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

about the medical examiner cutting their case, you mean performing an autopsy, right?

Martín:

Yes, that’s right. Without going into the gory details, the ME confirmed that Kerry’s hyoid bone was fractured, a classic sign of strangulation. However, there was no indication that a rope or similar ligature was used to effect his death. The marks you would expect to see around the throat of a hanging victim—bruises, hemorrhaging—were not present. In fact, the autopsy report states that based on the lack of abrasions on the skin, it’s likely the rope was not put around his neck until long after he was dead.

Elle:

So, it was staged to look like a suicide.

Martín:

Correct. At least, that’s how it appears to me. However, when the ME examined the victim’s stomach, he found dark red and brown spots covering the lining.

Elle:

What does that mean?

Martín:

It happens when the body’s temperature is dropping, as the blood supply redirects, trying to save essential organs. Despite the strangulation injuries, Kerry did not die of asphyxiation. His cause of death was officially hypothermia, and based on my review of the autopsy results, I would have to agree with that. Which brings us to the manner of death. The investigation determined that the suicide was staged, which automatically makes the average person assume it was a murder. But the ME on the case could not definitively prove whether this was a homicide or an accident that was later covered up to look like Kerry took his own life. Hypothermia is an extremely rare method of homicide, so it’s understandable why the ME was loathe to make that determination, despite pressure from the family. At the same time, it makes sense why they would want homicide to be the manner of death, as it would force police to investigate it more seriously.

Elle voice-over:

Unfortunately, the official manner of death on Kerry’s death certificate was listed as “undetermined,” and the family’s fears soon came true: with no real leads on who had staged the suicide and no proof that foul play had occurred, police soon moved on to more pressing cases. And the Presley family has been left without answers for more than twenty years.

Elle:

Thank you for sharing your son’s story with me. I’m so sorry about what you have gone through. Not getting any real answers, having your son’s death just fade into the background. It’s gut-wrenching.

Christina:

It is. No one seemed to care why or how he froze to death, or who would make it look like he’d killed himself. It never made sense to me. How could they just not care? Anyway, when I was listening to your podcast the other day, you said something about trying to find TCK’s first victim. You wanted to know about any unexplained or unsolved deaths around the same time as Beverly Anderson’s, and so I emailed you about Kerry. I figured it wasn’t connected, but I don’t know . . . I just needed someone to listen to me, you know?

Elle:

I do. And you’re right, it does seem unrelated. Nothing about Kerry’s death looks like a TCK murder. But your email caught my eye, mostly because you sound like so many of the other mothers I talk to for these cases. Women who have waited years, decades, for answers that never came. So, we looked into it. And Mrs. Presley, we think you might be right.

Christina:

[Inaudible.]

Elle:

Take your time.

Christina:

You . . . are you sure?

Elle:

Detective Sykes got me a copy of the case file, and we’ve gone through it together. Based on statements from you and his friends, it appears Kerry went missing on the first of February, 1996. That’s three days before TCK’s first confirmed victim, Beverly Anderson.

Christina:

Oh. I . . . Is there more?

Elle:

Yes. There were multiple witnesses who walked the same trail along that part of the river who said they hadn’t seen Kerry there the day before he was discovered. Because of that, police thought he was probably placed there the day he was found. The medical examiner could not determine time of death because his body was frozen, but the contents of his stomach were only partially digested and appeared to contain pineapple and some pork substance. His girlfriend said they’d had Hawaiian pizza the last time she saw him, the night they broke up. If that’s what it was, then he would have been dead within hours of that.

Christina:

So, you’re saying he was killed the night he went missing and just . . . just kept somewhere?

Elle:

I’m sorry, I truly hate having to tell you this. But I can promise you one thing, Mrs. Presley. If your son really was killed by TCK, I just got one step closer to finding him. But no matter what, I’m going to do everything in my power to get justice for your son.

Elle voice-over:

Kerry was twenty-one years old. Like the other two victims in 1996, he was a college student in the Minneapolis area. Even though he died in a different way from the young women, other aspects fit the pattern. He went missing three days before Beverly. His body was found seven days after he vanished. The reason he’s never popped up as a potential victim is because he was killed in such a different way, and of course, because he’s a man and the rest of TCK’s victims are women. As I looked into Christina Presley’s eyes, though, I couldn’t help but think of the irony. Even when his victim was a man, TCK still found a way to destroy a woman’s life.

Everything about the 1996 murders seems to indicate TCK was finding his feet, and I actually think it makes perfect sense that his first victim would be so different. It explains why he changed. He obviously didn’t intend to kill Kerry, at least not the way he did. The murder is sloppy, unplanned—nothing like the deliberate poisoning we see with the girls.

Maybe he strangled Kerry in a moment of passion, and—thinking he’d killed him—he panicked and brought the body to wherever he kept the others later on. If