Buried: Mystery Series (My Murder Mysteries #2) (3 page)

The first victim of the extra second we identified was Irene Ford. When she went missing, she was forty-eight years of age. She had short, brown hair and was a mother of two. She was a nurse before she died, although she was found wearing casual clothes. She lived around the Minot area. On the day she went missing, the last person to see her was her husband. She said that she was going out down town, but no closed-circuit cameras could confirm that she ever made it to town. Some suspected that she took a shortcut home, and that was that for her. I would look into more detail about this later. As far as forensics could make out, she was beaten to death with something metallic, especially across the skull, but also the spine. She died in 1990.

The second victim was named John Crawford. He was aged forty-nine when he went missing. He worked in a petrol station and lived just outside of town. He had a wife and son – his wife was long gone, but his son was still alive. It was his wife who last saw him. He said goodbye to her before going to work, but he never turned up for work. His family knew that he’d been murdered, and they had launched several search parties over the years to look for him. He was shot in the head in 1990, but also suffered two shots to the chest. He was killed with a shotgun.

The third victim was Sienna Stewart. She was aged thirty-seven. She had quite long, blonde hair, and she was loved by all. Although she had no family, she had many friends and was a very sociable person, so it was very unusual for her not to make any contact with anyone for several days. She was murdered in 1989, apparently by electric shocks to the skull. The forensics team thought she may have been subjected to torture by some sort of powerful source of electricity before her death. The last time she was seen or heard from was a phone call to her mother, who died before her body was found.

The fourth victim was the most shocking, and that was of a fourteen-year old boy whose name was Kieran Bradley. He was an aspiring Olympic cyclist and he had many friends in the school where he lived. He was killed in 1988, just after Eve Roberts went missing as well. He was choked to death, as forensic scientists found that several dozen cotton wool balls had been forced down his throat. He was a very popular child at school, and I found this quite surprising as he had worn glasses. I thought it was horrific when I told his parents about the discovery, and how he had died. I will never forget their faces.

The fifth victim was an elderly lady named Elizabeth Beckett. She was eighty-three and she was an old age pensioner with three children and eight grandchildren. Over her life she had been an influential woman, as she had taught for forty years. She came to a grisly end with her limbs being chopped off. Forensics identified the murder weapon as an axe – somebody had chopped her legs off and left her to bleed to death before burying her, and this was in 1991.

The sixth victim was also an old age pensioner, but this time he was a man. He was named Fred Lesley, and he was also a respectable member of the community. At seventy-eight, he had been a football coach and youth worker for most of his life. He was married with five children and fifteen grandchildren. He was the only victim to have been found in a box. He had been killed in 1994, and the killer simply placed him in a box while tied up, cut his teeth out, nailed the box shut and buried him, leaving him to suffocate.

Finally, the body of a twenty-two year old man was found. He’d been missing since 1996, his name was Christopher Eggles, and he was a student training to be a surgeon. He had a very promising career ahead of him. He had a girlfriend and they were even considering getting married and having children. He was last seen leaving the university. His car was found in Minot forest, a few miles away from where his body was found. The car had crashed into a tree, but there was no trace of him whatsoever. He had been choked to death, probably by a rope. The forensic scientists were not completely sure, but they thought he had been tied up and hanged from a tree nearby.

After having finished reading the files on each victim, I sat back a moment. Was this really happening? How could anybody in the world do this to a fellow human being? I almost cried, but I knew I needed to get my head together and focus on the case, putting my emotions to one side. After all, it was what solved the case last time for me. I knew that this case would be a tough one, as no DNA evidence was left anywhere on the scene, so I was dealing with a somewhat intelligent person, no matter how twisted or psychotic they were.

I started looking for connections between the victims, if any. I knew from the start that each victim was completely different. They were a variety of ages, and their personalities and jobs were all different. Even the way they all died were completely different (apart from choking and strangulation, which were quite similar, and excluding the fact that they all had their teeth pulled out). They all lived in different places in Minot, and they all led different lives, so how could it be possible that the killer could be acquainted with each of them? What did all of these people have in common? It was going to be tough, so I decided to sleep on it, if I could.

I woke up the next morning not knowing where to go or what to do next. I had slept rough, as I was awake for several hours in bed, thinking about the murderer and who it could be, like I always do. I was trying to create a profile in my mind of this psychopath: the suspect was probably male, had a very disturbed past, and was reasonably intelligent. I could not think of anything else. What possible motive could there be for murdering these innocent people? Perhaps there was no motive – perhaps they were driven and motivated by their excitement in killing a human being.

I arrived at the station, and Patricia approached me.

"Tammy, there is someone here who wants to speak to you." she said, pointing to a woman who appeared to be in her fifties.

I walked over to the woman, and it was clear to me she was a relative of one of the victims. Her eyes were red and she had obviously received some traumatic and devastating news, although she probably expected that news already, deep down.

"Hello," I said, approaching her as kindly and in as friendly a manner as I possibly could.

"Are you the one working on the Kieran Bradley case?" she asked.

It suddenly hit me. She must have been Kieran Bradley's mother, the one who was killed when he was fourteen.

"I am," I replied, trying not to show my emotions too much.

"Well, I need to talk to you about something," she said.

"Take your time," I told her, allowing her to sit down and talk to me somewhere private, in the soft interview room.

"So, what is it you want to talk to me about?" I asked her, after offering her some coffee. She had refused, as she just wanted to get this conversation over with.

"I might have a little bit of information to give you about the murders," she said. "There were eight more, weren't there?" she asked.

"There were eight in total," I replied.

