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🕑 Added 2025-05-01 07:55:05 +0000 UTCAnatomy of a Killer
Chapter 67 – The Roadside Mystery 8
Everyone headed toward the area where Ángel was waiting. They had been searching for clues for hours under the humid heat of rural northern Miami, all hoping to find something concrete so they could finally return to the station.
When Larry arrived, he immediately noticed several bloody fingerprints clearly visible under the luminescent spray near the edge of an old metal railing. Ángel, his face glistening with sweat, smiled as Larry leaned in to examine the evidence with professional care.
“This is pure gold…”
“Larry, we found fingerprints! And look here—fibers stuck to the mesh and bloodstains. I wonder if they belong to the killer.”
Larry gave Ángel an enthusiastic pat on the shoulder.
“Great work, Ángel!”
This discovery confirmed that they were likely following the route the killer had taken after committing the crime. If so, the chances of finding more evidence increased significantly from this point onward.
Larry, with his trained eye, noticed something out of place and asked with genuine curiosity:
“Hey! Where does that gap in the railing lead?”
Ángel looked where Larry was pointing and shook his head.
“I haven’t checked it yet!”
Larry looked through the evidence bag in his forensic work kit and asked seriously:
“Do we have legal authorization to search that area?”
One misstep, and any evidence collected there could be deemed inadmissible in court. Out of respect for the victim, Larry knew he had to proceed with extra caution.
“Yes!”
“Then let’s take a look!”
Max, impatient, didn’t wait. He reached out, pushed aside the barbed wire, and nimbly jumped to the other side. Then he turned around, grabbed Larry’s boxes, and passed them through the gap.
They called Dexter, as he was in charge of analyzing blood samples. Larry had requested his support earlier, anticipating the need for technical assistance in this area.
“Watch your head,” Larry said as he carefully climbed through the gap—he wasn’t about to jump like Max. At his age, he preferred not to risk sudden moves, but he crossed without issue.
Just then, Ángel stumbled and fell. A police officer coming up behind had accidentally bumped into him.
Ángel, visibly shaken and worried, screamed as he realized he was on the edge of a natural ravine several meters deep.
“Ahhh!”
Larry, who was nearby, managed to grab him just in time.
“Pull me up—don’t let me fall! If I’m going to fall, at least let it be on the other side. Climbing back up from down there would be hell.”
Larry resisted the urge to yell at him. Instead, he focused on pulling Ángel up to safety.
“Damn it! Can we just pause here for a second?” Ángel said, still shaken.
Meanwhile, Larry had descended to the lower part of the slope, where he discovered what looked like a partially exposed drainage pipe. It was the base of the old viaduct, almost completely in shadow, so little vegetation grew there.
On the ground were several bloodstains stretching downhill. Larry knelt and began examining them carefully with his forensic magnifier.
They were moving traces. From the direction and the shape of the drip spatter, he could tell which way the wounded person had moved and how high the blood had fallen from.
Ángel arrived, panting, and said:
“Dexter’s on the way…”
“No matter. It’d help a lot if you could estimate the height of the blood drops.”
Ángel nodded. He selected four nearby drops, measured their diameter and the length of the spatter tails, and quickly jotted down some calculations.
“The estimated height is between 1.2 and 1.28 meters.”
“Keep going that way! We’re bound to find something else.”
Even though Larry had a strong ability to analyze blood and could instantly form a mental map of the scene, in legal terms, Dexter’s detailed reports held more weight with prosecutors.
Still, Larry was no slouch.
Several officers followed Ángel southeast. After about fifty meters, the blood trail abruptly stopped. But in its place, they found a pile of ashes, which excited the group.
Larry used tweezers to pick up some charred knit fabric that hadn’t fully burned.
“Looks like this was the victim’s clothing. Collect everything.”
The pieces were falling into place with disturbing precision. When the officers looked up, they noticed another railing ahead. It wasn’t as tall as the previous one, so they climbed over it.
