The Cold Case of the Pierced Woman

"That's gonna take you a while."

"I know, but I'm not going to start there. I'm going to look on the DOE Network first. I've used that site before and they have pictures of the missing people if there are any. Once I find some likely women, I'll use the case numbers on NamUs to get all the information they have there."

When I left for the station, Rochelle was typing away on her laptop, and I had to smile. She wouldn't give up until she'd found at least one woman who might be our victim and she'd probably find several who could be.

My day was pretty uneventful except for the guy two uniforms found dead on his belly on his kitchen floor with a knife in his chest. His daughter said she hadn't heard from him in a couple days so she asked the police to do a wellness check.

I went to the scene and talked to the daughter while the crime scene techs looked for evidence, but it didn't look to me like a murder. There wasn't any indication that the guy had struggled with anybody, and the officers who found him said all the doors were locked when they got there. They'd called the daughter and she drove over and gave them a key she found under a rock beside the walk.

The daughter said her father had been retired for years and she didn't know of anybody who would want to hurt him. She gave me the name of his employer and I intended to give his HR department a call when I knew for sure what the coroner found. As it was, there was no need.

The first thing Ron, the Coroner, noticed was that the knife was just a paring knife and it wasn't in very deep. He took pictures of that, removed the knife, and then opened the guy's chest. He called me once he'd done that.

"Rich, this is no murder. The knife didn't go in much past his ribs and didn't hit anything vital, but I know what killed him. Half the guy's heart looks discolored. He had a massive heart attack, and judging from the way the rest of his heart looks, this wasn't his first. I think he was trying to cut something with the knife, and when his heart stopped working, he fell down on the knife. Never seen that before, but I know that knife wasn't the murder weapon. It was all the fats he'd eaten over the years. They clogged up his arteries and when one clog broke loose, it stopped at his heart. He was probably dead before he hit the floor."

Well, that was good news, but it still took me the rest of the day to put the folder together and have the Captain sign off on it.

I was feeling pretty good when I walked in the door of our house. Rochelle wasn't.

"I've looked at every missing woman in Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and North and South Carolina. What I found is forty-six who disappeared between 1978 and 1981 and that's not counting the women who had kids. I also wrote down the names of women who weren't blonde because that can be easily changed. None of them had piercings or at least they didn't tell the person who reported them missing that they did.

"Then I got to thinking about a woman who would want piercings like that. She'd have to been pretty different, I think. I know I wouldn't want some guy I didn't know sticking a needle through my nipples and definitely I wouldn't let him stick a needle through my labia.

"I did some research on the psychology of reasons people get pierced. Sometimes it's because they think the piercing will make sex better, but it's usually a mental thing. It's their way of expressing that they're an individual and not just part of the crowd. I suppose that's why piercing became popular with gay men and with the BDSM community. You can't get much further away from what most people would consider part of the crowd than one of those groups.

"The other thing I learned is that it's not unusual for a woman who has been sexually abused at some point in her life to get tattoos or piercings as a way of saying that body part is hers again instead of belonging to the person who abused her.

"There's another thing too. If you have piercings that people can see when you're dressed or if you wear clothes that let them show, it's usually about fitting in with a group that society doesn't understand or like. If you have piercings that are hidden unless you're undressed, it usually means you got them to enhance sexual pleasure but only with a person of the opposite sex. Apparently the BDSM crowd is pretty heterosexual."

"So you're saying this woman was into BDSM with a long-term partner, and she wanted to make sex with him better?"

Rochelle shrugged.

"We don't know enough about her to know for sure, but that's what the psychologists say based on the studies they've done. Wouldn't it be odd for that partner not to report her as missing though?"

I nodded.

"Normally, yes, but maybe not if he killed her. I've seen spouses and lovers react to killing their partner both ways. Some will call and report the spouse or girlfriend as missing because they think that will remove them from the list of suspects. Some don't say anything about it until I tell them their spouse or girlfriend was murdered. Then, they'll make up some story like she was visiting her mother and he didn't know when she was coming back so he wasn't expecting her on a specific date.

"Then there are the ones who just disappear. I suspect that's what happened to at least some of the women you found on NamUS. Their husband or partner killed them and then left for someplace a long way away, changed their name, and started a new life.

"Besides, we don't actually know that she was killed because the Coroner at the time couldn't find any evidence that she was. If you remember his report, his best guess for cause of death was an overdose of some drug, but he could tell she wasn't a long time user of any drugs. Her skeleton would have shown that, but it didn't. That's why he didn't call her death a confirmed murder."

I could tell Rochelle was getting frustrated.

"Well, she didn't walk out into those trees and bury herself. Somebody did that and I can't think of any reason why they would unless they killed her first and wanted to hide the body."

"That's what Harry thought too or he'd have closed the case. I believe she was killed too, but without more information, I don't know how to prove it."

Rochelle smiled then.

"Maybe I do. That's the second thing I told you I was thinking about. It's probably not really very practical, but it might be possible if we can find the right person, and I think NamUs or the DOE Network might have the person we need or know where we could find one. I sent both an email this afternoon, but I haven't heard back yet."