After hearing that, she gasped, and her hand ran down her fragile face. She was bewildered at the fact that her son had died at the hands of a psychotic serial killer.

"Were they all young boys?" was her next question.

"No," was my straight answer. "There were also some women, and the victims were of different ages. Some were old, some were young, and others were middle-aged."

"So why did he pick my son?" she said, trying not to shout too loud.

"I'm trying my best to get to the bottom of that, I really am, but for now I need as much information as I possibly can," I replied, trying to keep the poor woman as calm as possible.

"That's why I'm here," she said. "I've got an idea about who the killer might be," she said.

"Go on," I said, becoming rather excited.

"Well, the killer might, just might be Ian Green."

"Who is he?"

"He's that strange man who used to live near us. I don't know where he lives now."

"And why do you think he's the killer?"

"Well, I remember back to when I had a conversation with my son. It was one of the last conversations I had...

“It was a normal day, and I was dropping Kieran off at school in the car. Before he left, he talked to me about Ian Green. He pointed him out. At that point Ian was talking to some young children. He must have been in his twenties back then! Anyway, Kieran started saying things about him.

“'That's the one who talks about killing people all of the time', he told me.

“'That one who is talking to the kids right now?' I asked him.

“'Yeah. He's always talking about how he would want to die, and if he were to kill someone, he would torture them and bury them alive.'

“'Well, there is clearly something seriously wrong with that man. Why does he come here? He looks too old to go to school!'

“'The teachers have shooed him away a few times, but he keeps coming back.'

“'Why?'

“'I don't know. Nobody really talks to him. I suppose he just likes it here.'

“Kieran then got out of the car, and as he went into school Ian turned around and watched him enter. As the door closed, he went back to his conversation."

I was writing notes down at this point. I had finally gotten a new lead.

"Why didn't you come forward about this before?" I asked her.

"Because I forgot all about it. I was more concerned about Kieran's welfare. At least I know now, and the forensics or somebody told me that there was no sign of sexual abuse, so at least he didn't die that way, even if he was..."

She then proceeded to break down.

"It’s okay," she said. I then allowed her to leave, and told her I would keep her updated.

To my utter astonishment, ten minutes later a police officer arrived in the station with a man in handcuffs. The man looked like he was in his forties.

"This is Ian Green," said the police officer, "and I've caught him hanging around the field where the bodies were found. I just thought you'd be interested."

The policeman was right – I was in fact very interested in what this man had to say. I had no idea who he was, but I wanted to know why he went to the field where the bodies were found. Perhaps he knew something about the murders? Or perhaps, he was even the killer himself, but I knew I was getting too excited for that, but then again, why go there when the field is in the middle of nowhere? He had obviously seen it on the news that eight corpses had been found in a field in Minot, so he must have known.

The man himself, Ian Green, looked like he was in his forties, although he did have grey hair and was very scruffy-looking. He had a short beard, and it was clear to me that he had not had a wash in several days. He was obviously quite a poor person, probably from the housing project. From what Mrs. Bradley told me, this man was undoubtedly insane, and he looked at me with a rather guilty face. He seemed to be depressed. I wondered if he was the same horror and death fanatic as he used to be. There was only one way to find out.

"Would you like to follow me into the interview room?" I asked him, escorting him there.

"I need my tablets at dinner time," he said.

"What?" I asked him.

"I need my anti-depressants."

I looked at the clock. It was after twelve now, so I assumed he was late to take his tablets.

"Alright, Ian," I said. "I'll get somebody to go and get your tablets, so you need to tell me where you live."

Ian told me his address quite nervously. I knew he had something to hide – there was something in that house that made me worried. I hoped and prayed there would not be any more dead bodies in there. I asked Graham and Miranda to go to the house, since they had nothing better to do, so they went.

Meanwhile, I started the interview with Ian Green. I hoped this would be a real lead into the case, as I was more determined than ever to apprehend the person responsible for these ghastly crimes.

"So, Ian," I began, "do you mind telling me why you went to the field that day?"

There was no answer. I tried asking again. He breathed, as if he was about to say something, but he did not.

"There must be a reason why you went there," I asked him.

"I'm not up for talking right now," he said, talking to me with his face to the floor.

"O.k.," I replied, trying to be nice to him. "I'll get you some coffee or something, and then we can talk?"

"I would like to have my tablets," he said.

It took fifteen minutes for Graham and Miranda to return to the police station with the tablets. While Miranda was giving Ian the tablets, Graham took me to one side.

"You didn't find anything then?" I asked him.

"We didn't find any dead bodies," Graham replied, "but it is not good."

"What's in there?" I asked him, desperate to hear the answer as the suspense was killing me.

"We went into his bedroom where the tablets were," he said, "and we found these strange drawings on the wall."

"What was on these drawings?"

"There were dead bodies, people been tortured, and people been murdered."

"Good God!" I cried. "We are dealing with a psychopath!"

"No, I'm afraid
you
are," replied Graham, carrying on with his work.

I returned to the interview room, wondering what was going through this man's mind. Ian had taken the tablets, and so he was ready to talk – the drugs had worked.

"So, Ian," I said, starting over. "Can you now tell me why you were hanging around in the field?"

"I will now," he said. "It's because I was told to go there."

"By who?" I said, thinking that he was lying.

"I received a phone call. It was a man. He told me to go to the field."

"And when did you receive this phone call?" I asked him, knowing that I could check the phone records later.

"I don't know the exact time."

"Did this person say who it was?"

"No, they just said, 'go to the field tomorrow morning,' and they put the phone down."

"Did you not think to tell the police?"