knife. It may not be related but the second victim was killed similarly to Inesa. The second victim died from a deep cut from the neck to the anus. She was the first one killed with a box cutter. The third victim had multiple overlapping cuts from the neck to the anus. She was tortured over a period of several hours or possibly even days.

#

I felt a growing confidence in my Wednesday morning class on contract law. For once I sat up straight and did not try to hide. On the other hand, I dreaded my next meeting with Professor Williams. David's case was not moving fast enough for me. All I had learned at the Medical Examiner's Office was that I had a queasy stomach. I had already known that the murder was horrendous.

Professor Williams laughed at my impatience. I read from my extensive notes but left out the part where I puked out my Philly steak sandwich. He didn't seem surprised that most of the physical evidence had not been tested. He liked my suggestion to contact the aunt who raised David.

He had a phone number for her, and he called Helen while I waited. My fingers were crossed. If David had a rare blood type, we could get a court order to test the cellular material collected from under Inesa's fingernails. Maybe, just maybe there would not be a match with David, and we could appeal his conviction. Professor Williams would have to give me a passing grade if we won David's release.

Helen was pleased to hear that her friend was working on her nephew's case. They chatted a bit before the professor asked about blood types. She did not know her boys' blood types but agreed to contact their doctor as soon as she hung up.

"One more thing Helen, would it be possible for my intern to come and visit you? She has some questions about David. It would be helpful if she could look around his room."

There was a pause before the professor said, "Thanks, Helen. I'll have Jean come over after 7 tonight."

He listened for a moment before he said, "Goodbye Helen. Keep praying for David. I have a good feeling about getting him released soon."

He turned to me and said, "Sorry I didn't ask if you were free this evening, but Helen said neither of her sons will be around at that hour. We need to keep pressing if we want to get David released before your summer internship is over. I would hate to give you an incomplete after all the work you've done so far."

#

I grabbed a quick bite from a food truck and set out on foot for Helen's place. According to the professor's directions, her apartment was even closer than the corner store where I had gone for coffee. I was thankful that the weather was a little more bearable than my last time I was walking through this neighborhood. I was certainly better dressed in a white short-sleeve blouse and light khakis. With any luck, I would be back in my room before dark.

Helen's apartment was in a narrow three-story brownstone like the one where I attended the rent party. The front door wasn't locked. Helen's name on a mailbox in the lobby indicated she was on the third floor. I swallowed hard before I started to climb the stairs. Memories of Jamel and Youssef's assault at rent party made my legs weak. What if they were here despite Helen's assurance?