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Ella hadn’t had time to think about that component of the crime yet. She winged it, stream of consciousness style, something she rarely did.
“I’m not seeing a whole lot of blood. If he’d have bisected her on site, the body would be swimming in it.”
“There are small pools of it. Nothing that would suggest an extreme dismemberment had taken place though. But there are traces of it. What does that mean?”
Ella thought back to the original Black Dahlia. It had been the same there too. One of the great mysteries of the case concerned where the victim’s bisection had actually occurred.
“Our unsub abducted her, took her somewhere private and carried out the bisection there. Then he moved her to the disposal site quickly, probably within the next couple of hours. The victim hadn’t been drained of blood by the time she got there, so it must have happened fast.”
“Bingo. What about these lacerations to her face?”
The Glasgow Smile. The second-most romanticized component of the original Black Dahlia. “Inflicted postmortem. The flesh is torn but there’s no sign of dried blood around the mouth. Her heart had stopped pumping blood by time he did it.”
“Put it all together,” Ripley said. “What have we got?”
Ella played the scene out in her head, from abduction to disposal. “Our unsub is highly organized. He planned this attack long in advance. He’s capable enough to subdue his victims, either through physical force or the threat of violence. He’s physically adept unless he has specialized machinery to carry out this mutilation. Either way, he has his own isolated premises somewhere, maybe in the same town as the victim. He pays attention to detail, which means he’ll be familiar with forensic countermeasures.”
Ripley nodded in silence. It looked like she had nothing to add. “Excellent. Couldn’t have said it better myself. Now, victim number one.”
Despite the infamy of the original Black Dahlia murder, this other victim excited her much more. The connection had lit up in her mind quickly, but now she had to confirm it.
She went to spout her theory but stopped. Had Ripley noticed it too, or was Ella one step ahead of her?
“Do you think it’s the same unsub?” Ella asked.
Ripley flicked through the photos of the first victim. Ella peered over to refresh herself on the details. A young woman had been stabbed to death on a pathway between two buildings. According to the report, both buildings had been long since abandoned.
“If these two crimes were committed a hundred miles apart, I’d say they were the work of separate killers. But given how close they are, it must be the same perp. It says here there hasn’t been a murder in these two towns – Hicksberg and Spring Ridge – in forty years.”
“I agree,” Ella said, “but do you see it? The thing?”
Ripley shrugged. “I see a woman stabbed to death… six times in the chest. What else am I looking for?”
Ella had been living with her brain for 29 years now but she still didn’t really understand how it worked. The moment she saw those stab wounds, the number, the pattern, the depth, the layout, she could only think of one thing.
“This is Cheri Jo Bates,” Ella said. “An unsolved murder from 1966. Both of his murders have been recreations of old unsolved crimes.”
Ripley squinted her eyes at photographs and inspected him. “Right. I don’t know what I’m looking for here since I’ve never heard that person’s name in my life. Who’s Cheri Jo Bates?”
“She was an 18-year-old college girl, stabbed to death in 1966. Her killer stabbed her six times in the exact pattern you’re looking at. He cut her face, her mouth and stabbed her in the chest. This girl even looks like Cheri Jo Bates.”
Ella was waiting for a rebuttal. Ripley would shoot down her theories, then Ella would have to find something else that solidified them. Ella played the scientist, Ripley played the skeptic.
But to Ella’s astonishment, Ripley agreed. “If you say so. I mean, that’s pretty specific, so you’re probably right.”
Ella went for the kicker anyway.
“And look at the victim’s name. Cheryl King.”
“Cheryl. Cheri. Yup, makes total sense. Is there anything that connects these two victims? The originals?”
Ella scanned the depths of her brain, pulling up dates, locations, crime scene photos, theories. There wasn’t much.
“They both happened in California. They both included cuts to the face. They both involved young women. Both had a lot of false confessions. Sorry, not much to work with.”
Ripley closed the casefile and rested back against the seat. The city was long behind them now. Ella glanced at the driver’s GPS system which stated it was 43 miles to their destination.
“No, it’s good. You got all that from a few pictures. Like I said, the Bureau will be in good hands when I’m gone.”
