Morana Barnes: Murderous Love

7. Morana Barnes

September 4th, 2022 1:56 pm

Investigation:

"So I couldn't find anything else on Sydney's body but I was right about what I told you previously. She died from lack of oxygen due to strangulation and has 24 stab wounds to the chest and abdomen. She's been dead for at least ten days. I didn't find any other DNA on her. Our killer was very careful in the way they carried this out. I'm sorry but at the moment, there's nothing else for me to tell you ladies," Logan explained bitterly.

He was upset that there wasn't anything else he could do to help us. The information he just gave us didn't tell us anything about how she even ended up in that spot. After going back to where Sydney's body was found it was clear that that was not the scene of her murder. She was killed elsewhere and her body was dumped into the river.

Surely there was some evidence somewhere. I tried to think about how we can figure out where Sydney was killed. If her body was dumped in the river that means it floated to where it was found. "Ok so Sydney's body was found in the river, if her body was dumped there how many miles away from the original crime scene would she be?" It was a good question. Logan thought about it trying to analyze it in his head before nodding.

"Well a river's flow can be as high as 7 miles per hour but our river flows about 2 miles per hour. It'd be estimated that our victim's body had been floating for ten days so from her starting point I'd say about 124 miles to 400 miles away from where she'd originally been killed. It depends on if she got stuck on any rocks or if the water sped up or slowed down. There's no way to be sure of this though,"

"That's a lot of ground to cover," Chaset said. She looked at me as I stared intently into space thinking about what to do next. This was gonna take a while and we wanted to catch this guy quickly but we had to do something. Most of the time first-time killers will keep going if they haven't been caught and I didn't want anyone else to end up like Sydney.

I looked at Chaset and nodded. "We need a map of the woods and markdown every hiking trail or any place near the river within 124 miles to 400 miles, starting from where Sydney was found and up. Gather up some people, and let's start searching," I said. We walked out of the morgue and started to make our way up and into the station. We had a lot of work to do and we needed to get it done even if it was gonna take a while.

*****

"Find anything?" I asked, looking at Chaset. Right now we were searching 10 miles from where Sydney was found in hopes we'd find something. So far there was nothing. Not a single drop of evidence had been found and I was starting to get worried. If the killer could kill someone this easily and not leave any trace of the murder then what's stopping them from committing another? I was hoping that it wouldn't get to that point. There had to be some evidence somewhere. "No, you?" Chaset asked back. I sighed before walking over to Chaset and shaking my head.

"Let's move on to the next area. There's nothing here," I said.

"Yeah, no kidding." We started walking while following the map to the nearest hiking trail. Even though Sydney wasn't found near a hiking trail, hiking trails are usually pretty empty during the night, and from what Logan could tell us Sydney was killed on August 25th at 9:30 pm. The killer could've gone unnoticed on one of the trails and in the woods.

We had a lot of hiking trails in these woods so finding the right one might be extremely difficult but it was the only lead we had at the moment. If we look hard enough we might find what we're looking for and hopefully we do because cases like these are time-sensitive. The killer could strike at any moment if they believe they won't be caught and that is dangerous.