A Tale of Two Heads

I finished typing my final report of my latest case and took the folder to the Captain to sign. It hadn't been particularly difficult case to figure out. It was just another of the many gang related murders that seem to happen in any big city.

This case happened in the alley behind a popular Chattanooga nightclub and I was assigned to figure out the who, when, how, and why. Then I'd give all that information to the DA to get an arrest warrant so I could arrest the killer and the DA could put the asshole in prison for at least twenty or so years..

I already knew the "when", because the victim was lying in the alley and the blood pool around him was still fresh when the uniforms found him. They'd responded to a 911 call of gunfire at 4:36 AM from a resident of an apartment above a resale shop that shared the alley. When they drove down the alley at 4:55 AM, they saw the victim lying in front of a dumpster with a bullet hole in his chest and a blood pool still forming.

That also solved the how part of the equation needed to find and convict the killer, though I'd had to wait until Chris Morgan, our Coroner, decided on an official cause of death. That turned out to be a single,.40 caliber bullet that entered the victim just to the left of his breastbone, sliced through his heart, and then ricocheted around his ribcage and took out his right lung before exiting through his right side. There were powder burns on the guy's clothing. Chris said he was probably dead within a minute of being shot and wouldn't have been able to move much after about thirty seconds. That eliminated the need to look for a second crime scene.

There are two parts to the "who" question -- who was the victim and who was the killer. Any murder investigation pretty much comes to a screeching halt if you don't have the name of the victim. Knowing who the victim is gives a detective an access to an investigation checklist of residence, family, friends and acquaintances, past history criminal or otherwise, and financial status. Without a name, the detective is just shooting in the dark and hoping to hit something that squeals.

In this case, identifying the victim was easy. Leander Phillips had a driver's license in his wallet and after Chris took his prints, those prints confirmed his identity. The TBI had his prints because Leander had been a pretty bad boy since he was eighteen. My guess was he'd started dealing drugs for his gang, TG6, some time before that, but and his juvenile records would be sealed and since he was dead, I had no reason to wade through the red tape to find out.

Leander was twenty-five and had started his adult career with two years in minimum security in Bledsoe for dealing crack when he was eighteen. Bledsoe is a prison with a pretty great rehab program. A lot of young, non-violent offenders end up in minimum security in Bledsoe in the hopes they'll get some education or learn a skill and become productive members of society.

Apparently that two years didn't make Leander any smarter, because six months after he got out of Bledsoe he was back on the street with a pocket full of Vicodin. Apparently he thought the undercover TBI agent was just another addict when he sold the agent four Vicodin tablets. That had cost Leander another four years back in Bledsoe. I suppose the judge thought the second time would be the charm.

Leander had been out of his second vacation in Bledsoe about three weeks when the uniforms found him. When the Corner got to the scene and searched Leander's pockets he didn't find any crack or Vicodin. My guess was that Leander had sold out of inventory and was looking to re-stock.

That was a logical choice for the "why". It was logical because Leander was known to be a member of TG6 but he was about twenty blocks from TG6 turf.

TG6 is sort of a "wanna be" gang in that they don't have connections to any of the big cartel operations and have to buy their drugs from other gangs who are connected. Where Leander was, was in the home turf of Bario Cubana, a gang that originated in Miami, but had spread north as far as Kentucky.

Bario Cubana was the equivalent of a corporate distribution chain and ran drugs from the Gulf through the southeastern US. They mostly sold to small to medium gangs in that area. It would make sense that Leander was trying to replace his inventory by buying a new stash from Bario Cubana.

To most people, it wouldn't be logical that some guy from Bario Cubana would off Leander since Leander was a customer. It made sense to me though, because about three years into Leander's second stint in Bledsoe, he told his cellmate that he knew some things about Bario Cubana that he'd be willing to tell if it would get a year knocked off his four year sentence.

Now, his cellmate, being just a little smarter than Leander kept that information to himself until he was released a month later. Word on the street was that this cellmate talked to some guy who talked to some other guy who talked to some other guy. The end result was that Bario Cubana had a hardon for Leander. He just didn't know it and when he went back into business, his contact made sure Leander couldn't use whatever he knew if he got caught again.

