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by Mary Jumbelic Opening the wrapping, I see there are two severed arms in the package. Their pale white skin is speckled with tiny yellow bumps, and very cold. Chipped coral polish, inexpertly applied, is visible on the fingernails, bitten to the quick. An aroma of astringent emanates from the limbs along with a sour smell. “Where were these found?” I ask the young cop, who is shifting back and forth, breathing out puffs of winter air. This is the start of the questioning that helps me do my job as Deputy Chief Medical Examiner. He points to a white pickup truck with the passenger door hanging open, parked in an otherwise empty lot. The vehicle gives the impression that someone is just running in to buy a pack of smokes at a corner store, though none is nearby. There is a large hand-made ‘for sale’ sign at one edge of the property, advertising the real estate. The red spray-paint on the wooden notice is stark against the snowy backdrop. The truck is 50-feet away; a patina of white powder covers the hood. There are two teenage boys standing near the front, heads bowed, kicking the gray slush on the asphalt with their sneakers. A suited, middle-aged man leans into the conversation, putting his hand on the taller boy’s shoulder. Curly wisps of red hair mark him as Detective O’Connor. The teen recoils at the touch, looking alarmed, and shakes his head vigorously. The youths appear to be denying everything. “Was that the condition of the car when you got here?” I ask. “I didn’t touch anything. Not even this,” he says nervously, looking down at the partially opened parcel laying at our feet. “I know,” I pause to look at his brass name plate on the left breast pocket of his uniform, “Officer Shane.” He nods, comforted by my tone. I try a different approach, “When was this body found?” Glancing at his spiral notebook, he replies, “2200, Doctor.” He looks earnestly at me, waiting. It is already past 11 PM. Office Shane has been standing outside guarding the remains for over an hour. “Anything else turn up yet?” I say, squatting down to take a closer look. The arms are only partially exposed, but are clearly detached from the rest of the person. There is a whole lot more of a body out there somewhere. “No, sorry. We’re waiting on the search warrant,” He stomps his feet to warm them up. All of my other questions wait for the detective to finish up interviewing the teens. Shane fills me in on the basics. The boys broke into the pickup and stole a package that was wedged under the front seat. Having carried it to an adjacent alley, they used a pocket knife to open up their treasure. It was tough work getting through butcher paper and multiple layers of heavy plastic wrapping until they exposed what was inside. The horror of it made one of the kids lose his macaroni and cheese dinner. What did they think they were going to be rewarded with on this cold February night? Booze? Drugs? Something more basic — food, clothes? My curiosity over this question will never be answered. The result of this juvenile prank traumatizes them with an emotional retrograde amnesia. The event as they repeatedly recall to investigators, started with them opening the container; they couldn’t reconstruct the timeline backwards from then. One boy keeps saying, “When I cut it, the hand just fell out,” over and over. Their naiveté and sincerity is the only thing preventing the police from considering them suspects in the murder. O’Connor finishes with the youths and walks quickly over to me blowing on his ungloved fingers. Despite the chill in the air, he looks flushed. “What have we got here, Doc? White girl, right? Teenager?” he says. He is speaking quickly, and anxious for my reply. “I don’t know,” I hesitate, “I can’t really see the details of the skin. It appears pale but…” My voice trails off. Only a cursory exam is possible here at the scene. Not wanting to supply erroneous information, caution about the age, gender, and ethnicity is needed. A forensic pathologist needs advanced microscopic and radiologic analyses to make those conclusions. “I need better lighting. I’ll know more when we get to the morgue,” I say. X-rays will help too, showing the growth plates in the bones which are distinctive markers for age. At first glance, the arms appear to be from a young person, but radiographs will be more accurate. Looking at tissue cells under the microscope, not in this dimly lit street, will reveal male or female, and ancestry. “Okay, I get it, but the chief is ready to move on this. Could be it’s that missing girl from the next county.” His eyes bore into mine, emphasizing his words. “Maybe,” I say. A young blonde girl has been missing for months. There are posters all over the region — at throughway rest stops, convenience stores, post offices. Her face is well known. Yet, there must be dozens of other girls who are missing, too. Another consideration is the timing doesn’t feel right. The condition of the arms indicates they have been preserved for a longer time. “Can you get me any reports from the past 10 years on missing teens in the area?” “10 years?” He scoffs. “No way, those have been out here that long.” “Sure, not in the truck. But they look like they were stored somewhere, maybe for quite a while,” I say, “someone might be mobilizing them now.” My words sound bizarre even to me. Who cuts up a person, uses fixative, meticulously swathes them, then leaves them in a box in their truck? “Yeah, whatever, we’ll get you what you need,” O’Connor replies and turns to his sedan, leaving Shane and me to wait for the transport vehicle. The rest of the examination of these two lonely body parts takes place in the bright autopsy suite. Each portion of the wrapping is photographed and carefully retained. The perpetrator may have left a trace hair or fiber or fingerprint behind. There are so many layers of plastic and paper to go through before the arms themselves can be inspected. Surgical instruments and a dissecting microscope assist me in the evidence collection. What had looked like Caucasian skin at the scene, was not. When I stretch the arm open, darker cutaneous clumps appear at the elbow crease. The exposed dermis is white and shiny, usually hidden beneath the epidermis, that holds the characteristics of skin color. On these arms, a majority of the pigmented surface has been denuded. Histologic slides confirm the extensive melanin deposition of an African American. Radiographs of the humerus and radius reveal the person is approximately 13-17 years old. Additional studies prove the limbs are from a female. Someone’s daughter, sister, grandchild, niece. It is a long night and another day before I fax my summary over to the police department describing