River City - 1. Chapter 1 - River City

Let me introduce myself. My name is Jack Fletcher and I’ve been a detective with the River City Police Department for the past eight years and recently I’ve been assigned to a series of fatal and near fatal cases. Even though our community deals with its share of crimes, the severity of these particular crimes was unusual.

While all of the cases I investigate are serious, this group of cases was especially troubling, at least for me. You see, I’m gay and it’s a known fact at work, and since the victims in these cases were all members of the LGBTQ+ community, it wasn’t a surprise when they were all assigned to me.

It all began when I was assigned to an assault case and started investigating what had happened. Eventually, I was assigned to two more cases simply because of their connection to the LGBTQ+ community, even though none of these crimes followed the same pattern and there was no apparent common perpetrator. They’d merely been given to me solely based upon who had been targeted. I imagine my superiors thought those involved from the community would be less suspicious and more cooperative with me leading the investigation, since I was also gay.

As of yet, I and those assisting me have no idea about who might have committed any of these horrific crimes or even why these specific individuals had been targeted. However, the obvious factor cannot be ignored and I have to determine if these crimes were committed solely due to each victim’s sexual orientation. Regrettably, I had no idea as to how I was going to solve these cases, since there were very few, if any, witnesses and none of the leads that had come in were panning out.

Not to make light of these incidents, but for some reason my mind kept replaying the melody and lyrics of a song that I’d heard in a famous Broadway Musical. Even though the lyrics weren’t in any way related to the crimes I was investigating, I mentally adjusted a few lines of lyrics that kept bouncing around in my brain so they’d fit the situation. Some of you might even be familiar with this tune, because I borrowed it from a song written by Robert Preston, and then I changed the lyrics to come up with this:

Oh we got trouble
Right here in River City
With a capital “T” and that rhymes with “B” and stands for bigot
We’ve surely got trouble
Right here in River City
Gotta figure out a ploy to protect every girl and boy, if you dig it

(Adapted from Ya Got Trouble by Robert Preston – The Music Man)

I imagine this is probably starting to sound a little silly to you by now, but I’m intent on solving these crimes and nabbing the perps who’d committed them. For those of you that don’t know it already, the word perps is a shortened form of perpetrators, and I’m determined to bring them to justice, no matter how many there are or how long it takes.

I’ll begin this story by explaining the facts of the various cases I’m investigating so you’ll see why this has me so troubled. I’ll start by telling you as much as I can about the first case and then I’ll explain the other cases to you. Hopefully, doing this will give you an idea about how they might be interrelated.

 

Case 05072022-3: This crime involves a 29-year-old gay man named Robert Campbell, although he prefers to go by Bob or Bobby, and he enjoys performing in drag shows. If I take into consideration the information I’ve learned from those who know him best, he’s very good at what he does. His primary act is an impersonation of a young Reba McEntire, which he’s been doing for several years by this point, although he calls his character Ginger.

During the interview process, I was informed by several different people who’d seen him perform that if I was to watch his act I’d swear it was actually a younger Reba on the stage. In addition to looking like her doppelganger, he also lip-synced a couple of her early songs and was so good at doing it that he appeared to actually be singing. In fact, he had become so accomplished at it that he now has the most popular act at these events.

One night as he was heading out to his car after he’d finished his last set at one of these events, he was attacked and viciously beaten. To give you an idea about how mercilessly he’d been beaten, those who discovered his body didn’t recognize the victim. They’d not only seen him perform that evening, but some even knew him socially and still couldn’t identify him.

Of course, Robert had changed his clothes and removed his makeup before exiting the building, but since some of these people knew him from social settings they should have been able to recognized him in street clothes. However, his injuries were so severe and bloody that he was unrecognizable.

As soon as the emergency vehicles arrived, he was moved onto a gurney and placed in the ambulance so the crew could transport him to the local hospital. After they wheeled him into the emergency room, he was quickly stabilized and taken for a Magnetic Resonance Imaging scan, which is commonly referred to as an MRI. This scan would allow the doctors to assess the extent of a patient’s internal injuries, especially to their brain, the skull, and spinal cord. Once they evaluated the magnitude of his injuries, Robert was wheeled into the operating room. The surgeons worked diligently and spent several hours doing whatever they could to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

The MRI had indicated that Robert had two major issues that needed to be addressed: a depressed skull fracture and a fracture to the left orbital socket. To put it into layman’s terms, there was severe damage to both the left side of his skull and brain, as well as to the bones that surrounded his left eye. It was determined that the fractured skull would require a titanium plate and several screws to repair the damaged area, as well as to maintain the shape and function of the skull. The fractured orbital socket would require the use of titanium mesh, due to its biocompatibility and stiffness, along with a small titanium plate to repair the orbital socket, since the damage involved several bones.

As soon as both operations had been completed, I was able to consult with one of the surgeons who’d performed the operations and he updated me on Robert’s situation.

“I know you’re eager to speak with the young man, but he’ll remain under the anesthesia for another hour after he’s been moved to the recovery room. Once he’s there, he’ll be groggy and will sleep a lot for the next several hours before he’s moved to his own room. It’s not until he’s there that you might be able to speak with him about the attack.”

“Then what information can you tell me about the attack, now that you’ve treated his injuries in the operating room?”

“Forensically speaking, the attack occurred from behind and was carried out using a cylindrical object of some sort.”

“Do you mean like a baseball bat?”

“No, that would be too large in diameter to match his injuries. I would suggest it was more likely a sturdy length of pipe or possibly even a very dense wooden staff or walking stick.”

“Ok, I’ve got it. Is there anything else you can tell me about the attack?”

“Yes, since all indications are that he was attacked from behind, then I’d say his attacker must have been left-handed to have caused so much damage.”

“Do you mean there’s no way that a right-handed person could have done this?”

“Judging from the way the injuries were created, I don’t believe the blows were administered by a right-handed individual. The injuries I observed came from the side and had a slight downward angle to them, which would indicate a left-handed attacker. If a right-handed individual had attacked him, the attacker would have had to use a backhanded blow to generate the kind of force needed to create the same type of injuries. And if the attacker had done that then the blows would have likely shown a slight upward angle.”

