In July of 1995, a worker mowing the median of I-40 found the body of a man lying in some trees about ten miles west of Knoxville. The autopsy showed a clear cause of death. The man had been shot in the chest.
There were two odd things about this case that Harry London, the detective assigned to the case, was never able to resolve. The first was the cause of death. The bullet the coroner retrieved from the body was a round ball of.58 caliber, the same caliber used by many muskets in the Civil war, and showed no marks that would have been left by the rifling of a rifle of the same caliber. There were a few marks on the ball that looked to the firearms tech like the impression made by a cloth patch around the ball when it was rammed down the barrel. The coroner said those impressions were probably made when the ball passed through the clothing the man was wearing. Microscopic and chemical examination of the powder residue indicated it was old-fashioned black powder.
The second odd thing about this case was the coroner couldn't accurately determine a time of death. The reason is that at some point shortly after death, the body had been frozen solid and the freezing temperatures stopped the decomposition process. The decomposition documented by the coroner indicated the body had been exposed to the elements for about a week, but microscopic examination of tissue samples from various parts of the body all showed significant cell damage. That cell damage indicated the body was frozen at a temperature lower than minus fifteen degrees Fahrenheit.
There was no indication that the body had thawed and then frozen again such as old insect damage or any decomposition other than what was obviously recent. Apparently, the body had been frozen and remained in that state until it was placed in the median. There was no identification found on the body, but the coroner estimated the man's age at between twenty-five and thirty based upon his facial features, tooth wear, and general physical condition.
Based on the clothing the man was wearing, Harry, the detective assigned to the case, estimated the man had been murdered sometime in the late 1960's to early 1970's. The man's pants were bell-bottoms and he had a suede leather vest over a shirt open almost to the waist and with the tie-dyed pattern characteristic of that time period. That meant that the man's body had been frozen for at least twenty years, maybe as long as twenty-five.
As with all unclaimed bodies, this body was held for about a month and then declared as unclaimed. Tissue and blood samples were retained by the Coroner's office and the body was buried in the county cemetery.
When Harry briefed me on the case, he sounded very frustrated.
"Rich, of all the cases I wasn't able to solve, this one had the most information. We had a body, a definite cause of death, his prints, and his DNA. None of that got me anywhere. He didn't show up on any missing persons reports from Tennessee or any of the surrounding states. His prints weren't on file with the FBI or any of those states either. It was the same with his DNA, though DNA was a pretty new thing back then.
"I sent the prints to NCIC every couple years, and the DNA to CODIS when it became available, but the answer was always that there was no match found. What I figure is the guy either had no family to report him missing or else he was transported a long way before he was found. He'd never had a run-in with law enforcement or his prints would have been on file. I don't know how he escaped service in the military because if he was twenty-five sometime between 1965 and 1973 when the military went all volunteer, he'd probably have been drafted for Vietnam.
"Don't feel bad if you can't solve this one. I know you and Rochelle have a great track record, but this case...well, there's a lot of information, but it defies logical analysis."
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In case you've missed my other cold case stories, I'm Richard Owens, and I work cold cases for the Knoxville Police Department. Rochelle Roberts is a writer of crime novels based upon actual cases. We met when I was working for the Nashville PD, and in the process of solving a cold case decided we fit together really well and especially so in bed. Rochelle has a strong libido that requires settling down a few times a week, and I seem to be able to do that for her.
Since Rochelle had a house in Knoxville and I just lived in an apartment in Nashville, we decided I would move to Knoxville. Getting the job with the Knoxville PD wasn't hard. Learning how to live with a woman after being divorced for a lot of years was. Rochelle had the same problem because she was also divorced. We both learned though, and we're still together. We've talked about marriage, but we're both still a little nervous about that kind of commitment. It didn't work out well for either of us the first time.
We're also a good team when solving cold cases because we approach a cold case in two different ways. My method is standard police procedure. I organize the evidence and then formulate a theory or theories about what took place, then gather more evidence to prove or disprove my theories. Rochelle's method is to formulate a possible novel plot and then try to fit the evidence into that plot. It's surprising how often she nails the case down. Between the two of us, we've solved a lot of cold cases, so I guess it works.
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When Rochelle looked at the file for the first time, she read through Harry's report and then looked up at me.
"How could anybody be missing for twenty years without somebody reporting it? I mean, everybody talks to somebody on a regular basis and whoever that person is would probably be a little worried, wouldn't they?"
I shrugged.
"There are a lot of possible reasons that I've seen before. Maybe the man was from another country or at least a state Harry didn't check. Maybe he was homeless and didn't stick around in any one place long enough to become friends with anyone.
"Maybe he didn't want to be around anyone and lived by himself in a rural area. I remember one case where the killer had a cabin about a hundred miles from anyone else and never went anywhere. He had a big vegetable garden and hunted and fished for his meat. His victim was a hunter who stumbled onto the cabin one day and the guy killed him so he wouldn't tell anybody that someone was living there.
"Maybe the rest of his family was dead so they couldn't report him as missing. Maybe he didn't get along with his family and when they didn't see him for a while, they figured it was for the best."
Rochelle frowned and shook her head.
"Somebody had to know he was missing. If they didn't report it, there has to be a reason.
"Another question is why in the world would you keep a body frozen for twenty years and then decide to dump the body in the median of an interstate? For that matter, who would want a body in their freezer for twenty years? Knowing it was there would give me chills every time I opened it."
