“Thank you honey, I’ll be home as soon as I can.”
Rosa just rolls her eyes as she kisses him goodbye. “Be careful.”
Garcia rushes home to change his clothes, grabs both his handguns and briefcase, then heads toward the address in Hermosa. Being further north, it takes longer than usual to get to the scene. It takes Garcia about 40 minutes of drive time to arrive on the scene, which happens to be the home of the victim.
Patrol officers and Detective Jackson are already on the scene and have it secured with yellow crime scene tape. This time, the victim was killed inside his house, a light brown, brick, 2-story bungalow in a residential area lined with similar-looking homes. The house is small, with only two bedrooms with a bath upstairs, and a living room, kitchen, bath, and laundry room on the first floor. Five concrete steps with a black wrought iron railing lead to the wooden front door. There are no signs of forced entry into the house.
“Hello Juan,” says Jackson.
“Hi, Trevon. What have we got this time?”
“A friend came over to victim’s home this morning around eleven-thirty, found the front door ajar, walked in, and found our victim dead in a pool of blood.”
Garcia shakes his head, “Same M.O. as our others?”
“Pretty much the same. Our victim was a known drug dealer, got killed inside the living room, probably no more than 8 feet inside the house. One major difference though.”
“Oh? what’s that?”
“Our victim is white.”
“So, this wasn’t our Candy Man Killer?” Garcia asks.
“If not, it’s a copycat. Same type knife left on victim’s chest.”
“Well, it’s got to be the same guy then. That’s just too distinctive and we never told the public the quirk about staging the knife.”
“You may be right,” nods Jackson. “But it could be a copycat. I mean, he is our first white male, and this neighborhood has never before been targeted.”
“This case just keeps getting stranger. Last time a Hispanic and now a white victim. Maybe race has nothing to do with it,” suggests Garcia.
“Let me walk you through the scene,” says Jackson.
Garcia and Jackson put on their latex gloves and hospital-type booties before entering the scene. They enter through the back door and are careful not to step on any blood evidence or touch anything. It will be the task of the crime scene techs to document and process the evidence.
The victim, a white male, in his mid-thirties, with blond shoulder-length hair, is lying flat on his back on the living-room floor. His legs are splayed open, with his right leg bent at the knee and his right foot nearly touching his left knee. The victim is dressed in white boxer shorts and a worn gray bathrobe. The robe is opened, exposing his chest and upper abdomen. The trauma to his mid-chest area is obvious. He has been stabbed and gouged, creating an opening approximately two inches wide. The victim’s robe and underwear are soaked in dark red blood, much of it already dried. A pool of blood has formed underneath the victim, with some of it running toward his head. The right side of his hair is stuck to the floor in dried blood. It looks to Garcia like he has been dead for at least several hours. Left on the victim’s chest was a Cardet kitchen utility knife.
Garcia also notices the victim has what appears to be two large cuts on the inside of his left hand and a smaller one on the top of his left forearm. Garcia believes they are probably defensive wounds. In looking around closer, Garcia can see blood spatters on the dark wooden floor.
“It looks to me like our victim had some time to fight like our last one,” suggests Garcia.
“I would say so,” responds Jackson. “I also think our suspect may have been cut during the attack. Look at this”
Jackson leans over and points to some spotting on the floor leading back to the door. “Someone walked to the door while bleeding.”
“If that’s our suspect’s blood,” says Garcia as he looks at Jackson. He can tell Jackson is thinking the same thing he is.
“Let’s go back around and check out the porch and walkway,” suggests Garcia. “Maybe we will find some blood outside.”
Sure enough, when they inspect the porch and walkway, there are more drops of blood. Most of the drops have a slightly elliptical shape, indicating whoever left the blood was moving quickly as he bled. The drops ended halfway to the sidewalk in front of the house.
“I’ll bet he went across the grass somewhere in here,” states Jackson.
Sgt. Pennington has now arrived on the scene. Garcia approaches her and gives her a quick update.
“So,” says Garcia, “we need officers to tape off this walkway and entire front yard. We then need our techs to search this grass to see if they can find more blood drops. A direction of travel would be great to have.”
“I’ll assign some people on it right away,” responds Pennington.
“By the way,” asks Garcia, “didn’t Ricci get called out?”
“Yes, but he can’t make it. He got hurt real bad in his woodshop last night. Cut himself on a saw and had quite a few stitches. He might need surgery.”
“Damn. I hope he’ll be okay. I’ll call him tonight. Thanks for telling me.” That’s right, he said he had work to do in his shop yesterday, remembers Garcia.
Crime scene techs finally arrive on the scene and start their work photographing, documenting, and processing the evidence. Given the nature of the scene, it will take them at least the remainder of the day to get everything completed.
Meanwhile, Garcia and Jackson are able to identify the victim as 35-year-old Dylan Rogers, the only resident of the house. He is a white male, 6’1” tall, and approximately 220 lbs. He has an extensive history of arrests for property crimes, possession of narcotics, and sale of narcotics.
Garcia, Jackson, and several patrol officers then begin the