“Thank you. That’s very enlightening and you have been very helpful. There’s just one more thing I’d like to know. How long will Robert have to remain in the hospital?”

“I’m recommending that he remain here for a couple of days so we will be able to monitor his progress while recovering. As soon as we determined that he’s ready to be discharged, he’ll be advised that he won’t be able to resume his normal activities for several more days to give his injuries a solid chance to begin healing.”

“Will he eventually experience a full recovery?”

“While it’s a slim possibility, that’s unlikely. The patient experienced a depressed skull fracture, and then suffered from cerebral edema, or a swelling of the brain. We’re currently using a respirator to provide additional oxygen to help protect his brain cells from further damage, although some of the skull fragments appeared to have penetrated his brain in different locations. Due to those injuries, he’ll probably experience memory problems, suffer from a shorter attention span, and it may take him slightly longer to make sense of what you’re saying when you’re speaking to him. He may also be plagued with frequent headaches and experience some loss of motor skills.”

“What about the damage to his eye?”

“The damage to his left orbital socket likely caused some intraocular damage, so he’ll most likely experience a loss of visual acuity and may eventually even go blind in that eye.”

“Damn, I really feel sorry for this poor guy. When will you know for certain which of those things will happen?”

“It will be weeks before we’ll know how severe any of those problems will be. There have been a few documented cases where the brain was able to rewire itself to either avoid or lessen the severity of those types of problems. However, even if he’s lucky enough for that to happen, it will still take a considerable amount of time before the changes will become noticeable.”

“Did he suffer any other injuries from the attack, in addition to the fractures to the skull and orbital socket?”

“Yes! There were also numerous cranial lacerations that resulted in a considerable loss of blood. The blood loss can be attributed to the fact that there are so many blood vessels that are located between the skull and the epidermis, or outer layer of skin.”

“I appreciate your help and you’ve provided me with a great deal of information, as well as giving me a lot to consider. I just wish you could have told me more about his attacker, other than that he’s most likely left-handed.”

“I understand. I could have also told you the attacker was taller than the patient, but since he’s only 5 feet 8 inches tall (173 cm), I didn’t think it would give you much to go on, since most men would be taller than he is.”

“That’s very helpful, because any bit of information you can give me may help us narrow our focus and catch the person that did this.”

“I’m also afraid the patient might not be able to tell you much about his attacker either, for three reasons. The first is that he won’t be able to speak to you while he’s still on the respirator, and he may not have seen very much either, since the attack came from behind. The most important reason is that the various injuries he’s suffered may have altered or even erased some of those memories.”

“They’re all good points, but I’m going to remain hopeful that he might have noticed something either prior or during the attack that he can still remember. Anything he can provide us with will be helpful.”

I thanked the doctor one last time before I left the hospital. As I sat in my car, I considered everything I now knew and was more than a little depressed when I realized how little it was. Not only that, but Robert may not be able to help much either, because by the time I finally get to interview him it will have been nearly a day or more since the attack occurred. First of all, we can only estimate how long he was lying in the parking lot after the attack happened, and then he was being operated on for several more hours. The effects of the anesthetic lasted for even longer than that, and then he’ll be sleeping for several additional hours before I’d get to speak with him.

In fact, we’re only able to make an approximation of when he left the building so we can only estimate how long his body was lying there before it was discovered by those leaving the drag show. There’s also a good chance that they had stuck around even longer before they finally left so they could have a few more drinks, to put it mildly. This means that knowing how long it had been since Robert had been attacked will be basically a guess, and now even more time is going to pass before I’ll be able to question him. He’ll have to regain consciousness first and then be taken off the respirator so he’ll be able to speak, and I’m praying these delays won’t prevent us from capturing his attacker.

This doesn’t mean I’ll be sitting on my hands and doing nothing until then. We already have a list consisting of several young men who are well known to our department because they have a history of harassing and threatening members of the LGBTQ+ community. However, those incidents usually took the form of verbal threats or written attacks about their sexual orientation, and most of those would have occurred online.

There were also a few isolated physical encounters, but those attacks never rose to the level of what has happened to Campbell this time. If there had been a physical altercation in the past, it usually only consisted of a few punches being thrown, but it was enough to make certain they now showed up on our radar. For that reason, I started my investigation by finding out where each one had been and what they’d been doing during the time when Robert was being attacked, but they weren’t being very cooperative. Therefore, I had to assign the duty of talking to their family and friends, as well as a few other people, to those helping me. By doing this we might be able to come up with a timeline for what those guys were doing when Campbell was attacked.

When I was finally allowed to interview Robert, his recollections were spotty, but he was able to provide me with enough information that I was able to move forward.

“Robert, what do you remember about the night you were attacked?”

“I’ll tell you, but please call me Bobby from now on.”

“Ok, I’ll be happy to do that for you.”

“Thank you and all I remember is that I’d performed at a drag show and was heading out to my car so I could go home.”

“Did you see anyone while you were on your way out to your car?”

“I don’t remember.”

“So, you can’t tell me anything other than that you’d performed at a drag show and was leaving to go home?”

As I now watched his expression, I could tell he was attempting to recall whatever he could from that night, but he apparently wasn’t having much success. In fact, this went on for a couple of minutes before he spoke again.

“Uh, I think I remember seeing an old man walking in the parking lot while I was out there. I believe he was heading in the same direction I was walking, but I’m not entirely positive about that.”

“Does it mean that you walked past him?”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I did, because he was walking much more slowly than I was.”

“That’s great! What can you tell me about the old man? What was he wearing, how tall was he, and could you tell where he was going?”

After another lengthy pause, he finally responded. “All I remember is that he was hunched over and walking very slowly.”

“When you say hunched over, do you mean like he had a back problem?”

He thought for a few moments before he responded. “No, I think it was because he was so old. He was also using a cane.”

“That’s really good. Could you tell if it was a wooden cane?”

He scrunched up his face as he thought some more. “No, I think it was metal.”

“Why do you say that?”

