TRACE EVIDENCE: The Hunt for the I-5 Serial Killer Read Online Free PDF Page A

difficult to follow. Such foul-ups were why all adult missing persons cases now went to Homicide.
    Biondi agreed that Stephanie Brown’s disappearance had the feel of a stranger abduction. In fact, the circumstances were so suspect that Biondi added gravely, “I think we’re looking for a body,” as he handed the missing persons report back to Machen. The young woman, Biondi knew, could at that moment be lying dead somewhere—as yet undiscovered, or if found with no identification, stretched out on a slab at the morgue with a “Jane Doe” tag affixed to a big toe.
    Not thatSacramento County Homicide was looking for something to do. The first week of July had opened with two separate murders. Then, the previous night, a thirty-year-old professional hit man from Kansas broke into a suburbanSacramento home—after cutting the phone lines—with the calculated intent of wiping out an entire family. Unhappy that the man of the house had taken up with his former girlfriend, the hit man shot them both as they slept in bed. The man’s two sons, ages nineteen and fourteen, were also asleep in the house. The gunman found the older boy’s room first, and shot him execution-style. Meanwhile, the younger son had awakened and gone into his father’s bedroom. Seeing the carnage, he removed his father’s empty .22 caliber handgun and ammunition from a bedside drawer. Returning to his room, he loaded the gun as he stood behind the closed door. When the intruder walked into the room, the steely-nerved youth shot him twice in the head, killing him instantly. Theteenager saved not only himself but also the life of his seriously wounded father—his brother and his father’s girlfriend died of their wounds. Detectives found in the hit man’s car parked nearby 25 pounds of a gelatin explosive packed in a metal box inside a cooler filled with ice and several large-diameter pipe bombs. Apparently, he had planned to do a second job after he finished off the family. This brazen double murder was still being sorted out by all available hands, with detectives busily collecting evidence and conducting interviews.
    Biondi believed that a homicide investigation should not move slowly. Witnesses, clues, and even physical evidence are often mobile, elusive, and forgetful. Blood cells are breaking down each moment they wait for laboratory analysis. Fingerprints are smudged, footprints are lost, and memories fade. His habit was to assign every detective available in the opening stages of an investigation so that as little as possible was lost during the crucial early hours. On a fresh homicide, it was not uncommon for detectives to work two or three days and nights straight, fortified by black coffee and occasional catnaps at their desks.
    While this meant that virtually everything else had to take a lower priority, Biondi recognized the importance of having Machen follow through on the case of the missing young woman. Given the dire circumstances of her disappearance, it was vital in these early hours to work any leads that could be developed.
    DeputyAcevedo phoned Homicide at 2:25 P.M. that afternoon. Machen took notes as the deputy filled in the details: Mom saw daughter the night before. Everything seemed fine. Daughter returned home, went to bed, was awakened around midnight by roommate calling, needing a lift. Roommate and roommate’s boyfriend last to see her as she left alone to return home. Drove on unfamiliar streets to get back home. No evidence of family, personal, mental, or physical problems. No history of drug or alcohol abuse. A young woman, who by all accounts led a normal and stable life, had inexplicably stepped off the face of the earth.
    “Another thing, Sergeant,” Acevedo said.
    “What’s that?”
    After the BOLO went out, the deputy explained, theCalifornia Highway Patrol called. “The CHP tagged a yellow vehicle fitting the description around nine o’clock this morning. The plate was close, but didn’t exactly match