©1 March 2025 Levite
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1.
While our Sheriff's Department isn't usually directly involved with serious law enforcement cases. It does happen.
And now. It has happened to me.
I was investigating an allegation against a county employee, their agency and job description doesn't matter, and made a routine call out to where they lived.
It was an older apartment building, with exterior entrances.
The employee's apartment was on the second floor. Two-C.
I walked up the outside stairs and around the corner away from the parking lot to the apartment on the far end of the walkway.
The door was open, and I could see inside.
My first words were: "Oh, my, God."
I backed up a step and reached under my coat and drew my sidearm, my .380, and dropped to one knee. It was an instinctive response that proves that I did pay attention in the training classes.
"SHERIFF'S DEPUTY!" I shouted into the apartment while aiming at everything at once.
There was no answer.
Then, I called for uniformed backup from everybody in range. And an ambulance.
And the coroner.
Through the open door I could see the body of a woman lying on the floor just inside the open door.
I could also see her brains.
Or rather, what had been her brain, and the pieces of it and the bone of her skull, all around the body.
It was clear she was dead when I looked in the door. Her skull had been demolished by a brutally powerful blow to the right side of her head, just above her right ear.
I could tell just by the way the body looked, and the amount of blood that was everywhere, but no longer flowing from the body, that she was dead.
As I told the Inquisition... I'm sorry, small joke ...as I told the Medical Examiner's Inquest, I paused at the door, did not see an active blood flow from the victim. I took a step backward, and announced my presence as a Law Enforcement Officer in case the perpetrator was still in the apartment.
I stayed in my defensive posture, just in case what was clearly a murderer decided to try to exit through the apartment's door.
It seemed like it was forever before I heard a police cruiser scream into the parking lot and then a uniformed Smithtown Police Officer came charging down the walkway toward me.
He stopped next to me with a drawn service weapon and asked if the place was secure.
"No. I have no idea if anybody is inside or not," I answered. "I announced myself, but I didn't go in."
"Back up is almost here. We can wait." He said and leaned against the wall to peek inside. "I don't see anybody moving."
"We'll wait."
About two minutes later everybody from a New York State Trooper to a Suffolk County Police Officer joined us, and we did a systematic search of the apartment. And found two more victims.
I had found victim two in the kitchen. A child. Slumped in a booster seat. Dead from a slit throat.
The Trooper found victim three. Hanging by the neck in the closet in the back bedroom. After securing the room, he called for the paramedics who were waiting outside. They came in and took him down and checked for life.
Victim three was the individual I was there to interview about certain issues he had had while on the job at the county.
In a few moments he was pronounced dead. Then the same two paramedics performed their duty for the other two victims.
And then the meticulous work of going through everything that had to be done at a crime scene began. No, it doesn't go as quickly or as smoothly as you see on TV. There are similarities, but you have to remember, they're making a TV show. We're not.
It didn't take long for us to realize there were two other children that lived there. We scoured the place for them, and at least one pet cat, and didn't find them.
I was in the bedroom that was used by all three children and found information that indicated that they had probably just left for school when this happened.
"And this is probably where they're at," I held a printout about an upcoming spirit day at the elementary school to the Trooper and the City Detective. The school name matched some of the other information laying around. "I've got the next of kin information for the family in his file. The wife's parents live in Huntington. I'll take care of that notification."
The City Detective nodded, "Good. Thank you for that Detective Elaine."
The Medical Examiner had finally gotten two of the victims on stretchers and was now photographing and measuring where they had been found. Something that took longer with the third victim because the EMTs had cut the cloth belt he had used and had tried to revive him.
Finally I had given my statement to everybody that wanted it. I had been the first officer on the scene, and the second one through the door when we made sure the perpetrator was no longer on the scene and a threat to us and the Paramedics. Both the State Trooper who had responded, as well as the Smithtown Police needed statements.
Then I took the personnel file and went out to my car and checked the address of the parents of Victim One. Victim Three had no known local living relatives.
In my time with the Department, I've had to do a few family notifications. There is a protocol to it, as with everything else.
The first one I ever went on was when I was with our Corrections Division. An inmate had died while incarcerated and under treatment for pneumonia in an outside hospital. Unfortunately, he had several underlying conditions that made it much worse, and he did not survive. I went with a senior officer who said he had done "way too many of these," and we went to notify the brother of the inmate of what had happened.
He took it in stride, "Cee has been sick a long time. I'm surprised he lasted this long." Then the brother nodded and looked at us, "Do you need to me identify him or anything?"