His face wrinkled again as he attempted to recall what he’d seen. “I think I could see the light in the parking lot reflecting off of it.”

“That’s very good. Can you remember anything else?”

His eyes squinted shut and he gritted his teeth as he tried to think back to that night, and eventually he spoke again. “He had white hair, but his face wasn’t all wrinkled like I thought it should be. He acted and appeared to be really old, yet he didn’t look old.”

“Do you think he was wearing a disguise?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, and I could tell he was getting frustrated. “I just got a quick look at his face when he glanced at me.”

“Ok, you’ve done really well so far, so let’s move on to something else. Do you remember if you received any threats before you were scheduled to perform at the drag show?”

He thought for a few more seconds and then looked up at me. “I can’t remember when I got them, but I was always getting emails and text messages from the haters that disapproved of what I was doing,” he admitted.

“That’s fine and you’ve given me a lot to work with, so don’t feel badly that you can’t remember if you’d received any threats during the days before the drag show. If you happen to think of anything else, just jot a note down on a piece of paper and then you can tell me about it the next time I’m here.”

I felt I’d pushed him hard enough during this interview, but I hoped he’d be able to recall more information before I returned to speak with him again. To my surprise, this happened sooner than I expected, because the next day one of his nurses called to give me a message.

“Bobby wanted me to tell you that he’s remembered some more about the things you were asking him.”

“Great! Tell him I’ll be there just as soon as I can break free.”

When I arrived at Bobby’s room, he gave me a weak smile. “I’ve been thinking a lot about what you asked me the last time you were here.”

“And I take it that you remember something more.”

“Kind of. I remember that every time I signed up to perform at a drag show I would receive hate mail and threatening text messages both before and after I performed, and it probably happened that time too.”

“I’m confused. How would strangers be able to send you emails and text messages? Those things had to come from people you know, because how would people you didn’t know really well be able to get your phone number or email address so they could send those things to you?”

“I guess it was my fault that it happened. When I first started doing the drag shows I would print up a bunch of posters to advertise that I was going to be there. Foolishly, I included my email address and phone number on the posters so anyone could contact me if they had questions about where or when I was going to perform or if they just wanted to comment about how I did. I quit doing that, though, when I started getting all of the hate filled texts and emails, but I guess some of those people kept my phone number and email address.”

“Didn’t you get any positive feedback after your shows?”

“Yeah, but I got that from the people I talked to after the show ended, but almost all of the emails and text messages were really hateful and disgusting.”

“Why? What would they say?”

“They’d call me all kinds of names and say I was a freak because I dressed up in women’s clothes and pretended to be a female. They would also say that being gay was unnatural and against God’s law, so I should be put to death for what I was doing. One guy even said someone should cut off my dick and shove it down my throat, and those were some of the nicer things they said.”

“And how did you react when you got those messages?”

“At first they bothered me a lot, but now I just ignore the idiots that say things like that. If I didn’t then I’d probably go crazy and withdraw into a shell. I’d probably also become as cynical and hateful as they are.”

“Do you have any of those emails or text messages saved so I can see them?”

“No, after a while I deleted all of them, and then I would delete the others as quickly as I read them. If I didn’t do that then I wouldn’t have any space left on my phone or computer for anything else.”

“And you can’t remember if you received any of those comments during the week before the drag show when you were injured?”

He paused briefly before he answered. “I might have, but I’m just not sure.”

“That’s ok, because you’ve given me a lot more to work with.”

That wasn’t exactly true, but I didn’t want to deflate his ego and make him feel badly. If he did, he might shut down and not work with me any longer, but since I wasn’t getting any significant information from him, I said goodbye and left. I went back to the station to see what the other members of my team had learned about the list of potential suspects that we’d put together.

“Have you discovered anything that stands out to you about any of those guys?” I asked.

“Most of them have come up with verifiable alibis for the night and time in question, but there are a few suspects that have no alibis and can’t account for any of their time that day. We wanted to obtain subpoenas for their phone records, but we just don’t have enough information to justify obtaining a subpoena to present to their service providers.”

We were all frustrated about this, but it wasn’t the first time we’d felt this way, so we began looking for something else we could use. We did this by getting a subpoena for Robert Campbell’s phone records and then we’d attempt to determine who owned the phone numbers that had contacted him. The judge, however, warned me about this becoming a fishing expedition and said he wasn’t going to allow us to infringe on the Constitutional rights of those Robert had spoken with. It meant we’d have to come up with additional credible information before the judge would grant a subpoena for the provider’s records concerning any of the other phone numbers.

Fortunately, we had another way to address this situation and we’d simply do it by utilizing a reverse phone number lookup, since we had access to the necessary databases. After finding out the name of the owner of the other phone number, we chose to only zero in on those people associated with our potential suspect list so we wouldn’t step on anyone else’s Constitutional Rights.

“As soon as we’re certain that a suspect had contacted Campbell prior to the attack, we’ll apply for a subpoena to get his phone records from his service provider,” I told the others. “Once we have this information then we’ll be able to determine if his phone pinged off of a tower in the area of the attack on the night and time it occurred. If it did, then that should give us enough to get a search warrant for his home so we’ll be able to look for even more evidence that might incriminate him.”

“What will you be looking for?” a young patrolman asked. He’d been helping us, but he’d been with the department for less than a year, so this was a learning experience for him.

“It would definitely help if we could find anything the suspect might have used in order to disguise his appearance and make them look elderly. It would also help if we could locate the cane that was used or the clothing he wore at the time, because there might be enough DNA evidence on those items to definitively link him to the attack on Campbell.”

We were still working on this case when I was alerted about another crime.

 

Case 05282022-2: This case involved a 24-year-old transgender female named Ricki Sweitzer. She’d been stabbed to death after returning to the apartment where she lived alone subsequent to spending the day with her friends. Following my interviews with a few of those friends about their activities prior to her death, I discovered they had spent the entire day celebrating Pride at the local park.

Their day had started off with them participating in an elaborate Pride parade that got underway at noon and was followed by numerous other activities over the next several hours. Apparently, someone had followed Sweitzer when she returned home after the last activity ended and forced their way into her apartment. It‘s not exactly clear what happened next, except that she was stabbed multiple times and died sometime between 10:00 p.m. and midnight as a result of those wounds.

