PART III Chapter One
Susan was waking up, trying to get her eyes to focus and make herself aware of where she was. It was dark and for some reason she was on the floor. She felt something wet dripping down her face but she didn’t know what it was. Her head was pounding with pain and she didn’t understand why. She thought maybe she was having some kind of medical event. She tried to get up but couldn’t make her legs work to hold her up. She crawled to a nightstand in her bedroom using the faint light that came through her window. It was a struggle to get to even though it was merely four feet from where she woke. Her phone was on the nightstand and she managed to dial 911.
When the 911 operator answered the call, twenty-eight year old Susan Warren explained that she woke up on the floor and didn’t remember why. She told them about not being able to get up and the terrible pain she felt in her head, so the 911 operator dispatched medical help and notified police of a suspected drug overdose. When the paramedics arrived and they found the girl, it was obvious that this was not a drug overdose. The girl had clear head injuries with severe bleeding from that area.
The lead paramedic said, “That looks like a gunshot wound in her head.”
The paramedic on the floor was trying to give CPR and the lead paramedic was calling dispatch to describe what they had found and to notify the hospital they were on their way.
When the girl was asked multiple times what happened to her, she told them she couldn’t remember. When examined closely it appeared the lead paramedic had assessed correctly, she had a gunshot wound and her condition was critical. They tried to make her as stable as possible while they transported her to the closest trauma center. Emergency workers were waiting when the paramedics arrived and she was rushed inside. The girl was immediately taken to emergency surgery.
Police officers were dispatched to the residence since the medical team disclosed the gunshot injuries. Before the officers made it to the scene the hospital reported the death of the victim. That changed the situation and the girl was now a victim of murder. Dispatch sent that information to the Boston homicide unit. Police Lieutenant Kate Murphy got the call and sent word to the crime scene unit to meet her. For the time being that was her daughter Megan who had graduated with her criminology degree and was now actively working with her mother Kate at the Roxbury police department.
The house was dark when Kate and Megan arrived on the scene. The two women had gloves on when they entered the house and Kate found a light switch when she came through the bedroom doorway. The blood on the floor painted a clear picture of where the victim had been laying when the paramedics arrived to render aid. Some members of the police department had already drawn a chalk line around the body to aid the detectives when they arrived. Transporting the victim for medical treatment had been critical since she was still holding onto life.
It would be Kate and Megan’s job to try to put together the story of what happened. Kate’s partner Cindy arrived just a few minutes after Kate and Megan. They would spread out to examine the entire house to search for possible evidence anywhere it appeared.
Kate and Cindy did a walk through at the house while Megan started processing the scene. The back door looked like it had been kicked open. The lock area was busted and the trim around the door was knocked away. The victim had been laying on the bedroom floor facing the direction of the back door. It looked like the break-in had awakened the victim and she went to investigate what the noise was and was killed before she even got out of the bedroom.
Kate looked down at the chalk line and said, “I thought they only did chalk in the movies. I assume someone got some photos of the actual victim laying there?”
Megan heard her mom and replied, “One of the other techs arrived before the ambulance and took some photos to preserve the scene. He drew the chalk line to reference where the body was.
Kate replied, “Tell him thanks, it does actually give us a good frame of reference having the line.”
There were footprints in the blood on the floor but it was uncertain whether that was from a suspect or from one of the EMS workers. They would photo the footprints in the blood in case there was something to match it to later. They also took samples of the blood on the floor to obtain DNA in case they found a suspect later who had bloody clothing or other items that can be matched to.
Kate discovered muddy footprints on the back door and called Megan in to match them to the bloody footprints in the bedroom. Megan not only matched the prints to the bedroom prints but informed Kate that based on those prints their shooter wore size eleven and a half shoes. Cindy pointed out to Kate that there were footprints in the mud leading up to the door, then obviously the shooter kicked the door in, by busting the frame around the door. Megan looked closely at the damage and announced to Kate they were looking for a larger strong man. She insisted the force needed to break the door frame would have been a lot.
Just inside the doorway muddy footprints came inside about four feet in and stopped. Scattered around where the prints ended were three spent shell casings. To their knowledge there had only been one bullet injury to the victim’s head but that would have to be confirmed by an autopsy. The casings were nine millimeters in size and since they were ejected it was assumed the gun wasn’t a revolver. Kate told her colleagues that it looked like the shooter busted in, stepped forward and saw the victim reacting to the sounds of a break-in.
