Chapter 1
I walked under the yellow tape with my partner. As the tape was lowered behind us, a young officer made his way over to us with a quick handshake of a greeting. ‘The body was found this morning by an off-duty officer,’ the officer informed us as my fingers slipped into the blue rubber like material. As we neared the victim it was easy to tell that it was a young female. As my partner lowered his body to the ground, the smell of decay lingered in the air, evading the nostrils like a predator. ‘Was there any ID on her?’ my partner asked as he scanned the victim’s body with an uneasy expression. ‘We couldn’t find any,’ the officer replied. ‘Joel, see these marks around her neck, just like the other one,’ my partner explained as he looked at me with a grimace look. I knew that look all to well. Dread filled me as I took a closer look at the victim, hoping he was wrong.
I felt the cold touch of the victim’s body as I placed my fingers under her chin. As I moved her head in an upward direction ever so slightly and to the left a little, I saw the deep purple almost black bruises that covered most of her neck. As I continued to examine her neck, I noticed that some of the bruises were fresher than other ones. ‘You’re right Kyle just like the other one,’ I paused standing up and facing my partner, ‘he strangles and tortures his victims over a string of a couple of days,’ I finished. ‘How do you know that?’ the young officer asked. ‘If you look at the neck some of the bruising is a deeper purple while others are starting to turn a green yellow colour, that indicates that he holds his victims for a couple of days at least while torturing and strangling them,’ I stated as I pulled the rubber material from my hands. ‘He chooses to dump the victims in open areas, where people can easily see them which could mean his confident in his actions,’ Kyle states as he scans the location. I nod in response.