After that, I got drafted to do a couple of others before I transferred out. Since then I think I've been on one or two others. But it isn't something we do very often.
Now. I felt I was the one that should do it.
I called the Huntington Police and got transferred to one of their victim services counselors. She would meet me at the address.
I parked out front of their townhouse and waited until Ms Sarah pulled in behind me. I explained to her what had happened, and that there were two children in school that we had to get to before they would go home at the end of the day, and that their grandparents lived at 1103 Ferndale.
"We can do it. I'm ready." Ms Sarah said, and we walked up to the door and I rang the bell.
An older woman answered and looked from one to the other of us and then at my ID and badge, and her smile vanished.
"Oh, my God. What has happened?"
She called her husband who was working part time at a gardening center, he came home immediately, but then he spent a lot of time looking down and shaking his head.
It took quite a while to get her to agree to come with us to the school to get the kids, and then bring them back here. He had agreed immediately, but she was still crying and didn't hear him.
Ms Sarah explained that she would supply anything they needed, and if they had to have something from the apartment in Smithtown she'd see what she could do to go get it.
The grandparents confirmed the school the children were in, and the grandmother even remembered the name of one of the teachers. Ms Sarah and I followed them to the school and we walked in with them. Then I explained the situation to the Vice Principal.
The Vice Principal went to the classrooms and got the children out of class, then she'd bring them to the office.
"This is going to be rough. But we'll be here with you through it," Ms Sarah said to the grandparents while we waited.
"We appreciate that," the grandfather said.
"Will they be able to stay in this school?" The grandmother asked. "We'll drive them back and forth."
"It's familiar to them, their friends are here," Ms Sarah answered, "I'll recommend it."
"If the kids want to stay here. They may not. Now." I added.
"Of course. Their needs are our first consideration," the counselor agreed.
In a minute the Vice Principal opened the door and two young children, a boy and a girl, walked in. They had no idea that they had lost their younger brother and both parents that morning. And it was our job.... my job. To tell them.
They spent a long time being held by their grandparents and crying.
Ms Sarah was excellent at her job and spent some time gently talking to all four of them. While I sat there and tried to be supportive.
Then I had to go back to the crime scene to answer more questions.
The only things that had been removed were the bodies. All three death instruments were still there being photographed and measured where they had been. The mother, victim one, had been killed by a savage blow to the side of her head by a wooden softball bat. The blow was so hard the bat had bit of her hair and skull embedded in it.
I told the Smithtown team doing the crime scene workup that I hadn't seen it that morning. They told me that it had been found behind the couch.
I had seen the murder weapon of victim two. The kitchen knife had been on the table next to the child when I found him.
I'd never even laid eyes on victim three, the person who I was there to see when I walked up to the open apartment door and found what I found. They had identified the bathrobe that had the belt he had used to hang himself and had tagged it as evidence as well.
"This was next to the body," they showed me a cell phone. "He recorded a message on it, with a photo of his wife after he'd hit her."
"I'm OK not seeing it." I told them.
"Anyway, he said it did all of it. And went on about her credit card bill for a bit. The time on the recording was about half an hour before you found them."
"Credit card debt," I nodded, "that would explain why he'd been doing some things at work. He was facing possible disciplinary action over it. He wasn't going to lose his job, but he would likely be on probation for awhile. And he'd probably end up back on day shift so he'd have a direct supervisor while on duty."
"Did he know about the investigation?" The lead city detective asked me.
"Yes, but he didn't know I was coming out today to get some background information."
"I see." They paused and looked around the apartment. "So you've taken care of the other kids." They said to me.
"Yes, they're going to stay with their grandparents. I've got their contact information right here. The school made a copy of it for me to give to you. And this is the case worker from the Huntington Police who is working with them. She may come by to get some of the kids' stuff."
"We have victim services here," they said.
"Yes, but the grandparents live over there. It was just easier to have her meet me at their house this morning."
"Understood. I'll have our people touch base with her anyway."
"She probably knows them. She said she works with departments all over the Island."
3.
I assisted the city detective put together a profile of the former employee.
Together we reviewed the employee's finances, and the credit card bills that he mentioned in his recording. The bad part was that it became very clear quickly that his wife had just opened a couple of new accounts in her own name, and had made several recent charges.
"If they only made the minimum payment on everything it would be his entire paycheck," the city detective said shaking his head at the pages of bills that had been all over the kitchen table, "and this isn't all of them, she has two online accounts that want money as well."
