Into the Unknown

Forensics Department - October 10, 2019

A group of individuals with great, powerful minds all work as a team, examining samples, running tests, and sorting through evidence of the few cases they receive in Princelan. The head of this tight group of individuals is Barbara, who watches over everyone that sets foot in the Forensics Department. This place is her home, her kingdom. The scientists are her citizens, who she cares for and protects however she can.

As commanded by Detective Auburn, Barbara and her teammates are to pull out and reexamine all of the evidence that has been gathered so far on the Lisbon case; altogether, the majority of the findings were brought in approximately seven months ago – when the Lisbon case started. Boxes filled with samples in plastic bags, filed papers, and other various random sealed items are meticulously organized on the metal tables where evidence is meant to be placed. Barbara is a women of organization, order, and cleanness, so she is sure that the evidence is neatly where she wants it to be. Her squad of scientists are well aware of this, making sure that after something has been studied, sampled, reexamined, or recorded once again, they place the items back in the spots where they were originally placed by their leader.

Everyone that buzzes through the department is frustrated with the oh-so-wonderful Martin. He's kept Mr. Herman's car in his custody for the past few days and the team is becoming impatient. They know he's messing with the evidence, though there is not much they are able to do. The Forensics Department is not well-liked throughout Princelan, even though the scientists are rarely seen by people who live in the town. Most of them hide away in the station on the basement floor where their labs are. Equipment they've studied and trained to use are kept in pristine condition, ready at any moment to be used, whether it's for tests, sampling, or simulations and recreations of crime scenes (even though there aren't many of those that come around).

Barbara, plotted at her desk in the far corner of the lab farthest away from the unpacked evidence, goes over to grab the top folder layered with papers – Shelby's autopsy report.

Once at her desk, Barbara lays out the papers in an orderly fashion, organizing them by date and category. Most of them have been recorded with the date March 16, 2019 – the day that Shelby's autopsy and other tests was done, as well as the day the first sets of interviews were conducted. Some of the papers have colored with time; what were once a pearl white have now turned to a light tan, wrinkled on the edges.

The head scientist pulls out the autopsy report sheet that the medical examiner, who has retired since working for the Princelan Station, filled out as they performed the autopsy seven months ago. She browses through what the medical examiner had to say, thinking to herself that she wished they had better handwriting.

A picture of the outline of a female body is centered on the page with various lines and scribbles of words that indicated what was where on her body at the time, along with anything that had happened prior to her death. Although, everything that had happened before the murder should have been written down on her medical records.

On the left corner of the page, information shown at the time of death were recorded as so:

· Victim shows signs of congestion

· Perspiration is found on and around the frontal lobe (from a fever)

· Total organ failure – unsure of cause

· According to lowering body temperature, taking in the variable of water temperature, the victim died at approximately 22:00.

In the bottom corner of the page, there is a pink sticky note with a brilliant neon coloring. The words written on it are:

· Blood tests will be run by my assistant, Dr. Anderson (Wait to finish final report after blood tests have been run) Signed March 16, 2019 by Dr. Theodore.

Barbara reads this with deep consideration, then searches through her neat stacks of papers, tackling all of the information that's been delivered to her here on a silver platter. Well, more like delivered in a cardboard box. After minutes of digging, she finds what she is looking for: the blood test results. She pulls out the paper, placing it in front of her neatly on top of the keyboard. Skipping through the introductions, dates the tests were done, and who they were performed by, she goes straight to the findings. According to what Dr. Anderson found out at the time the blood tests were performed, there is some peculiar information that's been printed onto the results that the blood chemistry analyzer acquired.

· Extremely low levels of red cell count – 5.43% remaining.

· Extremely low levels of white cell count – 8.23% remaining.

Barbara looks at the findings with confusion, misunderstanding what's before her eyes. What would cause a person's cell count to plummet like that? Could Shelby just have had a really bad cold? Certainly, the few findings that the medical examiner reported were pointing towards the common cold. But the explanations of the cell count and organ failure was mysterious and unknown.

She then finds another paper among the stack showing the brain scans that the medical examiner had approved to carry out.

A set of photographs from an MRI are what Barbara looks at closely. Even though Shelby was already dead when the autopsy report was conducted, Barbara thinks that it would seem odd to want such a scan when a person would no longer be using their brain. The longest a person's brain can stay active after death is just some minutes. So why a scan a day after Shelby passed?

Examining the MRI photographs more closely, Barbara realizes why the tests were done. In a normal, healthy person's skull, their brain is shaped to fit perfectly in the area of the skull where the brain thrives. On the photographs of Shelby's brain, it's different. Barbara had heard of this before, but had never seen it in person. According to the scans, Shelby's brain had shrunk and broke down to the size of a child's fist, which is definitely not normal for a healthy person when they die. The brain cells that were once alive and bustling in Shelby's brain had faded away, as if they never existed. Barbara looks up from the photographs and stares at her computer screen thinking, Why hadn't anybody looked further into this?

She dials a number on the landline, puts in the extension code and waits for the person on the other end to answer.