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

ours.”
    “Where was it tagged?” Machen asked.
    “Hood Franklin and I-5.”
    Hood Franklin Road was a desolate off-ramp of I-5, Machen knew, 10 or 12 miles south of downtown, but still in Sacramento County.
    “She lives in the opposite direction,” Machen said. “ North Sacramento, right?”
    “Yeah. She would have had to turn the wrong way onto I-5 to end up there. Easy enough to do in the dark when you don’t know the area.”
    Machen asked if anyone was going to go back to the vehicle to double-check the license plate.
    “CHP is dispatching a unit.”
    Machen asked if Acevedo had a picture of the young woman. The deputy said Patrol must still have it.
    Machen thanked the deputy and hung up.
    The detective next telephonedSacramento Savings and Loan, speaking to a branch supervisor named Karen who volunteered that Stephanie was never late to work: “Most of the time, she’s early. That’s why we were so concerned when she didn’t show up or call.”
    “Do you know of any problems she may have had with any customers?” Machen asked.
    “No, there’s never been any problems. Stephanie is very popular with our customers.”
    “What about any personal relationship that may have carried over to her job?”
    “Last Friday her ex-boyfriend came over and paid her some money he owed her,” Karen recalled. “I was a little concerned, so I kept an eye on them. But that went very well. They seemed to get along fine. His name isRandy, I think.”
    At 3:25 P.M. , Machen received a call from theSan Joaquin County Sheriff’s Department. A detective who worked Homicide with Vito Bertocchini and Pete Rosenquist was calling around to nearby law enforcement agencies in the hope of finding a name for their unidentified victim.
    “We had a fresh female body dump this morning,” reported the detective from the neighboring county to the south. “She’s a Jane Doe. Dead less than twelve hours. Thought we’d give you a holler to see if you have a recent missing person who might match up.”
    “Got a description?” Machen asked.
    “White female adult, approximately eighteen to twenty years old, 5-foot-8, 150 pounds. Blond over brown. Pierced ears. No scars or tattoos. Pink polish on her toenails, none on her fingernails.”
    “What was she wearing?” Machen’s voice remained level.
    “Pink bra. No top. White shorts, blue panties.”
    “Where was she found?”
    “Irrigation ditch on the east side of Correia Road, about half a mile south of Highway 12.”
    “Near I-5?”
    “Three or four miles west.”
    “You have fingerprints?”
    “Not yet. They’re still doing the post.”
    Machen knew the surest way to determine if it was Stephanie Brown would be to contact the department of motor vehicles and get her driver’s license thumbprint to compare with prints lifted from the dead woman. Making a positive ID this way was less cruel, too, than asking loved ones to visit the morgue.
    “Height, weight, and age fit one of ours,” Machen said. “I’ll do some checking and get back to you.”
    Machen immediately calledJo-Allyn Brown at home. Without mentioning that a body had been found, he asked for a detailed description of her missing daughter.
    “She has long blond hair, brown eyes. About 5-foot-7, 140 pounds, I guess. She has pierced ears, I think just one hole in each.”
    “Do you know if she was wearing polish on her toenails or fingernails?”
    “No, I’m sorry, I don’t. Her fingernails aren’t real long, but she’s letting them grow out.”
    “Any scars?”
    “No.”
    If Stephanie’s mother suspected anything from the very specific nature of the questions, she didn’t let on.
    “Anything else you can think of?” Machen asked.
    “She got sunburned a while ago and is still peeling in the cleavage area.”
    Machen asked about the ex-boyfriend. Spouses and former spouses, lovers and ex-lovers are the first potential suspects that must be eliminated in practically every unsolved homicide, as