The Price of Murder

Prologue

“If I could have the attention of the other members of the Commission for a moment, please. Let me reconstruct for you the actual physical details of the first murder.

“He was roughly ten feet from her. We know she turned and snatched open the knife drawer. But he was on her before she could grasp one of the knives. He held her with his right hand at the nape of her neck. We are not certain of the position of his left arm. It may have been around her waist, but more probably, he grasped the rear of her... ah... garment in the vicinity of the waist. Then, gentlemen, he lifted her bodily and, with terrible force, brought her face and head down against the edge of the sink.

“I present three cranial X-rays and two photographs of the body which show the extent of the damage inflicted. By a careful examination of the fractures and other facial damage we can be certain that he lifted her and slammed her down no less than fifteen times, and it could possibly have been twice that. After the first impact she was certainly unconscious, perhaps dying. She presented a dead weight then of one hundred and fifteen pounds. Assuming a two-second cycle for each impact, he spent a full minute blindly smashing that lifeless body against the edge of the sink. Is that not the action of a sick mind?

“I now ask for a full minute of silence. During this minute please try to visualize that scene of murder. Go!”