False Accusations
Alan Jacobson
CONTENTS
Dedication
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
CHAPTER 34
CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER 36
CHAPTER 37
CHAPTER 38
CHAPTER 39
CHAPTER 40
CHAPTER 41
CHAPTER 42
CHAPTER 43
CHAPTER 44
CHAPTER 45
CHAPTER 46
CHAPTER 47
CHAPTER 48
CHAPTER 49
CHAPTER 50
CHAPTER 51
CHAPTER 52
CHAPTER 53
CHAPTER 54
CHAPTER 55
CHAPTER 56
CHAPTER 57
CHAPTER 58
CHAPTER 59
CHAPTER 60
CHAPTER 61
CHAPTER 62
CHAPTER 63
CHAPTER 64
CHAPTER 65
CHAPTER 66
CHAPTER 67
CHAPTER 68
CHAPTER 69
CHAPTER 70
CHAPTER 71
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Copyright Page
Dedication
For my parents, Florence and David, who provided me with the persistence and fortitude necessary in undertaking anything worth accomplishing in life.
The homicide crime scene is, without a doubt, the most important crime scene a police officer or investigator will be called upon to respond to. Because of the nature of the crime (death by violence or unnatural causes), the answer to “What has occurred?” can only be determined after a careful and intelligent examination of the crime scene and after the professional and medical evaluation of the various bits and pieces of evidence gathered by the criminal investigator. The crime scene...provides an abundance of physical evidence that may connect a suspect or suspects to the crime.
— From Vernon Geberth
Practical Homicide Investigation
CHAPTER 1
December 1
11:26 P.M.
Del Morro Heights
Sacramento, California
THE DARK BLUE CAR snaked around the curve, its headlights slicing like razors through the dead air. It slithered through the neighborhood, hunting for food, sniffing out its prey. With one punch, the large engine muscled up from thirty-five to sixty in less than three seconds, its hunger for speed ravenous.
The man crossing the street caught a glimpse of the looming vehicle and twisted backward, shoving his companion toward the sidewalk —
But there wasn’t time.
The car’s bone-crushing impact threw the woman onto its hood, then tossed her aside...while the engine yanked the man underneath its front end, swallowing him whole.
The dark vehicle lurched slightly as its tire ran over the fallen prey. It then sped off down the street, hung a sharp left, and slipped into the pitch of night.
11:59 P.M.
THE MAN’S TORSO WAS twisted, his head a bloody mess, with bits of brain tissue scattered around his crushed skull. The woman’s body was much more intact, having slid off the side of the car’s hood after being thrown up into the air by the initial impact. Her legs appeared to be broken and were bent into an unnatural position, the way a rag doll sometimes lands when a child tosses it aside after she has finished playing with it.
Most of the available officers in the City of Sacramento that night had been diverted to the minority neighborhood of Del Morro Heights to contain an escalating battle sparked by a broad crackdown on gang-related activities. When the call came in to investigate the discovery of a possible hit-and-run several blocks away, the two officers who responded anticipated more of the same, an offshoot of the hostilities.
But they were wrong.
OFFICER LARRY SANFORD SLAMMED his car door and ran over to the woman, who was lying face up in the street; the other victim was obviously deceased. Both were black. Sanford pulled a hand out of his leather glove and felt her neck for a pulse. “Shit,” he said, the vapor that emanated from his mouth tailing off into the cold night air. He looked up and down the street, but saw no one. He glanced over to his partner and shook his head.
“Dispatch, this is Unit Nine,” the other officer said.
“We’ve got a Code Twenty on San Domingo Street. Notify homicide. Securing crime scene.”
“Roger, Unit Nine.”
“She’s still warm,” Sanford said. “Let’s get this area roped off.” Using a roll of yellow tape, he established the boundaries of the crime scene while his partner blocked off the street and its adjoining arteries with traffic cones. Although out of the academy only six months, they both knew the routine: quick response, safeguard and preserve. That is, secure the crime scene to protect all materials in the vicinity because everything was considered evidence until proven otherwise. No one — not even another police officer — was to enter the area until the detectives arrived. One of the most significant threats to a homicide investigation was the disruption of physical evidence: nothing was to be disturbed, moved, stepped on, or contaminated in any manner.
With the thermometer at 33 degrees, Sanford rolled up the fur collar on his standard-issue blue nylon jacket and shoved both hands into his pockets. He sucked a mouthful of damp air into his lungs: rain was on the way. He sent his partner back to the gang-related conflict while he stood watch over the crime scene.
IN HIS BOXING DAYS, Detective Bill Jennings had a flat, rock hard gut. Some thirty years later, the musculature was stretched thin by the ravages of abuse, resulting in a bulging beer belly. Nevertheless, he carried his weight well and never hesitated to throw it around, both literally and figuratively...sometimes for the better, and sometimes for the worse.
By the time Jennings arrived at San Domingo Street, his partner, Angela Moreno, was already there surveying the scene. Moreno, thirty-five with short-clipped brown hair, nodded at Jennings as he approached.
“Long time no see,” he said.
“Yeah, what, three hours?”
“What’ve we got here?” he asked as they walked over to the two bodies.
“Looks like a hit-and-run. Got two of ‘em,” she said, kneeling down in front of one of the victims. “And we’ve got some broken glass. A headlight,” she said, turning over a large fragment and looking through it.
“Don’t touch it,” Jennings said, grasping her arm. “Saperstein should be here in a few minutes.”
“You called Saperstein again?”
“He was the one on call.”
“You haven’t even looked over the scene. It’s just a hit-and-run. We don’t need a criminalist poking his nose all over the damn street to tell us what we already know.”
“The man single-handedly saved my career, Angela.”
Moreno waved a hand. “I read the reports, Bill. It was a clean shoot.”
“Of course it was. But a
