Bloodsworth by Tim Junkin Read Free Book Online

area were taken and sketches of the scene made. A footprint in a mound of dirt was observed and photographed. Detective Sturgeon tried to lift latent fingerprints from the victim’s body using magna brush powder, but was unsuccessful. Later, because Chris Shipley thought the stranger might have touched his tackle box, Sturgeon dusted it for prints, again without success. The Big Red gum wrapper, with possible blood on its underside, was removed to a plastic bag; dirt and blood samples from around the body were taken; a navy blue belt loop, a red fiber from near the body, and a strand of human hair found nearby were all carefully stored. A piece of concrete found near the victim’s head, with a possible spot of blood on it, was also bagged. Detective Ramsey assumed this was the murder weapon. He cautioned everyone on the scene that this one piece of information was to remain confidential. It was not to be revealed to the public or press. Ramsey noted a strange mark or bruise on Dawn’s neck, like the imprint of a shoe’s sole with a herringbone pattern. One was on her back as well. Close-up photographs recorded these markings. Dr. Paul Guerin arrived, and officially pronounced Dawn dead at 5:03 P.M . When the crime scene analysis was complete, her body was wrapped in a sheet and taken to the morgue. During the autopsy, as reported by the medical examiner in the autopsy report, semen was found in both her vaginal and anal cavities. She had died, the medical examiner determined, from both strangulation and traumatic brain injury.
    While the area around Dawn’s body was being picked over by investigators, Detective Capel radioed Detective Howard Hessie, who had been instructed to stay close to the two key eyewitnesses, the boys Shipley and Poling, and asked Hessie to escort them down to Youth Services where he would meet them. Capel figured that thepeople who had the best opportunity to view the probable killer were these two boys, Chris Shipley and Jackie Poling. Though Chris was only ten at the time, and Jackie just seven, Capel felt that they might be best able to provide the clues needed to find the murderer, and he wanted to interview them while their memories were fresh and untainted by suggestion. He remained at the crime scene for only about twenty minutes before he left to meet them.

PART III
A COMPOSITE, A PROFILE, A GAMBIT
    A little neglect may breed mischief: for want of a nail the shoe was lost; for want of a shoe the horse was lost; and for want of a horse the rider was lost.
    â€”B ENJAMIN F RANKLIN

SEVEN
    T HERE ARE COPS AND then there are murder cops. Homicide investigators. The crème de la crème. The ones who’ve made it to the top.
    They have to work their way up. First they’re on patrol, walking a beat, cruising through neighborhoods, ticketing speeders, handling shoplifters, drunks, domestic fights. The good ones make detective: vice, fraud, robbery. Only the very best, the ones who prove their mettle, are promoted to homicide. Robbery, burglary, rape—they’re ugly enough. But murder beats all.
    Detectives Ramsey and Capel were not newcomers to death. They’d both pretty much seen the whole underbelly of Baltimore County. Bad and really bad. But this crime was in a category of its own. Dawn Hamilton was just a kid and the way she was abused and killed made them certain they had one sick and dangerous perpetrator on the loose out there.
    Ramsey and Capel had been given control of the case as the lead detectives, the ones put in charge. It was their job to run the investigation, supervise the others, make the important decisions, solvethe crime. Their peers were watching. The world was watching. The community was afraid. The community
needed
an arrest.
    A nineteen-year veteran of the police department, with nine years of experience as a homicide detective, Robert Capel in 1984 was a tall, bearlike man, with salt-and-pepper hair and an inquisitive but courteous