Now back on the road, the investigators looked at one another in surprise. They had reached the east side of the highway exit, directly across from the west entrance of the area where one of the suspects worked. A wide eight-lane road stretched before them.
Ángel squinted and spotted a workshop—Los Hermanos Bautista auto repair. Tools were scattered outside, and two cargo trucks were parked nearby. From inside the shed came the rhythmic clang of metal: “clang, clang.”
Ángel and the others hid at a fork leading to the small community of Dina. From there, they noticed a surveillance camera on the opposite side that didn’t cover their position. The workshop was also partially hidden by a gas station sign sticking out from the north side.
Without waiting for instructions from Larry, Ángel was already calling Sergeant Doakes.
“Sergeant, we found bloodstains and ashes at the first point. We followed the trail and are now in front of a suspect’s auto shop.”
“Hold tight—we’ll be there in five minutes!”
After hearing that, the group ducked completely out of sight and alerted the surveillance vehicle driver to quietly turn toward the west-side intersection.
A short while later, the car arrived. As soon as Ángel got in, his phone buzzed.
It was a technician who had been working on enhancing the surveillance footage, so Ángel quickly answered.
“Please tell me you’ve got something.”
“I’ve sent the enhanced images to your email. You owe me some beers.”
“You know it.” Ángel hung up without waiting for a reply, exhaled deeply, opened his email, and found that the pixel quality had greatly improved on the surveillance images.
He shook his head, and when he got to the third photo, he slapped the seat.
“That’s Jonathan Wills!”
Ángel zoomed in, and the screen showed a strong, dark-faced man. He was lifting his left arm to wipe sweat from his forehead, unintentionally blocking the camera.
A figure in a red dress appeared near the bottom of the frame, seemingly lying on the ground, and Larry suddenly thought of the knit fabric in the ashes.
They asked Ángel to zoom in on that area, and several people stared at the screen. Although the woman in red was shown in profile, Ángel instantly recognized her.
“Dina!”
Everyone was thrilled. This discovery confirmed their suspicion—Jonathan Wills was the killer. The rest would depend on the lab comparison results.
Just as they were thinking about it, a siren wailed in the distance.
Ángel peeked out and saw a police car pulling up in front of Jonathan’s door.
Larry’s vehicle and the others sped up behind it.
While waiting, Ángel told Masuka and Max what had just happened. Their faces were flushed red, partly from the heat.
The officers wore standard uniforms with investigation suits over them, along with hats and masks.
After a brief struggle, Jonathan was led out in handcuffs. Larry, Sergeant Doakes, and the others exited their vehicles carrying boxes.
Larry and his team entered Jonathan’s workshop, and Max raised a camera to record everything.
Ángel looked around briefly, then walked straight to a toolbox on the northernmost side. He picked up a screwdriver with a black rubber handle and held a small spray bottle, aiming it at the joint between the shaft and the handle.
Larry knew it was luminol. Even if the murder weapon had been cleaned, residual hemoglobin would still be present. The iron in the blood would react with the chemical, glowing a bluish-violet color.
Sure enough, faint bluish-violet fluorescence glimmered on the screwdriver. Ángel quickly placed it in a transparent evidence bag.
Larry took it and examined it carefully. There were irregular dents on the tip—marks made from penetrating a skull.
Just as Ángel turned around, another toolbox behind him fell open. Its lock was broken and the lid came off.
Inside was a hammer. Ángel used the same trick, spraying luminol. The fluorescence was even more obvious. The small holes in the wooden handle were hard to clean.
Larry crouched and saw a phone at the bottom of the toolbox. It was studded with fake diamonds—clearly a woman’s phone.
Just then, Larry’s phone rang.
This time it was Debra. She passed the phone to Lieutenant LaGuerta, who reported that they had found Dina’s father locked in Sandra’s basement—he had been dead for days.