It was the second "who" that was harder to figure out. Well, it wasn't hard to figure out, but it was a bitch to prove. When a murder happens in that part of Chattanooga, the residents suddenly become blind, deaf and dumb. They didn't see anything, they didn't hear anything, and they have no idea about anybody in any gang. Hell, they won't even admit to knowing Bario Cubana even exists.

That's because in addition to being the courier service for the Florida drug cartels, they have this bad habit of disappearing anyone who says anything that might interfere with their operation. I suppose the threat of losing a few million in income while spending a few years of quality time with a cellmate nicknamed "El Toro" might have a tendency to tilt your moral compass quite a bit.

Anyway, my prime suspect for the killer was Inigo Lopez. Inigo was one of the maybe one percent of criminals who are actually smart enough to avoid arrest for crimes they've committed. Inigo had been the suspect in at least six gang murders that I knew of, but there was never enough hard evidence to put his ass in jail.

We'd gotten a lot of statements like, "Well I heard it was this guy named Ini something", or "The word is if you fuck with Bario Cubana, you end up getting fucked up by Inigo Lopez."

We were positive those statements were true for the simple reason that when Inigo was brought in for questioning, he'd have an alibi for any situation we asked him about. He couldn't have killed the guy because he and his girlfriend were in Pigeon Forge that week and he had the hotel receipts to prove it. He couldn't have killed the guy because he was in Chicago visiting his sister for two weeks and he had the airline tickets to prove it. The tentacles of drug organizations stretch far and wide. Inigo had either paid off enough people or threatened enough people that they'd testify that he was somewhere miles away from where the guy was killed.

What finally got Inigo into an interrogation room was the sharp thinking of Gary Morrison, one of our crime scene techs. He was going through the pockets of Leander's pants and wasn't finding anything. Knowing Leander's background and where he was found, it didn't make sense to Gary that Leander didn't have anything in his pockets. If he'd been there buying drugs, he should have had the drugs on him. If he didn't have the drugs, he should have had a wad of cash. Since Leander didn't have either, someone, probably the killer, had taken either the drugs or the cash from Leander.

Gary swabbed the inside of each pocket for DNA and after the swabs were analyzed, there were two different profiles. One was Leander's DNA profile. The other belonged to Inigo Lopez.

Inigo had had his DNA sampled when he was arrested for murdering one Solana Mendoza, a prostitute who worked the Bario Cubana area of Chattanooga. The police had one witness who said she saw Inigo kill Solana. Inigo had six witnesses who said he was in Knoxville when Solana was strangled. The first witness was found dead from an overdose of heroin the day before the trial was to begin and the police couldn't find any other evidence, so the DA was forced to drop the case.

Inigo's DNA sat in CODIS until Gary sent the unknown DNA profile for a match. That DNA match got me an arrest warrant for Inigo and a search warrant for Inigo's apartment. The search turned up a stash of coke, Vicodin, Oxycodone, about a hundred grand in cash, and a Glock 27 in.40 S&W caliber.

When I got Inigo into an interrogation room with his lawyer, I put it all on the line and added a couple lies to sweeten the pot.

"Mr. Lopez, I have the pistol you used to kill Leander Phillips and our crime scene techs found your DNA on the grip and trigger. That's all I need to convict you of murder, but there's more evidence. They also found Mr. Phillips' blood on the muzzle of the pistol. That means you were close enough to him that when the bullet entered his chest, the splatter from the wound was sprayed on your pistol.

"A bullet fired from your pistol matches the bullet retrieved from Mr. Phillips' chest. I have your DNA on the inside of Mr. Phillips' pockets. The fact that you searched Mr. Phillips' pockets tells me he had something you wanted and you killed him to get it. It won't be hard to convince a jury that you planned the murder in order to get what he had. Because it was an obviously pre-planned murder, the DA is going to ask for the death penalty.

