I
T he lifeless body of young Sarah Brown was found on Saturday morning, March 8th by a search party made up of university students from Northern Iowa and volunteer neighbors who were lending a helping hand. Several groups had been formed, each of which was directed by a Cedar Falls local police agent, and one of them had not taken long to find the body.
Sarah Brown was lying amid some trees which were located in the south area of the campus, very near the Hillside student apartments and Jennings Drive. She seemed to be resting face up. If she had not been a cadaver, the scene would have seemed ideal: a beautiful blonde young girl with light colored eyes that is lying on the grass and looking up at the sky through the treetops on a cloudless winter morning.
The body didn´t seem to show any signs of violence or struggle, and it seemed as if it had been carried to where it had been found, and carefully placed upon the frosted grass. However, a small caliber bullet hole in her left temple, from which there oozed a tiny stream of dried blood, indicated that the scene was not that of relaxed dreaming; on the contrary, it was the scene of a horrible crime.
A coroner was intent on getting all possible photographs of the cadaver and from all possible angles and imaginable distances. This he was doing in the kind of cold manner of those who are accustomed to this kind of work. Gordon Stevens, a Black Hawk County Sheriff´s Office detective located in the nearby town of Waterloo was contemplating the scene thoughtfully thus avoiding having to see Sarah Brown´s open eyes again. He was not accustomed to a crime this horrible and felt his stomach turning, and pains like a punch in the stomach. Who could have done this? Waterloo, Cedar Falls, all of damn Black County was a peaceful place where the worst that could happen to you was a stolen bicycle because you had forgotten to leave a padlock on it when you parked it in front of the supermarket, thought the detective with frustration.
—How´s it going? —Karen asked him, a fellow local police agent, with whom he had been in several training courses.
Brown whirled suddenly, since he had now been torn from his meditation and he had almost forgotten where he was.
—Ah, Karen, it´s you. I´m sorry. I hadn´t seen you...
—Have I frightened you?
—Well, I don´t know. I think that since I have arrived here I am a little terrified.
—That´s incredible...
The detective directed his eyes towards the police line surrounding the area. Next to the yellow police ribbon there were some press photographers, neighbors and a good group of students, some of which were crying uncontrollably and hugging each other.
—Yes, it is incredible.
—Could it be a suicide? —asked Karen with a slight stutter.
—I doubt it. It´s the left temple, there´s no trace of the gun, and it seems that the body has been brought here. We don´t know yet if she was left handed, or if some criminal has taken the gun, or even if however incredible it may seem she had stayed in that position after having her brains blown out.
—Calm down, Gordon.
—I´m not calm, Karen, I´m sorry. And something tells me that the person that did this has not only destroyed this person´s life, with all of her future before her, but has also screwed all of us forever.
II
S arah Brown was seen alive the last time on Thursday, March 6th. She had agreed to go shopping in Waterloo with her two best friends, Belinda Myers and Carol Weight. All three had known each other for years, and they were all from Sheldon, a town some 200 miles from Cedar Falls and had been together in high school.
Sarah accompanied Carol to the Prime Falls student apartments´ parking lot, where the three friends lived, but she apologized asking them to wait a moment for her saying that she had forgotten her purse in her room. Carol waited in her car until Belinda appeared. She had arrived fifteen minutes late. After waiting for half an hour,
T he lifeless body of young Sarah Brown was found on Saturday morning, March 8th by a search party made up of university students from Northern Iowa and volunteer neighbors who were lending a helping hand. Several groups had been formed, each of which was directed by a Cedar Falls local police agent, and one of them had not taken long to find the body.
Sarah Brown was lying amid some trees which were located in the south area of the campus, very near the Hillside student apartments and Jennings Drive. She seemed to be resting face up. If she had not been a cadaver, the scene would have seemed ideal: a beautiful blonde young girl with light colored eyes that is lying on the grass and looking up at the sky through the treetops on a cloudless winter morning.
The body didn´t seem to show any signs of violence or struggle, and it seemed as if it had been carried to where it had been found, and carefully placed upon the frosted grass. However, a small caliber bullet hole in her left temple, from which there oozed a tiny stream of dried blood, indicated that the scene was not that of relaxed dreaming; on the contrary, it was the scene of a horrible crime.
A coroner was intent on getting all possible photographs of the cadaver and from all possible angles and imaginable distances. This he was doing in the kind of cold manner of those who are accustomed to this kind of work. Gordon Stevens, a Black Hawk County Sheriff´s Office detective located in the nearby town of Waterloo was contemplating the scene thoughtfully thus avoiding having to see Sarah Brown´s open eyes again. He was not accustomed to a crime this horrible and felt his stomach turning, and pains like a punch in the stomach. Who could have done this? Waterloo, Cedar Falls, all of damn Black County was a peaceful place where the worst that could happen to you was a stolen bicycle because you had forgotten to leave a padlock on it when you parked it in front of the supermarket, thought the detective with frustration.
—How´s it going? —Karen asked him, a fellow local police agent, with whom he had been in several training courses.
Brown whirled suddenly, since he had now been torn from his meditation and he had almost forgotten where he was.
—Ah, Karen, it´s you. I´m sorry. I hadn´t seen you...
—Have I frightened you?
—Well, I don´t know. I think that since I have arrived here I am a little terrified.
—That´s incredible...
The detective directed his eyes towards the police line surrounding the area. Next to the yellow police ribbon there were some press photographers, neighbors and a good group of students, some of which were crying uncontrollably and hugging each other.
—Yes, it is incredible.
—Could it be a suicide? —asked Karen with a slight stutter.
—I doubt it. It´s the left temple, there´s no trace of the gun, and it seems that the body has been brought here. We don´t know yet if she was left handed, or if some criminal has taken the gun, or even if however incredible it may seem she had stayed in that position after having her brains blown out.
—Calm down, Gordon.
—I´m not calm, Karen, I´m sorry. And something tells me that the person that did this has not only destroyed this person´s life, with all of her future before her, but has also screwed all of us forever.
II
S arah Brown was seen alive the last time on Thursday, March 6th. She had agreed to go shopping in Waterloo with her two best friends, Belinda Myers and Carol Weight. All three had known each other for years, and they were all from Sheldon, a town some 200 miles from Cedar Falls and had been together in high school.
Sarah accompanied Carol to the Prime Falls student apartments´ parking lot, where the three friends lived, but she apologized asking them to wait a moment for her saying that she had forgotten her purse in her room. Carol waited in her car until Belinda appeared. She had arrived fifteen minutes late. After waiting for half an hour,
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