While interviewing her family and friends, I hoped to discover if she had any known enemies or received any threats lately, but everyone told me that she was well liked by everyone. They also didn’t know of any threats, but I was able to learn quite a bit about her personal life, and possibly her attacker had discovered this information as well.

Ricki had been born Richard Charles Sweitzer, but her mother quickly explained that Ricki had admitted that she felt as if she was meant to be a girl even before she started school. Shortly after that she began acting accordingly and preferred playing with dolls and having tea parties with the other girls in her grade. She also enjoyed wearing dresses and using makeup, although she was aware that she could only do those things at home until she got much older.

When Ricki was six-years-old, she even changed the way she spelled her name from Ricky to Ricki, and since it was only a nickname she got away with doing it at school as well. If someone accidentally called her Richard, she wasn’t shy about letting them know that she hated the name and disapproved of it being used to refer to her. Only a very few people ever made the same mistake a second time.

Ricki began receiving hormone treatments in middle school, with her parents’ approval, but she also had to endure an intensive process of psychological evaluations to gauge her suitability to do this. As soon as she was given formal approval, she began taking exogenous estrogen to help feminize her appearance. She was also given anti-androgens to help suppress the development of any masculine features as she progressed through puberty.

Ricki had to wait until after she’d turned 18 before she could have the operation to surgically alter her gender from male to female. As soon as the operation was completed, she legally changed her name from Richard Charles Sweitzer to Ricki Adel Sweitzer. This process was completed before she started college so she could begin with a fresh start. Ricki even applied to colleges far away from her hometown in order to lessen the chance of running into anyone she knew before the operation, and she’d been happily living as a woman ever since.

Now that I knew a little bit about Ricki, I went to the coroner’s office to see what information he could give me about Ricki’s death.

“Your victim was stabbed repeatedly with what I would describe as a ten-inch kitchen knife, and judging from the angle of the entry wounds I would say the attacker was left-handed.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Each wound was made with a downward thrust that followed a slight left to right path and seemed to indicate a left-handed attacker. One wound penetrated her left lung and another pierced the left ventricle of her heart and caused massive internal bleeding. She didn’t go easily, however, and apparently fought back against the attacker, because I found a considerable amount of skin tissue under her fingernails. She must have scratched the attacker multiple times, but apparently it wasn’t enough to stop the attack, although it left us with a valuable DNA sample.”

“Did you run the sample against the DNA database?”

“Yes, but there weren’t any hits. The sample is apparently from a person who isn’t in the system yet, but I did learn one thing from the DNA sample. The attacker is definitely male, because the sample contains both an X and Y chromosome.”

“Wouldn’t a trans female have an X and Y chromosome as well, since she was born male?”

“Yes, that’s true, but it didn’t match the victim’s DNA profile either. I checked her DNA and discovered that she had an XXY combination. This means that even though she was born a male, she had an extra X, or female chromosome, so it might explain why she always felt as if she was meant to be female, even though she had male genitalia.”

“That’s very interesting. And just so you know, I’ll attempt to get a DNA sample from each of our potential suspects and then you can run it against the sample from under her fingernails.”

I was still thinking about this when I was informed about a break in the case. The crime scene technicians that had been going through her apartment searching for additional evidence had located her smart phone. It seems that her attacker wasn’t sophisticated enough to take it with him, so we’ll now be able to search for incriminating evidence on it as well. To my surprise, there were numerous text messages that she’d saved that contained all sorts of disgusting comments about her. For that reason, I quickly assigned my team to see if they could discover who had sent those texts to her.

After performing due diligence, they were able to track down the person who had sent those messages, and to my surprise it was someone who was already on our radar from the previous case. Now that we also had a definite connection to him and our second victim as well, I once again attempted to subpoena Ray Boebert’s phone records.

“If you grant my request,” I told the judge, “it will allow us to verify that he sent those messages from his phone. It will also allow us to determine if his phone pinged off of the service tower closest to the second victim’s apartment at the time of her murder, but I have a another question for you as well. Would we also be able to use his phone records to see if his phone pinged off the tower where the attack occurred on the first victim?”

The judge sat pensively for a few moments as he considered my request, and then he spoke. “I’ll grant you the subpoena and you will be able to use his phone records to tie him to the attacks on either or both victims.”

As soon as we had Boebert’s phone records, we were able to determine that his phone wasn’t anywhere near Ricki’s apartment at the time of the murder. However, even if his phone wasn’t there, it didn’t necessarily mean that Ray wasn’t there. He might have left his phone at home or turned it off during the time around the murder, but that wasn’t the case. It had pinged off another tower that wasn’t anywhere near Sweitzer’s apartment at the time the coroner had determined she was killed. It was disappointing, but it seemed to clear him of any connection to the attack on Ricki.

However, now that I had Boebert’s phone records I was able to go back and see if he had sent text messages to Bobby Campbell. I was hopeful, but I soon hit a roadblock when I discovered his service provider only kept a client’s text messages for one week, and it was now three weeks since the attack had happened. However, on the bright side I could still check if Boebert’s phone was in the area on the date and at the time when the attack on Campbell had occurred. I could also see if Boebert had ever called Campbell, since he’d claimed he didn’t even know him.

It didn’t take long to discover that Boebert had called Campbell on several occasions in the past, which could have been to send text messages. His phone was also in the vicinity of the parking lot on the night of the attack, although it didn’t mean he was in the parking lot attacking Campbell. His phone was within a several block radius of were the attack had occurred on the night it happened, but he could have been anywhere within that area at the time. However, this should be enough for me to get a warrant to search his apartment, although I imagine he would have washed the clothes he wore by now, if he’d carried out either attack. I’m hoping that he might still have the disguise he wore that night, along with the cane, because those items might still contain sufficient DNA evidence in the form of blood splatter.

