TRACE EVIDENCE: The Hunt for the I-5 Serial Killer by Bruce Henderson Page A
Authors: Bruce Henderson
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island, he radioed to his dispatcher to notify theSacramento County Sheriff’s Department, which had jurisdiction in this unincorporated area.
When a sheriff’s patrol unit received the call, it happened to be cruising very nearby on Highway 12, which bisected Brannan Island via bridges at either end. The lone deputy was first on the scene.
When the CHP unit pulled up a few minutes later, Mortin left Amigo curled up in the backseat and took both officers down to the body.
It was located about halfway down the levee, which sloped 45 degrees to the river. Just past the body a few feet, the levee dropped off straight to the water.
By the time the corpse was removed from the bushes and zipped into a white plastic body bag for the ride to the coroner’s in downtown Sacramento, it was nearly 11:00 P.M.
Even in the darkness, some things had been apparent to investigators under the beams of their flashlights. She looked to be a young white woman. She was nude from the waist up. Her hands were bound behind her back, and the binding was looped around her neck.
She had, no doubt, been strangled.
Five
A ny questionSacramento County Sheriff’s Detective StanReed had as to whether the Jane Doe found onBrannan Island might be the young woman motorist missing for three weeks was answered when the veteran homicide investigator showed up at the morgue in the morning.
AsReed entered the lime-green autopsy suite in the basement of the two-story building that housed the county’s Forensic Services Center, two technicians in scrubs were removing Jane Doe from the body bag atop a waist-high metal table. Her exposed skin looked more like sunbaked shoe leather than flesh. She had been dead for so long— months , not weeks—that the remaining skin had mummified.
Reed was working the case without his usual partner, DetectiveBob Bell, which sometimes happened when accumulated caseloads became so heavy; in this way, two detectives could handle twice as many cases.
When Lt. Ray Biondi received a call at home the previous evening regarding the hunter’s macabre discovery, the homicide chief knew that Reed, the anchor of the four-man Bureau, was unavailable. Although Reed was officially on call, he was attending his wife’s grandfather’s hundredth birthday party in Gridley, a one-horse town 60 miles north of Sacramento. It was unusual for Reed to miss a call out, which was why Biondi had granted his most experienced detective the night off. Biondi decided to assign this one to Reed anyway, although another detective would have to be called to handle the crime scene. Biondi suspected that if Reed had had any notion that a new case would come up that night, Stan’s wife, Roberta, might well have found herself attending the family celebration alone. Stan Reed was that dedicated to solving murders.
Reed had joined the department seventeen years earlier. He had worked Homicide about half that time, participating in more than 300 homicide investigations. Over the years, his waistline had thickened as surely as his now-graying blondish hair had thinned atop his 6-foot frame. He was a tell-it-like-it-is guy. With Stan Reed, you got no flowers, no mind games, no hidden agendas. Because he was so blunt—whether interviewing witnesses or testifying in court—Biondi knew that Reed could at times come off as cold and uncaring. Nothing was farther from the truth. He was simply all business. He was also dependable, covered all the bases, and never gave up on his old cases. Biondi considered Stan Reed to be one of the best homicide detectives he had ever known. To a degree, Biondi considered Reed’s ascendancy in Homicide a matter of fate. When Reed joined the department in 1969, at age twenty-five, he was randomly assigned badge 187; in California, “187” is the police code for homicide, as first-degree murder with malice aforethought was a violation of California Penal Code Section 187.
Reed had joined Homicide in 1978. At his first homicide
When a sheriff’s patrol unit received the call, it happened to be cruising very nearby on Highway 12, which bisected Brannan Island via bridges at either end. The lone deputy was first on the scene.
When the CHP unit pulled up a few minutes later, Mortin left Amigo curled up in the backseat and took both officers down to the body.
It was located about halfway down the levee, which sloped 45 degrees to the river. Just past the body a few feet, the levee dropped off straight to the water.
By the time the corpse was removed from the bushes and zipped into a white plastic body bag for the ride to the coroner’s in downtown Sacramento, it was nearly 11:00 P.M.
Even in the darkness, some things had been apparent to investigators under the beams of their flashlights. She looked to be a young white woman. She was nude from the waist up. Her hands were bound behind her back, and the binding was looped around her neck.
She had, no doubt, been strangled.
Five
A ny questionSacramento County Sheriff’s Detective StanReed had as to whether the Jane Doe found onBrannan Island might be the young woman motorist missing for three weeks was answered when the veteran homicide investigator showed up at the morgue in the morning.
AsReed entered the lime-green autopsy suite in the basement of the two-story building that housed the county’s Forensic Services Center, two technicians in scrubs were removing Jane Doe from the body bag atop a waist-high metal table. Her exposed skin looked more like sunbaked shoe leather than flesh. She had been dead for so long— months , not weeks—that the remaining skin had mummified.
Reed was working the case without his usual partner, DetectiveBob Bell, which sometimes happened when accumulated caseloads became so heavy; in this way, two detectives could handle twice as many cases.
When Lt. Ray Biondi received a call at home the previous evening regarding the hunter’s macabre discovery, the homicide chief knew that Reed, the anchor of the four-man Bureau, was unavailable. Although Reed was officially on call, he was attending his wife’s grandfather’s hundredth birthday party in Gridley, a one-horse town 60 miles north of Sacramento. It was unusual for Reed to miss a call out, which was why Biondi had granted his most experienced detective the night off. Biondi decided to assign this one to Reed anyway, although another detective would have to be called to handle the crime scene. Biondi suspected that if Reed had had any notion that a new case would come up that night, Stan’s wife, Roberta, might well have found herself attending the family celebration alone. Stan Reed was that dedicated to solving murders.
Reed had joined the department seventeen years earlier. He had worked Homicide about half that time, participating in more than 300 homicide investigations. Over the years, his waistline had thickened as surely as his now-graying blondish hair had thinned atop his 6-foot frame. He was a tell-it-like-it-is guy. With Stan Reed, you got no flowers, no mind games, no hidden agendas. Because he was so blunt—whether interviewing witnesses or testifying in court—Biondi knew that Reed could at times come off as cold and uncaring. Nothing was farther from the truth. He was simply all business. He was also dependable, covered all the bases, and never gave up on his old cases. Biondi considered Stan Reed to be one of the best homicide detectives he had ever known. To a degree, Biondi considered Reed’s ascendancy in Homicide a matter of fate. When Reed joined the department in 1969, at age twenty-five, he was randomly assigned badge 187; in California, “187” is the police code for homicide, as first-degree murder with malice aforethought was a violation of California Penal Code Section 187.
Reed had joined Homicide in 1978. At his first homicide
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