Girl, 11 by Amy Clarke (grave mercy TXT) 📗

before, it didn’t look good for him. But she couldn’t shake the memory of the fear in Leo’s voice. He had known someone was after him, and it didn’t make sense that he’d be that scared of someone he still worked with. If Leo knew he had key evidence against a serial killer, though, that would certainly be cause for fear.

She wished she had a way to find out what was on that flash drive. But if Leo protected his files, it might take the police lab weeks to get access to it, and that was if they made it a priority. Even if they did, they wouldn’t share that information with her. The only way she might be able to find out what he knew was by looking into him herself.

Back in her car, Elle turned up the heat and sped off into the night toward home.

5

Justice Delayed podcast

December 12, 2019

Transcript: Season 5, Episode 2

Elle voice-over:

The history of tea has deep roots in colonization and stolen land. White settlers are responsible for the experimentation and exploitation of the tea planting process all across the continent of Asia, and Darjeeling is a classic example of this. A British doctor named Archibald Campbell is the person credited with planting the first tea in the Darjeeling region of India, using Chinese tea leaves. Similar to Champagne, which is a sparkling wine from a specific region in France, Darjeeling is prone to bastardization by companies wanting to leverage the name to sell a substandard product. Only teas from the Darjeeling region are meant to bear the name, but identifying and stopping the fakes from selling is a nearly impossible task. As with so many things in life, people are willing to accept a fraud if it saves them money. But that was not the case with the tea found on Tamera’s clothing. While they didn’t have the technology to show it at the time, it would turn out that tea was one of the most expensive of its kind, imported from the region itself. But all they knew in 1997 was that it was an oolong, and that’s what police told the media.

[THEME MUSIC + INTRO]

Elle:

Can you explain why you feel you shouldn’t have released the information about the tea to the public?

Sykes:

Let’s just say, it led to the community exhibiting . . . suspicion of a certain group of people.

Elle:

Asian people, specifically, right?

Sykes:

That’s right. As soon as we told the media about the tea stain, our office was inundated. Oolong tea isn’t all that exotic, but at the time, it wasn’t a common household drink for the majority of the population in the area, who were mostly descended from Scandinavian and German immigrants. Which meant the suspicion laser-focused on marginalized communities, even though that was completely illogical. But, as I’m sure you know, racism isn’t logical.

Under the guise of being good citizens, every Tom, Dick, and Harry in the state who didn’t like brown people seemed to find a reason to call us. For all we knew, the killer was some snobby white guy who liked imported tea, but this was the biggest case in the city at the time. We had to vet every tip, no matter how ridiculous.

Elle:

And a lot of them were ridiculous, weren’t they? I have information that you received tips about Pakistanis, Koreans, Chinese people, even one Saudi. Did any of those result in arrest?

Sykes:

No.

Elle:

Did you bring any of them in for questioning?

Sykes:

No, there was no need.

Elle:

You have to understand, I’m not trying to berate you about this. I know you made the best decision you thought you could at the time, but the resulting chaos led to a spike in hate crimes in the city. Indian and Chinese restaurants were targeted with vandalism and bomb threats. Minneapolis PD wasted some five hundred hours of police resources over the following weeks as you tried to sort through the thousand or so tips you got.

Sykes:

That’s correct. Of course, I’m not excusing it. As a Black man on the force in the eighties and nineties, I certainly faced my share of discrimination—both within and outside the department. Now I can see that I was too hasty, releasing that information without thinking about the possible consequences. But I still think that information is important. The tea, I mean. I still think it will matter, especially now that we have the specific kind down to the brand.

Elle:

I hope you’re right.

Elle voice-over:

The tea is a clue, but it could also be a needle in a haystack. My best estimate, based on the historical records I’ve been given access to, is that approximately five thousand tins of Majestic Sterling tea were ordered by individuals in the USA in the three years preceding the Countdown murders. A further seventy-five thousand had been ordered by specialty tea sellers throughout the Midwest. Trying to narrow down a list of suspects, even if police could get subpoenas for all of the vendors’ records, would be next to impossible—and then there’s always the chance TCK just walked in and bought it from a store with cash. The clue was important, but it didn’t solve the case.

Elle:

Now, can you talk to me about how the case changed after Tamera was found? There were no more bodies until a year later, but of course no one knew at the time how long the reprieve would be. Tell me about that gap.

Sykes:

The public moved on after a while, started to calm down, but my work never slowed. I knew that unless he’d been caught, he was just biding his time, waiting to strike again and continue his spree. For months, every time a fifteen-year-old girl was reported missing anywhere in Minnesota or Wisconsin, I asked the local squad if I could review the case notes. Police departments get a bum rap for bad cross-departmental communication, much of which is justified, but I never had much issue. I chased down a few of the missing girls myself, but no one