I took one of the younger detectives with me as I went to serve the warrant, and we were followed by a car load of technicians that would search his place in greater detail. We arrived at his apartment shortly after he returned home from work, and when he opened the door to see who was there, he momentarily had the old ‘deer in the headlights’ expression on his face. However, as soon as he was able to regain his composure, he immediately began proclaiming that we were harassing the wrong guy.

“I told you I didn’t have anything to do with beating that guy up,” he stated as soon as he got over the shock of seeing us there.

“If I remember correctly, you said you didn’t even know Campbell.”

“That’s right!”

“Then think of how surprised I was when I discovered that you had called his cell number several times, presumably so you could send him harassing and threatening text messages or leave a voice message.” His expression and demeanor suddenly changed.

“I have a search warrant here,” I continued as I handed it to him, “and I’m going to leave a group of technicians to go through every inch of this place looking for evidence. And while they are doing that, you’re coming with me to the station so you can answer a few more questions about why you were contacting him.”

I thought he was about to open his mouth and protest about going with me, but he obviously thought better about doing it and didn’t say a word. He was also very silent as I drove to the station, and then I took him to an interrogation room and started asking him questions.

“The first thing I’m going to do is to get a DNA sample from you. All you have to do is merely open you’re mouth so I can swab the inside of your cheek.”

“What if I refuse?”

“It’s part of the warrant as well, so if you refuse I’ll call in a few guys to help me hold you down and we’ll take a blood sample from you instead.”

“You won’t have to do that,” he replied.

He watched as I opened the DNA retrieval kit and removed the long cotton swab. He then hesitantly opened his mouth for me, and after running the swab over the inside of his cheek, I inserted the swab into the plastic tube that had been provided for that purpose so it wouldn’t get contaminated. I then had the young patrolman run it over to the coroner’s office so he could run the DNA and compare if with the sample that was taken from under Sweitzer’s fingernails.

As soon as the patrolman had taken off, I turned my attention back to Boebert and spoke to him. “One thing I can’t understand is why you would call his cell phone so many times if you didn’t know him. Do you happen to have your phone on you right now?” He nodded weakly. “Then would you please unlock it so I can see what’s saved on it? And don’t worry because it’s listed on the search warrant as well.”

“Ok, I did know the guy, so what?”

“Let me see your phone and I might be able to answer that question for your in more detail.”

When he hesitated again before handing me his phone, I thought he was going to ask for an attorney, but he didn’t do that either. He must have decided that since I had a search warrant to see his phone that a lawyer wouldn’t be able to do anything to help him either. So, after a few moments he reluctantly handed over his phone to me and I began to scroll through it. As soon as I perused the text messages he’d saved, I looked at him and spoke.

“Why in the hell would you say those disgusting things to someone, whether you knew them or not?”

“It’s because the things they do are unnatural and against God’s word. Their life style is repugnant and they’re destroying the country, and maybe even the world.”

“My father had a pat response for comments like that. He would say it was like the blind man blaming the world for the darkness.”

“I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean, but we’ve got to stop them from grooming the kids to be like them.”

“Isn’t it the same thing as saying that you’re grooming kids to be bigots so they’ll be just like you?”

“I’m not grooming anybody. I’m just speaking the truth.”

“It would only be the truth in the way you see the world, but there are many people that would disagree with you.”

“And there’s a lot who agree with me too.”

“Even the most distasteful and fictitious ideas still have their advocates.”

“You sound like one of those fuckin’ faggots!”

“I’m just a person who sees things the way they are and not the way I wish them to be, but let’s get back to you answering my questions. How did you become familiar with Robert Campbell?”

“I’ve never been familiar with him.”

“Then how did you get his phone number so you could send him these spiteful and disgusting text messages, and possibly send a few voice messages as well? I’ll have to see if you also had his email address so you could send him equally repugnant messages that way?”

He seemed surprised that I knew these things, but he quickly regained his composure and responded.

“I have my ways of finding out about those things and I was able to get them from him and a bunch of other queers.” He seemed proud of having this ability.

“Is that how you got Ricki Sweitzer’s email address and cell phone number as well?” Once again, he appeared startled that I also knew about her.

“Uh, who’s that?”

“She’s another person you’ve been calling and leaving both voice and text messages.” His mouth fell open briefly, but he quickly recovered.

“She ain’t no she. It’s a guy pretending to be a girl.”

“No, she successfully completed the process of physically changing from a male to a female. It seems that you already knew that fact, judging from the voice messages you left on her phone and after I read the text messages you’d sent her.”

“It just ain’t right. You can’t simply change your sex like that!”

“Are you trying to tell me that you think the biological process is infallible and incapable of making a mistake, so she wasn’t meant to be a girl in the first place?”

“Yeah, shit like that doesn’t happen.”

“If mistakes like that never happen, then how do you explain babies that are born with ambiguous genitalia and the external genitalia doesn’t appear to be clearly male or female?”

“I’ve never heard of that shit happening.”

“Oh, it happens, even if you’ve never heard about it. And what about babies that are born missing arms, legs, hands, or feet? Or how do you explain those born with tails or having six fingers or six toes instead of the normal five?”

“Ok, those are mistakes,” he relented.

“Then why wouldn’t it also be a mistake if the child was born with the wrong genitalia? If that happens, then wouldn’t those children grow up feeling as if they had been put in the wrong body? Even if they had normal genitalia but felt they had the wrong genitalia, wouldn’t they grow up feeling they were the opposite sex from what was recorded on their birth certificate? If that happened, then don’t you think they would want to correct the mistake?”

“It just ain’t natural.”

“I believe you would feel differently if you were one of those children and that had happened to you.”

“I don’t know any guy that would let you cut off his dick so he could have a cunt.”

“I agree that any guy who believes he’s supposed to be a guy might not be willing to do that, but what if the guy felt he wasn’t suppose to have a penis in the first place? What if he felt that he had been put in the wrong body and was just trying to correct the error?”

“Then what about a girl who thinks she’s a guy. They can’t just give her a dick.”

“It’s possible for those individuals to undergo surgery to have a penis constructed for them, although it won’t function exactly the same way as a typical penis. However, it would allow the person to urinate standing up, although other things would be more difficult.”

