On Friday, March 23rd, 2018, at approximately 9:45pm, Joanna Delany was discovered dead at Lucent Lakes West. Joseph Meyer (pseudonym) was walking his dog (chocolate lab) on the pathway that abuts a man-made lake when he spotted what he first thought to be an animal washed up in the reed grass.
The curious lab directed their course toward the body, and Joseph muttered a profanity when he realized it was a naked woman floating near the bank (according to his statement). There was no question if she was dead: her pale body was encased in mud and grass. Her skin bloated, opaque eyes wide and vacant. Joseph forced his dog away from the scene and dialed 9-1-1 from the pathway.
Officer Leon Brady, a patrol officer with the WMPD (West Melbourne Police Department), responded to the call. Upon Officer Brady’s arrival, he radioed the precinct to request the on-duty homicide detective. Then he proceeded to question Joseph and take his statement.
Detective Orson Vale and trainee detective Allen Right ordered CSU to rope off the area around the victim and backside of the lake within ten minutes of their arrival to the crime scene. Detective Vale then requested the medical examiner and proceeded to inspect the scene and question the witness himself.
What followed, according to the reports, was standard procedure in a homicide investigation. No glaring mistakes of protocol or oversights stand out. But no foremost insight from either detective or major crimes, either.
The first hours in a murder investigation are crucial. Most of your pertinent information comes in during the first twenty-four hours on the case. Victim ID. Next of kin. Cause of death. The trifecta to help point the way to the prime suspect.
Which, during the first two days of the investigation, according to Detective Vale’s report, was the boyfriend. It’s always the love interest, until he can be cleared.
Jamison Smith cooperated with the locals and was cleared within forty-eight hours with an alibi. Though not an ideal alibi, personal judgment shouldn’t overshadow an investigation. Jamison’s lover, Kimberly Towell, had definitive proof of Jamison’s whereabouts for the estimated time of death of his girlfriend. He was with Kimberly. Handcuffed to her bedpost. There’s a video to prove it.
Long exhale. Flip the page.
Cases that involve cheating trigger a negative response in me. Of course, I try not to let my personal feelings muddy the water, but I’m human. I’m going to have human emotions and reactions to details that pluck a sensitive nerve.
And sometimes, those things that make us human can even further the investigation.
It’s all how you look at it.
Right now, sitting in Orlando Melbourne International, brushing up on the facts of the case, I’m looking at the case too personally already.
I hate this godforsaken state.
As I’m putting away my binder, I spot Agent Nolan through the glass-sliding doors. Seeing him is like coming home in a way that Florida will never hold for me again. I stand to meet him, and with a slight nod, he grabs my carry-on and we’re off. No time for pleasantries; there’s a case to solve.
It’s truly what I like best about him.
How I met Special Agent Rhys Nolan:
My case went cold around the six-month mark. Honestly, it was cold well before then, but that was when Detective Dutton officially threw his hands in the air. When leads halt, and officials are at a loss for where to take the investigation, the case goes cold. That doesn’t mean that my case was closed—unsolved cases are never officially closed—they remain open. Just set aside.
Every detective I’ve interviewed has admitted to working on cold cases in their free time. What little free time they have, that is. For them, they’ve said, it’s a compulsion, a driving need to break out the files and go over the cases at least once a year, to see if the distance allows them to view things in a new light. Discover some piece of the puzzle they missed.
No one was driven to compulsively work on my case. After six months, the understaffed and overworked Leesburg PD declared the Cynthia Marks (my given name) case cold. I was set
aside for more pressing investigations, like the local drug ring.
I was alive, after all. Detective Dutton wasn’t trying to solve a murder. There were no similarities between my attack and any others around the Lake County area; there was no pressing concern to prevent a future attack.
The return calls from the department heads and detectives became fewer and fewer. The lengthy pauses on the line dragging out longer. Soon I didn’t bother with the routine calls seeking updates.
My case was dead.
My parents were content to let it go. Talking about the event only caused them anxiety, pain. I wasn’t Amber. I hadn’t become lost to them like she had. Their daughter, their only child, had survived. They weren’t pursuing justice. I no longer involved them in my obsessive search.
I turned my focus to other cases with similar MOs. I expanded the search radius. Maybe my attacker wasn’t a local. Maybe it wasn’t a personal assault. It’s possible the assailant moved from city to city in Florida, attacking young women. And no one looked close enough to connect the dots.
For Agent Nolan, working in the FBI’s cold case division didn’t happen willingly. At the age of twenty-nine, Rhys was injured in the field. Gunshot to the thigh. His injury benched him for nearly a year, where he worked hard at recovery in order to be reinstated as a field agent.
We had this in common.
My recovery took me on a different course, also. All the way to Missouri. With a new name, new identity, and a new career path. A self-imposed—inflicted—witness protection program.
Agent Nolan would never be a field agent again. And I would never complete my degree to become a psychologist. By some divine twist of irony, due to our failures, our paths crossed.