Well, Rochelle has come up with some ideas before that didn't seem possible at first but actually worked.

"OK, what's your idea?"

Rochelle picked up the stack of x-rays that were in the file.

"I got this idea from watching a video about 3D printing once.

"To make a 3D print of something like a statue, what you do is draw your subject in a 3D computer program or use a laser to measure it in three dimensions and send the data to some software that slices it into tiny little layers. Then you send that file to a 3D printer. The printer lays down either a very thin layer of melted plastic or UV light sensitive resin for each slice. When it's done, you have a physical reproduction of what you drew.

"In the video, they showed what each layer looks like, and to me, the layers looked like what you see when doctors do MRI scans. Forensic artists have used MRI scans to 3D print a skull and then add clay to regenerate what the person probably looked like. The reconstructions are not usually perfect, but they're close enough someone who knows the person would recognize them.

"The coroner took almost fifty x-rays of our victim's skull in hopes of using them to identify her some day through dental records. What my idea is, is to see if someone can use those x-rays to make a 3D model. There aren't enough of them to be like an MRI scan and they're taken from a bunch of different angles, but if someone could trace the outlines, put those outlines together in the right places, and then sort of fill in the spaces between, we might be able to see what our victim really looked like.

"Museums do this all the time with the skulls of early humans and animals they find. They take the fossil bones they have, put them together, and then fill in the missing parts like they think the original bones would have looked. We'd have an easier time doing that because we already know what a human skull looks like.

"If we had a model of her face, at least we'd have something to show other people, and if we get lucky, maybe someone will recognize her. That's all we really need -- someone who recognizes her and can tell us what they know about her. That person will lead us to another person who will lead us to another person until we find someone who can tell us who she is and what happened to her."

I didn't really know what to say. Rochelle's idea seemed a lot like something from a science fiction novel, but then, ten years before, the idea of being to see the record of every missing person and unidentified body in the US from the laptop on my desk would have seemed just as impossible to me. A lot can happen in ten years.

"I don't know if I can convince the Captain to foot the bill. It'll probably be expensive."

Rochelle smiled again.

"No it won't. The DOE Network is all volunteers and NamUS does forensic work at no cost, at least to police departments. All we need is to find a volunteer who's really good with computers."

It was a week later that Rochelle got her answer. She spent that day scanning all the X-rays and then printing them to paper. The next morning she packed a bag and drove to Livingston, Tennessee where the offices of the DOE Network were located. When she kissed me goodbye, she said she wasn't sure how long it would take, but she'd call me every night.

I think I was just as antsy as Rochelle. I wanted to tell the Captain what we were doing, but I was afraid he'd just dismiss it as something that wouldn't happen and tell me to get back to work on some case I had a better chance of solving. Rochelle wasn't really helping that feeling either. When she called me at night, she was always upbeat.

On Monday night, she told me she thought this was going to work.

"Shiela Forbes - that's her name - Shiela has a master's degree in Computer Engineering, and she thinks she can do what we want. She spent all day drawing the profiles of half the X-rays in her computer and then re-sizing them so they were all the same size as the original skull. She said she can probably finish them tomorrow. Then, she has to figure out the orientation for each X-ray and start to build the model."

On Tuesday night, Rochelle said Shiela had started to build the 3D model in her computer and had called an artist to help her fill in the missing parts.

"It doesn't look like much yet, but you can tell it's a person's skull. It's kind of exciting to know that we're making a person that nobody's seen in almost forty years."

On Wednesday night, Rochelle said Thad Wilson had joined them and was helping Shiela fill in the parts of the skull that were between the X-ray profiles.

"He's a good looking guy and he has a degree in art. He seems to know a lot about how skulls look, and our model is starting to look like a real skull."

I said I hoped that was all he was working on, and Rochelle chuckled.

"Sounds like you're a little worried. Don't be. He dresses too well to be straight so I'm pretty sure he's gay. You just be sure you're ready when I get home. I'll tell you all about what happened, but after I do that...well, it's been three days and it'll probably take a couple more. You know how I get after five days."

Thursday night started out with Rochelle telling me the computer model was about as good as they could make it and they were going to have it printed on a 3D printer on Friday. She said it would probably be Friday night before she got home.

After that, our phone call became more personal than business. I've never been into phone sex, but when Rochelle said she was rolling her nipples and wished I was doing it for her, I had to play along. Suffice it to say that by the time Rochelle moaned that she was cumming, I was too.

Rochelle got home about six on Friday night and she was all grins.

"It worked and I have a skull now."

She opened the box she'd been carrying.

"See? I don't know how accurate it is, but it looks like a real skull. I have two copies and the computer files to make more if we need them. Now we just need to find a forensic artist to put a face on the skull. Thad said he could but it would be better to have an actual forensic artist do it. Do you think you could convince the Captain to send the skull to the TBI?"

Well, now that I had at least a little proof the method would work, I thought maybe the Captain would go along.

"I don't know. I'll have to ask him on Monday."

Rochelle grinned then and pulled her top over her head.

"That means we have all day Saturday and Sunday to do what we talked about last night. Talking about it was pretty good, but the real thing is a whole lot better. I have five days to make up, so let's start now."

