It did not.
Hours later death came to Julie Welsh, arriving on wings of agony and despair. As her ordeal drew to a close at last, her final thoughts were of her children.
25
A girlfriend of Julie’s discovered the bodies the following morning. Upon arriving at the Welsh house, Newport Beach detectives quickly recognized the murder pattern as consistent with the ongoing Candlelight Killer investigation. Accordingly, they sealed the premises and contacted the task force. Upon receiving their call, Lieutenant Huff dispatched two investigative teams to the scene-Barrello and Fuentes from Orange County, Deluca and me from LA-reasoning that each team had worked a prior occurrence and thereby stood a chance of noticing something others might miss. To my surprise, Snead didn’t object.
Later, the task force met for the second time that day. The two Newport Beach homicide investigators who had first arrived at the Welsh house, having subsequently been detailed to our unit, stood at the back of the crowded room. With their addition, the task force now numbered fifteen.
Lieutenant Huff arrived late. He entered accompanied by Dr. Sidney Berns, the forensic psychiatrist who had attended our first meeting. The room quieted, the mood bleak. Lieutenant Snead stepped to the front. “Who wants to lead off? Barrello?”
Yes, sir,” said Barrello, shuffling through his notes. “Preliminary results indicate that the victims died last night between the hours of twelve midnight and four AM. The children were smothered with plastic bags. Liver temps indicate they were murdered about two hours before the parents. The husband was strangled with clothesline rope and a length of pipe. The woman died of multiple stab wounds.”
“Same guy,” said Huff.
“Yes, sir. No doubt about it-candles, plastic ties, cut eyelids, the murder knife taken from the kitchen.”
“We’re still holding back several of those descriptors,” interjected Snead. “There’s no chance of a copycat?”
“No sir. No chance.”
“What about the woman? Bites? Multiple knife wounds?”
“The official eight-by-tens aren’t available yet, but Kane took some shots. It’s worse this time.”
“Kane? You have those pictures?”
I handed a deck of photos to the man on my left, who passed them down the line one by one. As the photographs circled the room, even the most hardened detectives fell silent.
Finally someone spoke. “What kind of animal would do this?”
No one ventured an answer.
“Let’s keep moving,” suggested Huff. “Kane, anything to add?”
“It’s definitely the same guy,” I said. “There are differences, though. This time he came over a side gate and turned off the electrical power at the meter outside. We found shoe scuffs on the gate and got footprint casts in the dirt by the patio. Mud on the carpet indicates that he entered the house through a patio door off the family room. No sign of a break-in.”
“What, no tampering with the garage lights?” Snead said sarcastically.
“No, sir,” I admitted, adding, “One of the family cars did have a recent scrape.”
“In that case, is there any indication that the Welshes visited a repair shop? An estimate, insurance papers, anything?”
“Nothing yet.”
“So the Welshes’ vehicle has a scraped fender, like a million others in the city,” Snead pointed out with exaggerated patience. “Look, Kane. The killer jumped a side gate and entered the Welshes’ home through an unlocked door, not the garage. He turned off the power at the meter, requiring no prior reconnaissance. And there’s no indication he visited the scene on any other occasion. It’s time we forget your garage reconnaissance theory and concentrate on the facts.”
I bristled. Earlier that day, following the discovery of the Newport Beach murders, Alonzo Domingos had been released from custody. As a result, I knew that Snead had spent a good portion of the afternoon getting chewed out in the chief’s tenth-floor office. “I know what’s crawling up your skirt here, Lieutenant,” I shot back. “It wasn’t my idea to pop Domingos. I was the one who wanted to put him under surveillance, remember?”
“If it hadn’t been for your initiating that line of investigation in the first place, we would never have-”
“Finger pointing won’t accomplish anything,” Huff interrupted. “We all look bad on this, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Barrello, finish your report.”
Barrello referred again to his notes, then shook his head. “That’s mostly it,” he admitted regretfully. “None of the neighbors saw or heard anything. The coroner’s doing the posts tomorrow. As for the lab work, we took swabs and smears from each victim, pubic combings and found hairs from the bed sheets and bathrooms, and prints from the doors, bedrooms, and the electrical meter. The murder weapons were clean, again suggesting that the killer wore gloves.”
“Kane? Anything to add?”
“No, sir, except that we should cross-check everything against trace evidence from the other scenes. Maybe something will show up.”
Huff sighed, glancing at the wall chart. Since first initiated, the poster graph had grown to a web of interconnected items that now extended halfway around the room. “Who’s got something new? Liman? You and Fuentes come up with anything linking the first two families?”
“Nothing,” said Liman. “We went through their records, ran down everybody who had keys, and talked with neighbors, coworkers, and family members. Came up cold on all fronts.”
Huff referred to his notes. “Shanelec? You took the plumbing logo.”
“Yes, sir,” said Shanelec. “I’ve phoned every paint shop and magnetic sign manufacturer from here to San Diego. If the guy had a phony sign made, it wasn’t done around here.”
“Widen your search.”
“Yes, sir.”
Huff turned to Snead. “Any progress with the federal inquiries?”
Snead scowled. “None,” he said, still fuming over his run-in with me. “No hits on the prints, and our NCIC inquiry turned up negative. I heard from the feds at Quantico this morning, too. Negative on the VICAP search.”
Huff made a notation in his folder. “Okay, let’s proceed to new business. Two Newport Beach detectives are joining the unit: Dick Feimer and Greg Sugita.”
Several members of the task force, including me, nodded at the newcomers.
“Four other detective pairs will also be joining our ranks,” Huff continued. “Two teams from LAPD, two from Orange County.” He picked up a stack of papers from his desk, took one, and handed the remainder to Liman to distribute. “These are copies of the FBI profile we requested. Over the past weeks I’ve had a number of conversations with the Bureau, including a conference call yesterday between me, Dr. Berns, Special Agent Clay Hatcher, who’s the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office profile coordinator, and Douglas Mark of their Investigative Support Unit in Virginia. I’ve asked Dr. Berns to give us his overview on what the FBI behaviorists came up with. By the way, this report is strictly confidential. Heads will roll if any of it turns up in the papers. Sid, you want to take it from here?”
Dr. Berns made his way to the front of the assembly. As he did, I began flipping through the pages I’d been given, noting that the FBI team had organized their work into a number of sections including victimology, crime-scene analysis, a dissection of the crimes themselves, an evaluation of the police reports and autopsy protocols, psychological conclusions concerning the killer, and a final page offering suggestions that might lead to the killer’s apprehension. This last page interested me most.
Berns reached the front of the room, adjusted his glasses, and began. “I’ll make this quick,” he said. “The killer’s timetable has shortened. The interval between the first two murders was twenty-five days; the murders last night followed in fifteen. In addition, the killings have become more violent. We can expect these trends to continue.”