"Now, I don't know if you planned to kill him or not. It could very well be that you met him and told him to give you whatever he had that you wanted. He could have started to fight and the gun went off during the fight. If that's what happened, that would be unintentional and would make the charge manslaughter instead of premeditated murder. The last case I handled that was deemed to be manslaughter, the guy got twenty years.

"What I need to know from you is what happened and I need the truth. I have the evidence to support murder, so if I think you're lying, we'll be done here. I'll put you back into a holding cell until you go before a judge for arraignment.

"I doubt you'll get bail so you'll get to meet some interesting people while you're awaiting your trial. I think we're holding Adam Sampson right now. He's here awaiting trial for beating the shit out of José Hernandez. José was born right here in Chattanooga, but Adam...well, when Adam gets drunk, he has a real thing about people with names that sound Hispanic. The word is he's about the same when he's sober. You ready to talk or not?"

Inigo looked at his lawyer, and then leaned over to whisper something to him. The lawyer whispered something back, and then turned to me.

"Mr. Lopez says it happened like you said. Mr. Lopez met Mr. Phillips because Mr. Phillips said he was going to pay back a loan he'd gotten from Mr. Lopez. When they met, Mr. Phillips said he had no intention of paying the money back and started to rush Mr. Lopez. Mr. Lopez pulled his pistol and told Mr. Phillips to stop, but by that time Mr. Phillips was close enough he could hit Mr. Lopez. When he did, Mr. Lopez accidentally fired his pistol and killed Mr. Phillips. Mr. Lopez did search Mr. Phillips' pockets, but didn't find anything."

I pushed a pad of paper and a pen in front of Inigo.

"You write all that down and sign it and I'll go talk to the DA."

When I took my report to the Captain, I was feeling pretty good. I didn't believe for a second that Inigo hadn't planned on killing Leander, but the confession he'd written and signed would get him put away in maximum security in Bledsoe for the next twenty years. If he behaved himself, he'd be eligible for parole in maybe fifteen. I kind of doubted that he'd make it though. A lot of people don't realized that most of the street gangs have auxiliary chapters in prisons too. It's likely that some members of TG6 taking a time out in Bledsoe already knew Inigo was heading there.

}|{

When I handed the Captain the folder he tossed it in his inbox and then handed me a piece of notepaper.

"Jack, there's a construction site out by Missionary Ridge off of South Crest Road. Some guy by the name of Richard Mullens owns twenty acres of the wooded area there and decided to build a house on the property.

"The contractor digging the foundation was down about two feet when he hooked something with a tooth on his backhoe. When he went to pull it off, he saw that it was rotted leather with some bones inside.

"He called 911 and I sent two officers out. They confirmed that it's a grave and asked for the CSI team and a detective. Because of where it is, I called UT and asked them to send an archeologist out to supervise our CSI team while they remove the body. Missionary Ridge is where the Confederacy set up their sharpshooters after Chickamauga and laid siege to the Union Army in Chattanooga. There were probably Confederate soldiers all over the area and this might be the grave of one of them. Drive out there and see if it's an old Confederate burial or if it's more recent."

}|{

I'm Jack Mason, a detective with twenty years with the Chattanooga Police Department. I spent ten years in a patrol car before passing the detective exam, so I know both the great parts as well as the underbelly of Chattanooga.

I already had fifteen murder investigations under my belt and this didn't sound like I was going to have much to do. It was probably just an old grave. There are many old family cemeteries in the rural areas of Tennessee. There was no legal requirement that they be noted on any deed or survey, so many weren't marked or the markers were just wood and time and weather erased them. Over the years and as the property changed hands the fact that there was a cemetery on the property was forgotten.

There also was a real possibility the contractor had just found a Civil War grave that was a hundred and sixty years old. There were fighting and troop movements all around the Chattanooga area, and soldiers were sometimes buried close to where they fell. It doesn't happen as often as a hundred years ago, but people still occasionally find the grave of a Civil War soldier, and once in a while the even older grave of a Native American who lived in the area before it was settled gets unearthed. From what I'd seen of these gravesites, there usually wasn't much left other than a few brass buttons and in the case of a Native American grave, a few arrow points and shell beads.