the severed upper extremities. They originated from a young teen, and it appears as if she has been dead quite a while. Hack marks are noted at the amputation site of the long bones of the arms near the shoulders. These saw wounds are postmortem; she had died before this barbarous act. Bits of soil are trapped in the coverings indicating she was in the ground. The remainder of her body is still unaccounted for. It is my responsibility to name this girl. To do this, I need to know who she might be. There is no super-computer that can quickly assign an individual’s identification. Telephoning the station, my call is transferred from the desk sergeant to the records clerk to the lead detective in my search for missing African American teenagers. Told repeatedly that there are none, the police chief assures me personally, no black female teenagers are missing in the city. Where did she come from? Where was she going? How did she end up as a discarded sack in a truck? An eventual search of the vehicle owner’s residence uncovers more, but not all, body parts. Each parcel is wrapped in precisely the same method and well hidden on his property. Her head and thorax are never found. This case makes the news with the gruesome allure of tragedy. Luckily, this reporting leads to an interview with a distraught man claiming that the victim must be his granddaughter, Keisha. He describes that she was last seen in the company of the suspect, who had been a neighbor. This young girl has been missing for five years. The police captain is quoted in the paper as saying ‘there is no way’ these remains could be this teenager. This bold statement shocks me. “Detective O’Connor, please,” I say, counting from one to ten in my mind, to control the emotion in my voice. “Doc,” he says as he picks up the phone, and starts to talk, but I interrupt him. “My case, could it be Keisha?” I ask. Before now, there were no possibilities. “Well, Doc, the body doesn’t look like it could have been there all those years,” he says. Inhale, exhale, then speak, my inner self cautions. “Forensically, I’ve determined that she could have been there that long. It’s in my report. A preservative was used. She was buried,” I explain. There is a pause as he considers the information. “But Keisha was never really missing,” he says, hoping to end the discussion. “What do you mean she wasn’t really missing?” I ask, disbelief in my voice. “The grandfather said she’s been gone since she was 13 - that’s five years. You never gave me any records for missing black girls. He said he filed a report.” O’Connor doesn’t answer right away; maybe he didn’t hear me. I’m about to speak when he responds in a quiet tone, “They were considered runaways. Not missing kids.” They. More than just one overlooked report. Stunned by this news, I hang up without a further word. My stomach roils at this blatant racism. Ultimately, a multi-agency meeting will establish that there are three city girls that fit the profile for the victim at my morgue. The newspaper article lists Frank McCavey on the byline. The reporter describes the conversation with the grandfather in a phone call with me, though most of the pertinent facts were already in his written account. Tracking down this relation of the missing girl, takes me one step closer to her identity. He is grateful to tell Keisha’s story — her troubled youth, friendship with this older man, the family’s pain and years of loss. The official scientific identification takes a long time. It isn’t like a television crime show where results are immediate. In government work, the medical examiner’s office must compete with other agencies for precious tax dollars — fire safety, police surveillance, social services — an unending list of protectors and caregivers for the living. The dead, particularly the long dead, must wait in line. The DNA testing takes months and months. The tissue is degraded; the measurements are complex. Federal and local laboratories coordinate their work. The analysis compares Keisha’s mother’s genes from a cellular organelle called the mitochondria to similar material from the victim. Speaking with the family every few weeks, I keep them updated with the progress. All of the other evaluations indicate it is Keisha laying in pieces in my morgue. We wait for the official results; science must prove her identity conclusively. Finally, all that remains — the arms, thigh, pelvis and leg — are linked to this missing teenager. As devastating as this is to the family, they are amazingly grateful to me for letting them know what happened to her, for caring who she is. More than a year after the gruesome discovery in a deserted parking lot, they hold a memorial service for their little girl. On the day of the funeral, I meet Keisha’s grandfather at the front of the white clapboard church. We go into the sanctuary where a simple but large wooden cross adorns the altar. There is no figure on it, just slats of wood. He hands me an elementary school photo, on a piece of cardboard with crayoned decoration around it, secured by yellowing tape. The child in the picture grins broadly with a missing front tooth. Her yellow top has a plaid Peter Pan collar. There are small red barrettes in her short, black hair. Tears well up in my eyes. Her grandfather leans in to hug me as I cling to the photo like a talisman. With a dignified nod, he heads to the front of the church, as I slip into a seat in the back pew. A mournful tune sounds on the upright piano while the family and congregants file in. Everyone is dressed in colorful Sunday-best including matching hats, gloves, ties, and breast-pocket-liners. The reverend begins with the 23rd Psalm, as quiet weeping is heard in the background. A semi-circle of votive candles flickers on each side of the altar. Then, as if signaling an end to the mourning, the music crescendoes and the choir, dressed in white graduation-style gowns begins singing. People rise to their feet with energy and enthusiasm. My heart starts pounding with the rhythm of the clapping. The row of supplicants in front of me moves side to side. Neighbors in my pew rock against my shoulders, too. “And upon the streets of glory, when we reach the other shore, and have safely crossed the Jordan’s rolling tide,” the entire church is alive with singing. Hands rise in the air with the next lines, “You will find me shouting ‘Glory’ just outside my mansion door, where I’m living on the hallelujah side.” My eyes drift up watching the swaying arms as the heat from the crowd makes wavy lines in my vision. I imagine the body parts coming back together to form a whole, no longer a lost little girl, but one with a name and a family, and finally going home. |
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