AUTHORIZATION
Authorized by: Dr. Dagmar Zepper
Received From: Berlin City Police, District 3
ENVIRONMENT
Date of Exam 20/7/1998 Time of Exam 0915 hours
Autopsy Facility Institute of Legal Medicine, Berlin
Persons Present. Adolph Munger, Mette Brinkman
CERTIFICATION
Cause of Death
Undetermined
Manner of Death
Homicide
The facts stated herein are correct to the best of my knowledge and belief.
Signed by
Bruno Muntz, MD 20/7/1998, 1429 hours
DIAGNOSES
Decomposed human adult
IDENTIFICATION
Body Identified By
Personal effects; partial print, left fifth finger
EXTERNAL DESCRIPTION
Body Condition Decomposed/skeletal
Hair Degraded, original color is undeterminable
Teeth Missing, save one fragment
Clothing was adult male-type trousers, jacket, shirt, and undergarments. A gold belt buckle bore the initials CT, surrounded by a circular diamond pattern. When removed from the apparatus, the remains weighed 60 kilograms. Organs were liquefied. Brain and soft tissue were putrefied. Some bones remained connected by ligamentous tissue. One digit was deeply embedded in the left femoroacetabular junction, preserving the tissue of the distal aspect. Insect specimens were collected and submitted for analysis. See separate entomology report.
INJURIES
Though sloughing, the skin of the torso and limbs showed multiple sharp-instrument perforations. Though putrefied, the muscles of the torso and limbs showed multiple sharp-instrument perforations. Fifty-three fractures and perforations were seen on the skull and postcranial skeleton. No associated hemorrhage was evident. All sharp- and blunt-instrument trauma was consistent with postmortem injury due to spikes projecting inward within the iron maiden apparatus.
DISPOSITION OF CLOTHING AND PERSONAL EFFECTS
Clothing discarded. Belt buckle returned to family along with remains.
PROCEDURES
Radiographs
Selected postmortem odontological and long-bone radiographs were obtained to aid in determining identity and cause of death. See separate radiology and odontology reports.
IDENTIFICATION
See separate fingerprint report.
INTERNAL EXAMINATION
Body Cavities
Organs liquefied. No samples retained.
Skeletal examination
Survey
The bones consisted of a complete adult skeleton. Fractures and perforations were noted at fifty-three locations. (See attached skeletal diagram.) Femoral measurements were taken to establish height. Following skeletal survey and measurement, radiographs were made of the maxilla and mandible, the torso, and the long bones of the lower and upper extremities. Blunt- and sharp-instrument trauma was evident at fifty-three sites. No associated hemorrhage was observed at any trauma site. Following the examination of radiographs by the radiologist and the odontologist, the bones were packaged for transport to the United States.
SUMMARY AND INTERPRETATION
At the time of discovery decedent’s identity was unknown. The body had been wrapped in thick plastic and taped.
Officials at the San Francisco Police Department provided information of a missing person, Thomas, Christopher, last seen alive 20/06/1998. Dr. Dagmar Zepper, Berlin, medical examiner, assumed jurisdiction of the body and authorized autopsy. Review of Christopher Thomas’s medical records showed that he was a white male, stature 180 centimeters, forty-five years old at the time of his disappearance.
Autopsy examination showed a skeletonized human adult with liquefied organs and putrefied brain and musculature. Long-bone measurements were consistent with a white male of stature of approximately 180 centimeters. Findings were consistent with enclosure of the body within the iron maiden apparatus following death.
Fingerprint analysis positively identified the decedent as Christopher Thomas. See fingerprint report.
Entomological analysis suggested a PMI greater than 18 days, a time period consistent with an LSA for Christopher Thomas of 20/06/1998 with discovery of the body on 18/07/1998. See entomology report.
In my opinion, the cause of death in this case is most appropriately certified as “undetermined.” Examination of the skeletal remains does not allow differentiation of death from a natural disease process such as pneumonia, or from a nontraumatic external means, such as asphyxia.
The circumstances of body treatment require manner of death be classified as “homicide.”
Bruno Muntz 20 July 1998
Bruno Muntz, MD 20 July 1998
DIAGRAMS
1. Skeleton (front/back)
ASSOCIATED REPORTS
Entomology
Fingerprint
Odontology
Radiology
THE PRESENT
8 John Lescroart
The fog was in.
The forty-two-year-old estate lawyer Stan Ballard pulled his car into an open parking space at Ocean Beach about a hundred yards south of San Francisco’s legendary tourist attraction the Cliff House, which was all but invisible through the gray cloud that enveloped the western half of the city.
For a long moment, cocooned in the warmth of his Lexus, Ballard simply sat behind the wheel and let the motor run, watching the mist settle onto the windshield, almost as if it were actually raining. But there was no real rain, only the damned perennial fog. On the dashboard, he noted the external temperature-forty-three degrees-and shook his head with disgust.
The first day of summer. Ridiculous.
Ballard wore a light charcoal suit with infinitesimally small, maroon pinstripes that had set him back $1,900 at Barcelino. He also sported a TAG Heuer watch, a $200 custom-made ivory dress shirt with his initials on the breast pocket, a Jerry Garcia tie (to balance out the ultraconservative tone of the rest of his attire), a highly shined pair of Brioni loafers. Even his knee-length, black silk socks came dear-$18 a pair. But he knew that if you wanted to instill confidence in your clients, you simply had to dress the part, as though money were the last thing you, or they, ever had to worry about.
Even without the elegant threads, Ballard cut an impressive figure. He worked out in his converted basement for an hour and a half every morning, so his six-foot frame looked pretty much the way it had when he’d pitched for Cal back in the eighties. A few lines had begun to crop up around his hazel eyes, but his light brown hair was still thick, his skin ruddy and smooth. The prominent, slightly off-kilter nose only added to his aura of powerful manhood.
Finally, he couldn’t put the inevitable off any longer, and he killed the ignition, took a steadying breath against the temperature shock, and opened the door.
There, out on the beach, where she said she’d be, by one of the boulder-bordered fire circles the hippies and/or the homeless used most nights, he could barely make out the huddled figure of his wife. He’d been with Sarah now for eight years, and though they’d had some difficult times in their marriage-their inability to conceive their own children had been a festering wound for half of those years together-it hadn’t been until recently that Ballard had begun to consider the possibility, for no specific reason other than apathy and guilt, that their relationship might actually end in divorce.
But they weren’t there yet-he hoped.
Now Stan was playing the role of the dutiful husband, coming down here to the ocean’s edge, at Sarah’s urging, because she had told him she needed him. And because she had so obviously still needed him, suddenly in the here and now, what he was doing didn’t feel like playing a role at all. Some flame still burned among the embers at the mere thought that he might still have an important place in her life, in her heart. And the warmth of that flame both surprised and disoriented him.