When I arrived at the construction site, there were two of our CSI trucks there, one SUV with a UT sticker on the back, and six people standing in a circle around a hole in the ground. I found the man I knew wasn't CSI and introduced myself, then asked him what he'd found. He frowned.

"Afternoon, Detective Mason. I'm Larry Masters and I'm not sure. What I can tell you is that this doesn't look like an old gravesite, or at least some of it doesn't. When a grave is dug and then back-filled, there will be a slight discoloration where the fill soil meets the original soil and there will be a slight depression over the grave. That's because the fill soil isn't tamped down as hard as the surrounding soil. Rainwater will soak in and begin to compact the soil again and that results in the slight depression. It also washes organic matter into the fill soil and it turns a little darker.

"Subsequent decomposition also changes the color of the soil around the remains. I don't see either with this grave. There might be a slight color change above past of the skeletal remains, but it's not really definite enough to date the remains back a hundred and sixty years.

"The other thing that has us all confused is that the skeletal remains have decomposed enough that the bones have disarticulated and the ribs are lying alongside the spine instead of in their normal upright position. That tells me this is an old grave, probably a hundred years old at least, and yet there is hair still present on the skull. That would indicate this is a fairly recent burial like maybe a year old or possibly two.

"We've stopped doing anything for fear of destroying any evidence that might be present in or around the gravesite. I contacted the UT Forensics Anthropology Center in Knoxville and asked them to send one of their people to Chattanooga to tell us what we really have here. They said they'd send Dr. Melrose. It's a little over a hundred miles from Knoxville to Chattanooga and I called them an hour ago, so I'm guessing maybe another hour before they get here."

I walked around the site and took some notes, but nothing I saw indicated that this was a recent burial. Other than the drive to the site the contractor had cut through the trees from South Crest Road, I couldn't find any other place a car or truck could have gotten to the gravesite. To me, it just looked like an old grave, but I learned long ago not to jump to a conclusion without a lot more evidence.

The contractor had left as soon as the CSI team got there, so I made a note to talk to him and anyone who had worked on the site. If this was a new grave, it was entirely possible that the contractor or his backhoe operator was the killer, knew the body was there, and had intentionally dug in that spot to divert suspicion from them. It wouldn't be the first time in my career that the killer had "discovered" the body of his victim.

When I thought about that some more, it was also possible the owner of the site had bought it in order to have a place to hide the body or to make sure nobody started digging around. He could have picked the site for the house for the same reason, that being to divert suspicion from himself. I made a note to talk to the owner as well.

It might seem to most people that I'm pretty suspicious and cynical about everything, but in my line of work, you have to consider all the possibilities and then look for evidence that either proves or disproves each one. That means you need to gather all the information you can get, and for that reason, I interviewed each CSI tech there.

None of them had ever disinterred a really old grave before, so they weren't sure if it was an old grave or just that the body had decomposed at different rates for some reason.

}|{

What I was expecting was an older man, probably with graying hair or maybe bald, a little thick in the middle, and wearing thick glasses. I figured the woman in jeans and a plaid shirt who got out of the black Chevy Blazer was just an assistant who was doing the driving. I waited for someone else to get out.

Like I said before, there are times when what I think turns out to be dead wrong. The woman walked up to Larry, stuck out her hand, and said, "Hi, Larry. It's been a while. Whatcha got that I need to look at?"

I figured her for maybe fifty based on the lines in her face, and though she wasn't ugly by any measure, but neither was she what most people would call beautiful. She just looked like about ninety-nine percent of the women I saw every day. The only real difference was she didn't seem to care much about how she looked.

I couldn't see that she'd used any makeup and her dark brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail that stuck out the back of a baseball cap with the UT logo on the front. The rest of her looked pretty average as well, though it was hard to tell because her jeans and shirt didn't fit very tight. She also wasn't wearing any jewelry that I could see, and in my experience, every woman wants a little sparkle somewhere on her body even if it's just a pair of earrings. My ex-wife would even put on earrings and a ring or two just to do housework. The only thing the woman was wearing that looked decorative was pink running shoes.