My Life with Death

HUSH, Department of Pathology and Forensic Anthropology

 I entered the same river again. I returned to the building that changed me as a person, without which I would not be where I am. I shouldn't be as grateful to her as I am - she's helped me, but she's also gotten me into trouble - but she's changed me around and around, no matter how. But it's strange what one can do a building - a place of concrete, brick, glass, and metal - to do with a person - a creature of flesh, bones, and reason? A person becomes a person, changes his life, and moves on, but in the end, he returns to the beginning. And literally. Once again, I had a case closer to me than I would have liked. A case that got under my skin right down to my bones. I had a strong sense of Deja vu as I walked through the enormous doors and looked up. Through the glass roof - the whole thing looked like a colossal greenhouse - the sun's rays caressed my face and at least put a slight smile on it.

From the first moment, I felt the smell of the desert and the sand on my skin. I felt so different as if I was rejuvenated and reborn. I missed the dry heat and heat from which it was impossible to escape so much: individual groups of enthusiastic young scientists and students passed by me. I didn't know any of them. Even the building has changed. I haven't seen her since the day the bomb went off here that almost killed me. And she destroyed several of my friends and colleagues. She was so new and beautiful. It looked indestructible and monumental yet so fragile—the heart of the mind, the mind in the heart. I wanted to touch the things around me. Feel the energy from them. Especially the ones that were here even before that. Pieces of charred metal combined into some sculptures as a memory of the past and of those who did not survive it. We walked through marble corridors and up iron and stone stairs through dark corridors into more monumental halls. I stopped by where my old office used to be. Now, it was just an empty, darkened room with a few boxes and a large table against the wall.

Christine found a large conference room for us. There was a projection screen on the wall and another propped up on a stand with wheels in the corner of the room by the shuttered windows. I put the laptop on the tabletop in the middle of the room, took it out of my bag, and opened the FBI folder. Next to it, I also spread my notebook with notes and notes. I immediately wrote down the timeline of the victims on the board - the time and places when the victims were last seen and by whom - this is one of the most important clues in solving the case:

Three murders. Annapolis in Maryland, Virginia, and D.C. These are where the bodies were found and where they disappeared from. So, the killer is concentrating on the East Coast. The cause of death is cardiac arrest caused by sarin poisoning. Post-mortem, the killer removed the victims' heads. Sarin was used for many years as a nerve-paralyzing chemical weapon. Immediately after ingestion, it attacks the muscles, which weaken and eventually fail. The victim's lungs fail, he cannot breathe, and cardiac arrest occurs.

The first two murders took place in 2013, within three months. The third was just a few weeks ago. Why the time delay? More than five years. Is it possible that the killer was in prison? The murders occurred at night, in deserted places, so the killer would have plenty of time to decorate the corpses at the crime scene. The only suspect in the 2013 murders was our third victim. Todd Sparks. He was a suspect because they had seen him the night before—when he got into a fight with Cody McBenning—before C.M. was killed, allegedly because of drugs. McBenning failed to pay Sparks for the matron, so Sparks beat him up and took what belonged to him. 1200 dollars. Jack Bencker was also found robbed, but Sparks was not seen near him that day.

Could this be a murderous robbery? What he took wasn't enough for him, and he wanted more.

However, the police did not find more evidence, and Sparks was sentenced to 5 years in June 2013 for the robbery of Cody McBenning - victim number 2. Todd Sparks was released on November 20, 2018. On the day of his murder, he was also arrested and subsequently released - the same day. The person who paid the bail for him is unknown. So the murderer can be someone to him, a relative or a police officer, who was firing him? Todd Sparks doesn't fit the equation. The killer only used him. He wanted to get back into the light by killing several FBI agents. The question is, why?