It seemed clear the victim heard the sounds of the break-in, got out of bed but was shot before she could get any farther than her bedroom. Kate thought the shooter fired three shots but missed two of them so they would explore inside the bedroom looking to see if the shots hit inside the room somewhere. Cindy went out to follow the footprints in the mud backward to see where they came from. The footprints led to the back alley but then disappeared right where tire prints were visible. Kate figured the shooter came to the house, parked in the back alley so he wouldn’t be seen in the neighborhood. The footprints went both directions indicating that the shooter left the same way he came in. They took photos of the tire prints to use for a future match and possibly identifying the make of the vehicle.
The victim had been identified by the driver's license found in her purse. Her license identified her as twenty-eight year old Susan Warren. They would do background checks to find out who her family and friends were. The three women went back to the bedroom to look for any signs of the missed shots on any of the walls there. They had calculated the shooter was tall based on the position of the footprint on the back door.
It was clear the shooter was standing and shot downward. It looked like the victim was shot and then fell on the floor. There were hand prints also in the blood on the floor. They knew the victim had made the 911 call herself, after being shot. The prints in the blood told them she crawled to her cell phone to make the call. Her phone was covered in blood and there were some drops of blood on the nightstand apparently from when the victim grabbed her phone.
The footprints from the shooter indicated he walked into the bedroom, probably to check the condition of the victim. She was unconscious most likely at that time and the shooter saw the head wound and assumed the victim was deceased. Satisfied that he had succeeded in his attack he went out the back door and made his way to whatever he had parked in the alley.
Kate suggested that they check the bedroom completely for signs of gunshots. She was convinced the shooter missed two shots from the information she had been given about the head wound. One of her tasks before going back to the station would be to check with the coroner to see if any other shots had entered the victim.
The three women spread out to carefully examine the walls in the room to see if there was any gunshot damage found anywhere. The walls showed no signs of a bullet wound so they kept looking. They shined flashlights around the room and finally found a gunshot pit in the footboard of the victim’s bed. Megan took a photo of the area and then she dug into the puncture to find the shell inside.
The shell they dug out was a nine millimeter just like the casings they had found in the back entryway. The search for the other gunshot location continued. Kate finally saw a spot on the dresser across from the bed. It was located at the lower part of one side of the dresser.
Megan tried to dig the shell out of the dresser side but it had gone through the drawer right next to that side. Kate slid the drawer allowing Cindy and Megan to look in through that opening.
Cindy said, “I see it, there are a lot of splinters there with it. It looked like the shell went through the side of the dresser and the drawer that was inside there and rested in that corner.”
Megan took a photo of the gunshot damage before they took the shell out, she then took a photo of the shell that went into the damaged area. She added that photo with the others that were shot around the room. She already had photos of the blood on the floor along with the chalked drawing of the body position. They had photos of the back door and the damage to the frame and photos of the footprints that led to the alley and the tire tracks.
Megan had swabbed the blood in the floor and added the recovered shells and casings to her baggie collection file. She bagged the victim’s phone to examine back at the lab. The team collected financial paperwork from the desk in the bedroom. They had bank statements and other documents that told the story about the victim’s finances. They were searching to see if they could figure out where the victim worked.
Megan put all of the collection bags together. The three women carried out the evidence that had been collected and went under the crime scene tape that some of the patrol officers had placed around the house. Kate knew she would most likely be back in the light of day to do further examination.
Kate told Megan to get the evidence back to the lab while she and Cindy went to the coroners to see if they had any other breaks. Sometimes they were grateful for the smallest lead they could get. Kate followed Megan for a couple of blocks before turning off to go to the coroner’s office.
They left a couple of techs at the house to finish processing the scene. The techs would collect almost anything that wasn’t nailed down whether or not it was clearly involved. Kate would come back and go through the house again just to make sure and both of the techs that were left there were well aware of Kate’s reputation.
Kate’s reputation around the department was full of truths, half-truths, and exaggerations. Cindy knew about them, she had heard them all and perhaps had made up a few of the exaggerations even though she knew it wasn’t necessary, the truth was scary enough without any additions.