Dark Bull

Nobody thought of connecting the two child murders because the two children were killed in different venues, and there were two different causes of death. The first was upstate, maybe 75 miles from the second murder. The police at the time actually did not suspect murder at all but rather a child drowning in a backyard inflatable pool. This was the type you could purchase at a store, inflate by blowing into it, and fill it with water from the garden hose. Except the 2-year-old child had a plastic bag over his head, the type of bag that had a printed warning to not let children play with it. The County Coroner did note that the child’s moist lips would have caused the surface of the plastic bag to adhere to his mouth and block the normal passage of air into his lungs. However, the child’s lungs were full of pool water. The County District Attorney did not file charges against the parents because of the lack of intent and unlikely conviction possibilities. The child could have, in fact, been playing with the bag and accidentally drowned. A brief review of both parents’ history revealed very little evidence of a hostile or negligent home environment. The mother of the child was home at the time. Being a relatively new mother of an toddler required her to be there. No one could have imagined that a split-second of not paying attention to her child would have such a horrible result. No one questioned the origin of the plastic bag. Was it under the inflatable pool and the child pulled it out and placed it over his little head? No one asked or researched this question because it was not a crime scene. No crime was declared, it was looked at as an accidental backyard kiddie pool drowning. The 20- year-old pregnant County Morgue attendant cried while cutting off the swimming trunks of the 2-year-old victim and fought with the idea of covering the child with a warm blanket while filling out the forms required for the dead. The second child had been taken from his home hours earlier while playing in his own yard. Authorities were notified of the absence approximately 15 to 20 minutes after one of the parents did a frantic house search in the neighborhood. The block-by-block search was called off approximately 4 hours later, after reports of vehicles striking the child. The body was in horrible shape when it was brought into the facility. The boy had been hog-tied with wire, duct taped across his eyes and eyebrows, and a zippered plastic bag placed over his head. Witnesses described what appeared to be a non-descript driver of a non-descript car dropping a package into merging traffic from the driver’s side window of the car. One witness stated, “It was a gym bag or something” when he referred to the item dropped from the moving car. The autopsy report described the child as having postmortem skull fractures near the orbital eye sockets, fractured clavicles, ribs, and pelvis. Several of the ribs punctured the lungs and upper chest muscles. Both wrists and ankles were dislocated because of the wire hog-tying. The cause of death was asphyxiation from the plastic bag covering his nose and mouth. This was a murder and handled as such, totally unrelated to the first child's case. One extremely violent and the other an accident. One body was released to the family's choice of funeral directors while the other little person was now evidence of a capital crime of murder and, as such, would remain in the refrigerated custody of the County Medical Examiner.