The Murder Show

CHAPTER 15

An hour later, Maya, Andy, Vic and Travis are standing around the layout table with the evidence spread out all around them on walls, with the timelines showing the key points in the investigation.

"Ok so what we now know that we perhaps didn't before..." Maya starts as she pulls out the partial recording of the call to Carina's cell phone. "Is that this at least STARTED with a personal motive, something we had suspected and that the profile supports but that the victim selection didn't. We know he has evolved but that the initial motivator for these killings was a deeply personal event."

"The call received today confirms this much - for the first time there was some emotion in the call - albeit the voice was still distorted but maybe the techs can get something else off the change in tone and pitch..." Maya says looking mostly at Vic and Travis.

"I think if we consider the blue ribbon and snakes we can assume that what was once a deeply personal motive has moved along somewhere to some sort of fanatical religious mission. So now we need to try and figure out what happened to start all of this... If we do that we lessen the suspect pool further." She says.

Andy nods. "So we have some theories kicking around, the most obvious one's anyway, immediate family connection."

"Ok - so let's list some off." Maya says. "Vic, Trav, feel free to shout up any you think of too."

"So I'll kick it off - The girlfriend, or wife left him for a woman." Andy says.

"Maybe he was abused by an older family member of the same sex. Or maybe a sibling was..." Travis says.

"What about if the mother left the father for another woman, dad's life turns to shit, the kid grows up blaming her and the other woman..." Vic says.

They all nod their heads agreeing with the possible scenarios. As they write down a few more on another wall. "Ok, so the second thing is the link to all the cars being fairly newly purchased..." Maya says, before looking at Vic. "You wanna fill us in on that?" She asks.

Vic nods, picking up the folder and moving over to the wall displaying the victim information and timelines. She opens the manila folder as she starts to speak. "So the connection was picked by accident really. Victims 2 and 5 brought their cars from the same place." She says before looking back at the folder. "RJ Auto's."

"Once we noticed that we looked at when and where all the others were purchased, and whilst nothing in terms of a specific dealer - other than RJ's - stood out, we noted all were close to the dates of the murders." Travis supplies.

"Ok, how close exactly..." Andy asks and Vic starts to get out the information on the dates.

"Ok so Victim 1, the gap was 17 days." Vic says writing under the victims information. "Victim 2, was the shortest, only 10 days. And that's one that was from RJ's." Vic continues, handing the pen to Travis who starts to jot down the information under the victims.

"Victim 3 was 20 days, Victim 4 was 16 days, Victim 5 was again shorter - and from RJ's at 12 days. And finally the latest victim was at 26 days from purchase to murder." Vic tells them as Travis finishes writing all the information down under each victim.

"So what do we think... is this a coincidence? Or a pattern." Maya wonders aloud.

Vic is the first one to speak. "I think this is a viable pattern. One or two links or a gap of a few months or more, then yes, I would agree it could be just a coincidence, but 6 victims ALL of which brought new cars less than a month before their murders... Those same cars that were the murder scenes. That has to be a genuine link. Right?" Vic says.