“Yeah, like they couldn’t have sex with a female.”

“That would depend on the type of operation they chose to undergo, since there are several options, but at least one or two of them will allow a trans male to have penetration sex with a female.”

“But will they cum?”

“No, there is only so much that medical science can accomplish, at least for now, but we’re getting sidetracked again, so let me ask the most important question. Did you assault Bobby Campbell and stab Ricki Sweitzer?”

“No, I didn’t do those things! Even though I don’t agree with who they are and the things they’re doing, I didn’t do that shit to them.”

“But hearing you say this makes me wonder if you’re telling me the truth this time. At first you also swore you didn’t even know either of them and hadn’t sent those hateful emails or text messages, or left them nasty voice mails. You were lying to me then, so are you lying to me again now?”

“Ok, I’ll admit that I told you those lies, but I’m not lying now and I never did nothing more than send them those messages.”

At that precise moment, the door to the interrogation room burst open and another detective stepped inside. “I hate to interrupt, but may I speak with you in the hallway?”

“Yes,” I said, and then I turned toward Ray Boebert. “I’ll be right back, but I’ll have someone bring you a drink if you’re thirsty. Would you prefer water, coffee, or a Coke?”

“A Coke.”

I asked one of the patrolmen to take some money out of petty cash fund and get Boebert a Coke while I talked to the other detective to see what was so important.

“The coroner just called and said he ran a rapid DNA test on the sample you sent him and it doesn’t match the DNA sample taken from under Sweitzer’s fingernails.”

“Are the DNA results from those tests accurate?”

“Yes, it’s what they use in paternity cases, so it’s good enough for a preliminary result in a situation such as this as well.”

“Damn, it means he didn’t stab her then! Did the techs find any evidence when they went through Boebert’s apartment?”

“No, they didn’t find a thing and they searched everywhere in his apartment. There was no disguise and no cane, so it looks as if he’s not our man.”

“Damn and I was so sure we had the right guy!”

I then went back into the interrogation room to speak with Boebert again. “You can take the Coke with you and I’ll have someone drive you back to your apartment. I may need to speak with you again, but let me give you a piece of advice before you leave. If you don’t want to go through this again in the future, then you’d better stop sending people vicious and hateful emails, as well text and voice messages.”

He nodded that he understood, so I gave the young patrolman the key to my car and asked him to drive Boebert back to his apartment. After they left, I sat down with my team to determine what our next move should be.

“Since Boebert isn’t a primary suspect any longer, we’ll have to try a different approach to find the person or persons responsible for doing these things. Seeing we haven’t found a common link between the two cases, except for the fact that both victims were part of the LGBTQ+ community, I suggest that we start speaking with their friends again. I’m hoping that by doing this we might be able to glean some relevant information that we either missed previously or merely overlooked, since we felt we had the right suspect. Their friends might even be able to recall something they didn’t think was important before or they may even point out a clue that we may have deemed unimportant at the time.”

“Sure, that might work,” one of the other detectives said. “After all, at this point what have we got to lose?”

“Nothing that I can think of, other than a little time, but maybe there’s something more important to be gained by doing this.”

We then went out in pairs to speak with their friends, and this time we agreed that one person would ask the questions while the other one watched the person we were interviewing for subtle cues. We felt we might be able to tell if the person was being totally honest or holding something back if we observed their demeanor and body language at the same time. We were hoping that by doing this we might be able to tell if they’re trying to hide something from us, because for now they are the only connection we have between both victims.

Even though we agreed to take turns asking questions and observing the person, we might switch off in the middle while interviewing the same individual, if we suspect they might be withholding information. That didn’t happen very often, because Bobby and Ricki’s friends wanted to help us catch the guilty party or parties and bring them to justice as much as we did. It’s because they knew that if we were successful then they wouldn’t have to worry about becoming the next victim. But regardless of how dedicated they were, there were still a few whose veracity was somewhat suspect.

A couple of the other pairs had reported that they believed a male and a female they had interviewed were being less than honest and cooperative. There were others that they were suspicious of, but I hadn’t run into anyone like that so far. However, that was about to suddenly change when I began questioning a young man named Simon Livingston. At first, the interview was going well and he was being extremely helpful, but then I noticed something that he seemed to be trying to hide, so I decided to ask him about it.

“I didn’t notice it at first, since you seem to be using makeup to cover over them, but I can now tell that you have some nasty scratches on your arm and face. What happened and where did you get them?”

“Ah, it’s nothing. I just ran into a cat that turned on me. It had been hanging around my apartment for a while so I thought it was friendly and picked it up. Almost as soon as I was holding it in my arms it began to act differently. I figured it must have smelled my dog on my body or my clothes, because it was doing everything possible to break free of my grasp, which included scratching my arm and face with both of its front paws.”

As we were speaking, his demeanor also began to change. He was no longer the friendly, helpful person from when we started and he had become more hostile when responding. He wasn’t as relaxed either and his body stiffened noticeably, so I felt I had hit upon a touchy subject and pressed even harder.

“Would you mind if I had your scratches examined by a medical professional?”

“Why? What the hell does being scratched by a cat have to do with anything?”

“I saw similar wounds on Ricki Sweitzer and was wondering if there might be a common link between the scratches on you and her.” Of course I was lying and Ricki had no scratches, but I needed to find a way to get him to agree to this.

“You think she was scratched by a cat too?”

“Possibly, and I’m wondering if it might have had something to do with her death. Maybe the cat was infected with something and that’s what caused her death.”

“No, I’m fine and I don’t need to see anyone about a few scratches.”

“Please, just let us do this just to be certain.”

“No, this is ridiculous and I’m done talking with you.”

He then got up and began walking away. Watching his back as he left the area made me wonder what he was hiding. Did he realize that if we took a DNA sample from him that we could match it up with the DNA found under Ricki’s fingernails after she scratched her attacker, or was it something else? No matter what his reasons, he’d now moved up on my suspect list, even though he was a member of the LGBTQ+ community as well.