I won't go into what happened that night because I don't really remember much except just going with the flow of what Rochelle wanted. I remember that she came twice and so did I. What I really remember was when she curled up beside me, stroked my chest, and whispered, "I missed you. Could you tell?"

On Monday morning I carried a box with one of the 3D printed skulls into the Captain's office and explained what it was and how Rochelle had gotten it. He looked at it for a couple minutes and then asked what I was going to do with it. That's when I asked him.

"Well, I don't know if this will lead anywhere with my cold case, but it's the only thing I have. What I'd like to do is send it to the TBI and have one of their forensic artists put a face on the skull. Once I have that, I can use the pictures on a couple web sites to see if any of the missing women are a match. Rochelle also found a tattoo artist who might have done the piercings on the woman. If he remembers her or if we can match the face to a picture of a missing woman, I'll have a lot more tools at my disposal."

The Captain drummed his fingers on his desk for a few seconds, and then frowned.

"The last time we did one of these facial reconstructions, the price was too damned high for what we got. I think there's another way though that will be cheaper and will give you the results you're looking for. It came out in an update from the TBI about six months ago.

"What they can do now is add the tissue and skin to a skull on a computer and generate a 3D model of the face. According to the update, it's often better than an actual forensic reconstruction because you can change things like hair length and color with just a few keystrokes. Let me find the update and I'll give you the contact info."

That afternoon, I called the number the Captain gave me and explained what I wanted. I got transferred to three different people at the TBI before a woman came on the line.

"This is Christy. What can I help you with?"

I went through my explanation for the fourth time and when I finished, she said, "Can you drive to Nashville so I can see what you have for me to work with?"

I said I'd be there at about ten the next morning and Christy said she'd put me on the access list for between nine and eleven.

I thought Christy sounded pretty young on the phone, and when she came to get me at the receptionist's desk, she looked younger than I'd thought she probably was. I don't know if it's because I keep getting older or something else, but Christy looked like she should have been wearing a cheerleader's uniform at a high school football game instead of a lab coat. Once we got back to her cubicle, she chuckled.

"You look like you don't think I can do this, but I've seen that look before. I have a Bachelor's in Computer Science with a minor in Art and I helped write the software we're going to use when I was a senior at UT. Now, let's see what you brought with you."

Christy picked up the skull and grinned.

"This is the first one I've seen that was 3D printed. Usually they're real and they're pretty icky. I won't have to wear gloves with this one."

She sat the skull on a platform of a machine and then pressed a few buttons.

"What I'm doing is generating a computer model of the skull. It's probably a lot like the one you used to print the skull, but mine will have more detail. Once I have this file, I'll import it to my computer and we'll get started."

Half an hour later, Christy said, "It's done", and then walked back to her cubicle. After about five minutes of Christy typing on her keyboard, she said, "It's loading and it'll take about fifteen minutes. Want a cup of coffee or a soda?"

When I walked out of TBI headquarters at almost five that night, I had gained a lot of respect for Christy. In my briefcase I had thirty different pictures of what my victim might have looked like. Each picture had different color hair and different length hair and because I told Christy I didn't know how much my victim weighed, there were also slight variations in weight from slender to pudgy. I also had a thumb drive with each picture as a.pdf file so I could print as many as I wanted. Christy had asked if she could keep the skull for reference, and since Rochelle had a copy and could make more if we needed them, I said she could.

When I got home, I told Rochelle about my day and showed her the pictures. She was ecstatic.

"The first thing tomorrow, I'm going to print the pictures of the women I found who fit our victim's height and date they disappeared. Then, I'm going to compare those pictures with the ones the TBI made. Maybe I'll get lucky and find a match.

"Now, I didn't know what time you'd be home so I didn't cook anything. Let's go get a burger."

By the time I left for the station the next morning, Rochelle had plugged the thumb drive into her computer and had printed off the pictures Christy had made for me. I took the originals to show the Captain that there was some value to the technique.

I spent the day finishing up my last current case so I could present it to the DA. It wasn't a hard case to solve.

There's a part of Knoxville where nobody with any brains ever goes and that's for a reason. The people who hang out there are either prostitutes, pimps, drug dealers, or drug users who'll steal the shoes right off your feet to get enough money for their next fix. Most of the crime in that area is between different gangs or one pimp trying to steal another pimp's girls. It's only once in a while something more than that happens.

In this case, it was a car full of college kids looking to score enough grass to give them a very mellow weekend. The car fit in well because it was a black SUV with blacked out windows -- the same type car the drug suppliers and dealers drive. What didn't fit was that the dealers in that area belonged to one of two rival gangs and they didn't recognize the SUV. To them, that meant the SUV was from a third gang and was looking to poach some business.

When the patrol officers responded to the 911 call they found the driver shot dead and the other kids scared to death. Fortunately, the SUV had a dash cam that had recorded the license number of the other SUV that the shooter used after he drove off. By the next morning, the man the SUV was registered to was in custody and claiming he'd just been doing the driving and it was his passenger who did the shooting.

After I reminded him that participating in a murder means he could still be charged with murder, he gave me the name of the passenger.