Chapter 9 #2
“Murder by suffocation that leaves little to no evidence,” Anya explained.
“In 1828, in Scotland, two Irish immigrants—William Burke and William Hare—started murdering people so they could sell the bodies to Dr. Robert Knox at his private anatomy school. He dissected the cadavers and used them in lectures. Sometimes burking is used to describe the act of killing someone and selling their body to a medical institution, but just as often it refers to a method of killing which Burke and Hare perfected.”
“Just a minute there, Doc,” Turner said, drumming his fingers along the edge of the autopsy table. “Are we really talking about a couple of guys from… what did you say? 1828?”
Anya forged ahead as if he hadn’t spoken.
“The way the victims were killed left virtually no evidence of foul play. One of them would cover the victim’s nose and mouth to cut off their oxygen supply while the other sat on the victim’s chest. Mechanical asphyxia—smothering—and traumatic asphyxia, which is the restriction of respiratory movements.
The killer or killers would need to be able to overpower the victim.
Smothering or even traumatic asphyxia on its own is something we normally see in children, the elderly or among people who are very ill and frail.
It’s quick and efficient. Usually. No muss, no fuss. ”
“And quiet,” Josie murmured. There would be no screaming beneath the pillow because the restriction of chest movements wouldn’t allow for it.
The coffee Josie had slugged down on the way to the hospital burned her insides.
The round bruise on Maxine’s forearm went from odd to chilling. “That’s from a knee, isn’t it?”
Anya pulled the sheet back to Maxine’s neck.
“I can’t say that unequivocally but given the way she was found, the evidence of asphyxia on exam and autopsy, the fact that she had two broken ribs, fibers from her pillowcase inside her mouth, it does seem consistent with someone pinning her arm under a knee. ”
Turner’s eyes flickered in the direction of Haven. “Two perpetrators?”
Anya turned toward Haven’s body. Josie looked up at Turner to see him swallow hard, Adam’s apple bobbing. He stayed frozen in place while Josie walked over to where Anya gently turned down the sheet covering the girl.
“Not necessarily,” Anya replied. “It can be done by a single perpetrator if he or she is bigger and stronger than the victim. If there were two perpetrators and they murdered these women via burking…”
Josie picked up where she trailed off. “They’d need to kill them one at a time.”
“That makes no sense,” Turner said. “Two on one while the other victim is unrestrained and at risk of waking at any moment?”
Anya nodded. “Obviously I can’t say with any certainty whether there were one or two perpetrators but yes, in this case, it seems one is the most logical conclusion.”
“Time of death?” Turner asked.
“I estimate it to be between one and three a.m.”
“Just like I thought,” Turner muttered, almost to himself. “While they slept. That son of a bitch.”
Both Josie and Anya glanced over at him. He hadn’t come closer, lingering near Maxine’s body. At his sides, his hands clenched and unclenched.
Josie turned back and scanned Haven’s battered body. “Her mother was first. She probably didn’t wake up until it was too late.”
A terrifying visualization lit up Josie’s brain.
Waking from a deep sleep to a crushing pressure on your chest and something covering your mouth and nose.
Trapped and terrified, unable to call out or even struggle effectively.
How long had Maxine Barnes spent in that hinterland between waking and death?
Minutes? Or had the sudden lack of oxygen and inability to move her upper body caused her to slip back into unconsciousness within seconds?
During that time, had she thought about her daughter, sleeping only five feet away?
Josie already knew the answer to that. If it had been her, the only thing on her mind would have been Wren.
Anya lightly touched one of Haven’s hands.
“I think she woke up, maybe while he was finishing with her mother. The pattern of bruising suggests quite a struggle which she wouldn’t have been able to put up if he’d assaulted her while she was still asleep.
Besides these visible injuries, she presents just as her mother did.
All the same findings consistent with homicidal smothering with traumatic asphyxiation, including broken ribs and fibers inside her mouth.
It just took him quite a bit more time and effort to subdue her. ”
That explained the noises that the witnesses thought they heard. Rustling, grunts, thumps, a male voice.
“Did Maxine’s body show evidence of chronic intimate partner abuse?” Turner asked. “Old healed fractures? Eyes, forearms, ribs? Anything like that?”
“No,” Anya replied. “I didn’t find anything like that. Haven didn’t show signs of chronic abuse either.”
Turner nodded. He fished his phone out of his pocket but didn’t look at it. Instead he squeezed it, his knuckles turning white. He turned toward the door, but Anya’s next words stopped him. “That doesn’t mean he wasn’t hitting them, Kyle.”
“Yeah,” he said.
“Were they sexually assaulted?” Josie asked.
Anya shook her head. “No. No signs of sexual assault.”
Which meant it was unlikely that the murders were sexually motivated. The flowers were clearly a signature—something the killer felt compelled to do that was not necessary to committing the crime. A calling card. A ritual that fulfilled some psychological need.
That he’d left flowers for both women could be significant. As if reading her mind, Turner called, “Let’s talk to the husband first.”