The following day the teams got together so we could discuss any suspicious or deceitful characteristics that we’d observed, as well as discussing any important information that was disclosed. I can’t say I was surprised by how many subjects were mentioned as not being totally truthful, since I felt their deceptive manner might have had something to do with their sexual orientation.

In the past they may have become targets of others because they had been too open or honest with them. They might have then been bullied, beaten, or even accused of horrific acts, such as grooming minors. It’s possible their reticence was merely the result of their fear of being honest and thinking that doing it might come back and bite them later. I know I won’t discuss many of the details of my life with anyone I’m not really close to, and sometimes I will keep a few details from those I’m close to as well. Maybe that’s what’s happening here.

Regardless of the reasons behind their actions that made us suspicious of them, we would investigate their background further to see if there was anything that may have set them off. We’d each be responsible for doing this for the individuals we’d identified, and then we’d meet again to discuss which of them we felt may have been involved in Campbell’s beating or Sweitzer’s death.

We were just about to adjourn our meeting so we could do more in depth background checks on these people when the desk sergeant rushed into the room to speak with us.

“There’s been a drive-by shooting outside of one of the most popular LGBTQ hangouts in the city.”

 

Case 06162022-1: Just what I needed, another case when I still had no idea as to who committed the other two I was dealing with.

“How bad is it?”

“We have patrolmen and emergency crews on scene to assess the extent of the damage, treat casualties, and interview witnesses. I just thought that since you’re working on the other cases dealing with these people that you would want to go there and check it out.”

“These people?” I repeated visibly upset.

“You know what I mean and I wasn’t trying to be rude or cast any aspersions, but I couldn’t think of another way to say it.”

“Ok, were there any deaths?”

“So far there are two confirmed deaths and several more that have been injured.”

“Hopefully we’ll get a decent description of the shooter and the vehicle used, and possibly we’ll even get a license number to help identify those involved.”

“We’ve already run a check on the license number and discovered the vehicle used in this incident was reported stolen a couple of days ago.”

“Damn, we just can’t seem to catch a break in these cases. Are there any traffic cams in the area that we might be able to look at?”

“If there are, I’ll see if I can get a copy of the footage for you to look at. You might also want to see if the club or any of the businesses located in that area have security cameras as well.”

“Ok, we’ll check it out while we’re there, and if they have cameras we’ll see if they will let us have access to them without a warrant.”

“Before you leave, I want you to listen to the 9-1-1 calls we received. It may help you while you’re investigating this incident.”

He then pulled out his phone and played the 9-1-1 calls that he had recorded for this purpose. After we listened to them, the desk sergeant left the room, and then we talked about what we’d heard.

“Do you think this is related to or inspired by the other cases?” one of the others asked.

“It’s possible, because the perpetrator might have done this to cover up a link that we haven’t yet discovered to the other two cases.”

“Do you think one person could be responsible for all three attacks?”

“It’s difficult to say. One person may have done it alone, or they may be working in conjunction with others. There’s also an outside chance that these crimes were carried out by different perpetrators.”

“So, it’s possible that we’re looking for three or more suspects?”

“It’s a definite possibility, since the types of incidents are escalating. They’ve gone from a physical beating to a stabbing and now to a mass shooting, so either the person is becoming more dangerous or there is more than one person involved.”

“Do you think there might have been a driver and a shooter in this case?”

“Not according to the information we heard on the 9-1-1 calls. Each person said it was a single shooter sitting in the driver’s seat and firing out of the front passenger window as he drove by the location.”

“Then I take it the shooter was using a semi-automatic or fully automatic weapon.”

“Yes, that seems to be the case, so if any casings were ejected then they’ll be in the vehicle and we won’t find any evidence on the street. The only evidence we’ll have to work with is the witnesses and the bullets that are extracted from those that were hit or that lodged in other objects.”

“Let’s hope the bullets can be matched to another incident so it will give us more to work with.”

We drove to the scene of the shooting and began interviewing the people that were there at the time of the shooting. It didn’t take very long for us to discover that some of them had also been part of our previous interview process, but there were others we hadn’t met before. However, none of the people who’d been acting suspiciously during the previous interview process were anywhere around. Either they were among the injured, had taken off already, or hadn’t been here, but they were still potential suspects.

As soon as we concluded interviewing the witnesses and examining the crime scene, we returned to the station. The information from the traffic cams closest to the shooting were now available to us to view, as well as what we’d been able to retrieve from the club and a couple of shops nearby. The problem was that none of them offered much help.

That’s because the shooter was wearing a non-descript dark hoodie, and it appeared that he had some sort of hosiery pulled over his head to make him even more unrecognizable. In addition to those things, he was also wearing sunglasses, so there wasn’t enough information available for us to use facial recognition to help determine who the shooter was.

Since that was a dead end, I immediately began going through the information the patrolman assisting me had collected about Simon Livingston, and it seems he hadn’t had an easy life. His father had been physically abusive and beat him regularly, and his mother either chose to ignore the abuse or was unable to stop it. After numerous teachers and other school personnel had filed complaints to Social Services about the situation, Social Services performed follow-up interviews with the parents. Shortly after that, Simon was removed from his home and placed with his maternal grandparents at the age of twelve.

Things improved for him on the home front and he became very close to his grandparents. His grandfather taught him how to use guns and took him hunting, something Simon enjoyed, and his grandmother fixed meals that he enjoyed and pampered him in other ways as well. Even though he loved his grandparents, he was experiencing some problems at the new school he was attending.

Being the new kid at school, he was often picked on and even bullied, and this resulted with Simon getting into numerous fights. It seemed as if he’d inherited the same short fuse that his father frequently exhibited, so the problems not only followed him until he graduated, but they also plagued him as an adult. Many people claimed the fights happened because he was so quick to anger, and some even claimed that he seemed to snap just before the fight started.

Once Simon had been taken from his parents, it seems as if his father had begun to physically abuse his mother instead, and when Simon was thirteen his father stabbed his mother to death. It wasn’t until the next day that this crime was discovered, though, and it only occurred because the mother’s employer requested a welfare check when she hadn’t shown up for work. She wasn’t in the habit of not showing up and would always call if she was ill. When they couldn’t reach her by phone, they became very concerned.

