Polar Quest

18

‘I want Sutton in the locker and Olson on the table,’ Beverly Porter told her assistants upon their return to the Washtenaw County Medical Examiner’s Office.

The gurneys carrying the bodies were wheeled away, and Porter entered the women’s locker room and changed into surgical scrubs. She then pulled two evidence collection kits out of the supply closet and returned to the examination room. Olson’s body lay on the stainless-steel table awaiting her. Porter slipped a new cassette into the recorder and switched the machine on.

‘The victim is a Caucasian female in her early forties with shoulder-length blond hair and blue eyes.’ Porter then measured Olson’s height and weight. ‘There are no distinguishing marks on the body. Bruising on and around the face indicates that the victim was struck repeatedly. Bruising and abrasions around the wrists indicate the victim was restrained during the attack.’

Porter then described in great detail each of the stab wounds inflicted on Olson’s chest and abdomen. The final count numbered seventeen. Each of the wounds was deep, the result of a strong downward thrust from a right-handed attacker poised over the victim while she lay on her back.

‘The depth of the wounds indicates the attacker possessed great physical strength,’ she commented with professional detachment.

Porter opened the rape kit and laid out the tools she would use to collect forensic evidence from the victim’s body. First, she took a sterile swab and carefully wiped the interior of Olson’s mouth, collecting cells from both the victim and possibly her attacker. Porter smeared the tip of the swab against a glass slide, then placed the swab in a labeled, double-sealed envelope. The process was repeated with swabs of Olson’s anus and vagina.

‘The vaginal walls show significant bruising and tearing, indicating a forced entry,’ Porter noted.

She unwrapped a plastic comb and carefully ran it through the tuft of blond hair around Olson’s loins, collecting the loose hair in an envelope labeled Pubic Hair Combings. Mixed in with the blond hairs were several tightly curled strands of black. Porter sealed the envelope and placed it in the box.

Using a pair of plastic tweezers from the kit, Porter plucked several pubic hairs from Olson’s body, which she placed in an envelope marked Pubic Hair, Pulled. She then repeated the procedure on the victim’s head, plucking several strands of Olson’s blond hair that she placed in an envelope marked Head Hair, Pulled. Porter then scraped Olson’s fingernails and drew blood samples.

Porter carefully checked the body for any additional foreign matter, then repackaged and sealed the rape kit. She set a second rape kit on a wheeled metal tray table and rolled it over to the morgue. There, she pulled open the drawer that held Lloyd Sutton’s body. Porter drew the white sheet that covered the body down past his groin and pulled several pubic and head hairs with the plastic tweezers from the kit. After drawing blood, she re-covered Sutton’s body and slid the drawer closed.

After filling out the paperwork on the second kit, Porter picked up the phone and dialed an internal number.

‘Hi, it’s Beverly,’ she said to one of her assistants. ‘I finished the evidence kits on that double homicide. They’re ready to go over to Northville.’