"That's insane," I said. And then I thought about it, "Really, that is a form of insanity. And in this case, sudden onset."
The city detective agreed. "Yeah. These three were all opened in the last couple of months. On top of the two they already had with both names on them."
"And after the other two kids left for school, they had a fight and she went for the door." I looked over at where she'd been found, "and he stopped her."
"That's the only way I can read it." They looked back toward the back bedroom, "and then he couldn't stand it, and... did the rest of it."
I had a chilling thought, "If I hadn't stopped by they would have laid here until the other kids got home from school."
They nodded, "the manager said nobody ever comes back here. The laundry room is on the other end."
We got really quiet for a few minutes.
"Has there been any sign of the cat?"
The City Detective nodded, "One keeps coming up the walk, but it won't come in, and when we tried to catch it it proved it knows a short cut down the drain pipe."
Then I had to testify at the Inquest. All of us did. And, as we are all professionals we didn't discuss anything about the case beforehand. Although we all were scheduled at about the same time, so we were all in the hallway and waiting room outside.
And we talked about the weather.
"There's been so much rain the bridge over the creek has been underwater for three days. And people are still trying to drive through there and get stuck," one of the Smithtown officers said.
I nodded, "My apartment's parking lot is a lake"
The County Police Officer laughed, "so is our station lot."
I was called in first. And I was nervous. I told them what I had seen when I walked up to the apartment and found the door open.
"How could you be certain the victim was deceased?" One of those on the panel asked.
"From the door I could see her brain coming out of the side of her head. And then I noticed that there was no blood flow."
They asked several questions about victim two, the child at the table, and how long I had held their wrist to check for a pulse.
"Long enough to not feel one, and I moved my fingers a couple of times. And I checked the carotid pulse as well." I said trying not to remember finding the skin on the child's neck had been cut nearly to the bone.
"And in your original statement, you never went back to the master bedroom where victim three was discovered."
"No. I had plenty to do in the front."
They went over some other details, then the Inquest said I was free to go and they'd be in touch if they had more questions.
Even though I had only been there a couple of hours, and had only been in the hearing room for a few minutes, I was exhausted.
I went out and nodded to the others, "next time we're all together. It'll be over pizza."
"You're on."
I didn't want to go back to the office, and I knew I didn't want to go home. So I just drove around for awhile. And found myself on West Mill Road, coming up on the Mattituck Inlet. So I kept driving along, looking at the boats and the nets hanging on racks drying.
It took me a minute to remember his name, but I saw the older Mr. Hawkins out working on a table full of parts. I decided to go see if he'd seen any lights that shouldn't be there across the inlet.
"Well, glory be, Miss Detective. It is really good to see you again." He said with a huge smile.
"It's good to see you as well."
"What brings you all the way out here? Somebody in trouble?"
"No sir, I just got out of a meeting and needed a break."
"What kind of meeting could be so bad that you'd come all the way out here on break?"
"A Coroner's Inquest."
His eyes got wide, then he nodded, "In that case my dear lady, take all the time you want."
I asked him what he was doing and was treated to about five minutes of explanation of the finer points of re-seating bearing races on the shaft for a older boat propeller. Mr. Hawkins was obviously a master of the task, and I had no idea what he was doing. But it was fascinating all the same watching him measure and then tap at the ring, and re-measure, and so on.
Finally he finished and carefully laid the newly reassembled shaft in a box and said it was ready to go. "So, Detective, do you feel better?"
"Yes, sir. Much better. Thank you." I looked at the drive shaft, "I have no idea why you did some of what you did. But I really enjoyed watching you."
"Watching me work, you mean."
"Yes, sir." I laughed. Then I looked across the water, "Have you seen anything over there lately?"
"Oh, you mean Ol' Fisher's light?" He shook his head. "Been almost too quiet over there. I guess your fix worked."
"I'll call that a success." I answered.
"I'm sorry you had to go through that other today. Is it going to work out all right in the end?"
I shook my head, "I don't know, Mr. Hawkins. It's going to take a long time to play out."
"Well, Miss, I don't know what else I can do. But if you need to come out here just to get away again, you're always welcome."
"Thank you sir."
- end murder -
The Elaine Investigates index page.
[NOTE: The above story were written as adventure fiction, and is to be taken as such. While most of the geographical features of Suffolk County exist, the rest of the setting is fictional.
Thank you, Dr. Leftover, TheMediaDesk.com]
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