When the police arrived, Simon’s dad was carrying a pistol as he came outside to see what they wanted. When they mentioned they were checking up on his wife and wanted to see her, and when he wouldn’t comply they said they were going to search the house instead. Simon’s dad snapped when he heard this and began firing at the officers. Even though he left numerous bullet holes in the squad cars, he never hit any of the cops, but they were much better shots and hit him several times, killing him. Due to the fact the Mr. Livingston’s shots never came close to any of the police, most people assumed that he was remorseful about killing his wife and was committing suicide by cop.

Even though it’s difficult for me to believe that someone from the LGBTQ+ community was doing these things, I wouldn’t be performing my duty unless I followed up on this lead. While the other detectives were doing more in depth background checks on the individuals they thought had been deceptive and calling them back for another chat, I was planning to do the same with Simon Livingston.

When I called Simon and asked him to come in for another interview, he was very cooperative and agreed to drive to the station to meet me. When he arrived, I led him into an interrogation room, but I offered him a drink before we got started. He declined, possibly because he was worried that we’d be able to get his fingerprints off of the glass, cup, or can that he used if he’d accepted. Anyway, I got right to the point and began asking him questions.

“I’ve discovered that you’ve had a very rough life and were physically abused by your father. Do you know why he did that?”

“It’s because of things I’d done and the way I acted. It led him to believe I was gonna be gay when I grew up, so he tried to beat it out of me and make me a real man, but obviously it didn’t work.”

“Then why did he turn on your mother after you went to live with her parents?”

“He blamed her for allowing me to do the things that he despised, and then after I went to live with my grandparents, I overheard her telling them that he was blaming her for what I was becoming. She also warned her parents that he was blaming them for raising a faggot.”

“But didn’t you go hunting with your grandfather?”

“Yeah, I did, but he didn’t think it was enough and he was unhappy that they were letting me have a boyfriend.”

“Is that why the bullies picked on you at school?”

“Yeah, and they tried to scare off every boy I was interested in. They said I was the one that was turning the other boys queer, because none of them had been that way before I started going there.”

“But that’s not how it works.”

“I know, but they beat me up anyway.” He became quiet after saying this, and then his body stiffened before he spoke again. “I showed them I wasn’t a pushover, though, and I hurt them worse than they hurt me. I was used to getting beat up, but I laid a whoopin’ on them that was ten times worse than what they gave me.”

“Did they stop targeting you then?”

“Yes! After I beat the crap out of a bunch of them and they learned that I was going to fight back, they started leaving me alone. They thought Simon was weak and a pushover, but they didn’t count on me fighting back.”

His response startled me. Why had he just referred to himself in the 3^rd person? Why did he say, ‘They thought Simon was weak and a pushover’ instead of saying, ‘They thought I was weak and a pushover?’ What exactly is going on here?

“Why did you just say they thought Simon was weak? Aren’t you Simon?”

“NO! I’m Max and Simon IS weak, so I have to protect him. I’m the one who beat up those bullies, not Simon.”

Whoa, this is an entirely new ballgame and I had to explore it further. “Do you only protect Simon, or do you protect his gay friends as well?”

“I don’t protect any fuckin’ homos. They’re the reason he keeps gettin’ beat up. I was too young to protect him from his dad, but I protected him as soon as I got older and stronger.”

“Are you still protecting him?”

“Of course.”

“And who are you protecting him from now?”

“I’m protecting him from all of the people that are trying to convince him that it’s ok to be queer.”

“Is there anyone in particular that you’ve been protecting him from?”

“Just all the damn queers who keep telling him that he should be proud of who he is.”

“Are you left-handed?”

“Yes, I am.”

“And did you beat Bobby Campbell with a cane?”

“Yeah, that fucker liked to dress up as a girl, but he was also trying to entice Simon into having a gay affair with him.”

“Why did you pretend to be an old man in order to do this?”

“I didn’t want Bobby to suspect anything was wrong. If he thought I was Simon then he’d start hugging and kissing me and Simon might have kept me from protecting him.”

“If you’re so tough, why did you use a weapon on Bobby?”

“I thought I might need a weapon because I wouldn’t have a lot of time to do it, since all of the other people would be leaving that funkin’ drag show soon. He wouldn’t think anything was amiss if I pretended to be an old man and it wouldn’t look odd or out of place if I was using a cane, so I found the sturdiest cane I could order online.”

“And why did you kill Ricki Sweitzer? She couldn’t have been hitting on Simon.”

“No, that fucker was just strange and he/she was trying to get Simon more involved in that LGBTQ stuff, like the Pride crap. That’s the last place I wanted him to be hanging out, because those people gave me the creeps.”

“Ok, then why did you shoot all of those people at the club?”

“I figured it would scare away the ones that I didn’t kill so Simon wouldn’t be hanging around with them any longer.”

Now that I knew Simon was involved in all three cases, I turned the information over to the District Attorney for prosecution, but I asked for a favor in return. I wanted his office to have Simon evaluated by a psychiatrist, and I wanted to be there when it took place. I wanted to make certain that the psychiatrist got to see exactly what I’d seen in Simon’s latest response.

The psychiatric session went much like our interviews had, but as soon as the psychiatrist allowed me to get involved, Simon felt threatened and Max came to his rescue. He admitted to all of the same things to the psychiatrist that he’d told me and the psychiatrist diagnosed Simon as having Dissociative Identity Disorder, or DID, which was previously referred to as Multiple Personality Disorder. He was deemed mentally unfit to stand trial and placed in a psychiatric hospital instead.

Although the disorder can’t be cured, patients can be taught how to manage the disorder so they can lead a productive life. Since one of Simon’s personalities had previously committed murder, he was deemed a risk to society and sentenced to life in a secure psychiatric facility where he’s still receiving regular therapy sessions.

It wasn’t the way I expected to solve these cases, but at least the perpetrator of all three crimes is no longer on the street where he can hurt even more people. I just hope he’s never deemed rehabilitated and allowed back on the street again, because I’m afraid that Max will never change.

 

THE END.