“That’s good to know,” said Decker curtly.
Southern lifted the sheet off the corpse, and they all three stared down at what was left of Irene Cramer.
“Cause, manner, and time of death?” asked Jamison.
“The cause and manner are pretty straightforward.” He pointed to a wound in the middle of the chest, appearing a few inches above the bottom intersection of the Y-incision. “Long, sharp, serrated knife penetrated here and bisected the heart. The manner was homicide, of course.”
“Killer was pretty accurate with the knife strike,” noted Jamison as she leaned in for a closer look. “Clean and efficient. Only one stab did the deal.”
“My thinking, too.”
“So, unemotional. No savagery or lack of control,” opined Decker. “Killer might not have known the victim. Or at least had no personal relationship with her.”
“Maybe not,” said Southern.
“And the time of death?” asked Decker.
“Okay, there we get into the speculation zone,” conceded Southern. “Based on what I found out, she’s been dead maybe about a week to ten days.”
Decker did not look pleased by this. “That’s a pretty big range. You can’t narrow it down more than that?”
“Afraid not,” said Southern, looking unhappy. “If this comes down to whether an alibi gets someone off or not, well, my report’s not going to be a bit of help on that. I’m sorry.”
“Insect infestation?” asked Jamison.
“A lot. That allowed me to gauge the week or so. After that, it gets dicey. At least for me. Again, I know what I’m doing, but this isn’t exactly the FBI lab here.”
“Had she been lying out there long, then?” asked Jamison.
“That’s both a hard and simple question.”
“Come again?” said Jamison.
“If she’d been out there too long, the animals clearly would have gotten to her. They hadn’t.”
“That’s the simple part, so what’s the hard?” asked Decker. “The insect infestation doesn’t reconcile with that?”
“Bingo. Lots of bugs, but no animal bite marks. And another thing, the lividity was fixed. Shows that after death she was in a prone position.”
“The report I read says she was foundsupine,” noted Decker.
“Right, but you can see that the lividity discoloration does not jibe with that. Blood won’t collect around parts of the body that are in contact with the ground. But once lividity is fixed, meaning when the heart stops beating and the large red blood cells sink via gravity into the interstitial tissues, the cells don’t move again. The discoloration stays where it was.”
“So she was obviously killed and laid on her face. But then the body was at some point turned on its back because that’s how she was found,” said Jamison.
“Right.Afterlividity was fixed.”
“Bleed-out would have been minimal, since the heart would have stopped shortly after the knife strike,” said Decker. “But there would have been some, and none was found at the crime scene. That means she was killed elsewhere and placed there, which would also explain the lividity discrepancy.”
Southern nodded. “But with such major insect infestation you would expect animal intrusion as well. I mean, if she’d been lying outside all this time, the critters we have around here would have gnawed her to bone in far less than a week, which is the bare minimum I put her TOD at.” He paused and added matter-of-factly, “Other than that she was in excellent condition. Very healthy. Heart, lungs, other organs, shipshape.”
“Yeah, the woman’s in great shape, except she’s dead,” said Decker grimly.
“How much skill are we talking about with the killer doing his own postmortem?” asked Jamison.
“The incisions were first-rate. I’d say the person had some medical training. And he, if it was a he, knew the forensic protocols. What was the source of that knowledge and training, I couldn’t venture to say.”
Decker pointed to the Y-incision. “How about the tools he used? Regular knife or medical grade?”