Like all patrol officers and police detectives, I’ve seen a lot of horror. The real-life kind, though. Not the kind that sprouted from an idea that once lived in a dark, dank corner of Stephen King’s twisted mind.
Sadly, quite a bit of the terrifying gruesomeness stemmed from domestic violence, and some of the acts were far beyond the comprehension of the typical human being. The brutality discovered during many investigations were both heartbreaking and stomach-turning.
For example, one night we received a call to be on the lookout for a pickup truck with oversized tires, the kind used for off-roading. The caller said the the driver was a white male with short hair. She went on to say that he appeared to be heavily intoxicated and that had physically assaulted and abducted a white female from the parking lot of an area nightclub.
Witnesses at the scene told us that the man was known to be armed with a handgun and his truck was equipped with a gun rack mounted behind the seat and was clearly visible through the rear window. The rack contained both a rifle and shotgun. He was an avid hunter and an equally avid drinker.
Just minutes after dispatch received the initial call, they received another about the same incident. This caller, though, shed more light on the situation. The abducted woman was the girlfriend of the man who’d taken her and he’d returned home after a day of deer hunting and liquor drinking to find her gone. They surmised that he’d noticed her favorite party outfit was missing along with her “dancing shoes” and then, in a rage, set out to search for her. This would not be the first time this had happened.
A few miles from their home, the angry drunk, with a pistol tucked into the waistband of his faded Levi’s, indeed found his girlfriend on the dance floor of a local club, cheek-to-cheek and belly-to-belly with a city slicker from out of town.
After promptly decking the rosy-cheeked man who wore a crisp button-up shirt, creased khaki pants, and brown leather shoes, the boyfriend pulled the woman from the parquet floor and dragged her out into the parking lot where he punched her a few times before ripping her polkadot mini dress from her body. She’d worn nothing but her birthday suit beneath.
He pulled her across the rocky lot and then shoved her inside the cab of his truck. Witnesses said he’d caught her long blonde hair in the door when he slammed it shut and, as he tore from the parking lot spraying cars and bystanders with stones and bits of fine gravel dust, they saw her hair fluttering and waving in the breeze.
Every cop in the area was watching for the truck. Officers checked the homes of the couple and those of their families and friends. They searched the man’s hunt club, and other night clubs in the city. They drove down dirt roads and along side roads and country roads. In the city they made passes through alleyways behind shopping centers and malls and grocery stores. Beside railroad tracks and in city parks and cemeteries.
Then we received the call we didn’t want to receive. A young couple were traveling along a country road a few miles from the city when they saw something in the road. At first they thought someone had perhaps struck a deer. Could’ve been anything, though. Maybe an old mattress, a garbage bag, or even a hippopotamus for all they knew. After all, “seeing things” was a possibility since the purpose of their super-slow drive in the countryside was to smoke weed, enjoy a bit of acid, and listen to good music.
When they drew closer they realized what they’d suspected to be a deer, or a hippo, was actually the bloody body of a nude woman. They guessed her age as somewhere around 22 or 23. She was dead, of course. Her entire body was one single hunk of road rash.
We finally located the man sitting in his truck parked at the edge of river. The place was a favorite of teens and young adults. They went there to drink, swim, smoke dope, and party. The spot was in the middle of nowhere. So far out, actually, that when you reached the middle of nowhere you took a left and traveled 10 additional miles to get to this place.
The boyfriend confessed to the abduction. He also said that he and his girlfriend had argued. He told us that he’d held a gun to her head, but it was just to scare her. He also said he’d ordered her to perform sex acts on him while he drove. When she refused he hit her repeatedly with the barrel of the pistol. Then, suddenly, she managed to open the truck door and jumped out. At the time he guessed that he’d been driving at a speed of approximately 70-80.
The man said he saw her body, in his side mirror, as she tumbled along the pavement. He stopped and backed up to check on her, but decided not to get out of the truck, thinking there was nothing he could do for at that point. So he left her there, like a chunk of roadkill.
I’d previously arrested this same man for domestic violence—threatening his family with a shotgun and later pointing that same firearm at me. The woman, his wife at the time, was not the blonde who’d leapt to her death from his truck. This was a different woman—his former wife—who he’d beaten more times than I can remember. And each time, she took him back and refused to testify against him in court. It was only after he’d fired the shotgun in the direction of their children that she’d decided she’d had enough and left him for good. Still, the judge merely ordered a fine, no jail time, and he was back at it again with other women. I guess shooting up his house and threatening people with a loaded firearm, and pointing that loaded firearm at police officers, well, I guess that was simply not a big deal to the judge.
This last time, though, he was charged with manslaughter for the death of his girlfriend.
Finally, the man would get what he deserved; however, the judge, the same as before, found the man guilty as charged but let him go with time served. He’d been in jail for only a few months prior to his release.
