Shattered Image

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Book: Read Shattered Image for Free Online
Authors: J.F. Margos
much I can say because there’s not much to go on. But there were a few things that came to mind based on the apparent cause of death and the reburial.”
    “Lay it on me.”
    “Well, I looked at the photos of the burial site and I looked at the bones themselves and talked to Chris about the autopsy. I definitely tanked any idea that they were moved because someone thought they’d be discovered where they were. I think it’s significant that they were reburied in a shallow grave on the dam side of Red Bud. According to the photos, the bones were in a place where they would have washed away in the first floodgate release. The kayaker was the unknown quantity that foiled that plan.”
    “Okay, so why do you think they were reburied and not just discarded—thrown into the river, for instance.”
    “I think the fact that isn’t what happened is very significant. I think the deceased either meant something to the killer and he couldn’t do that, or maybe he felt too much guilt to do that, or maybe a little of both. I suspect he wanted to be rid of her, but he wanted nature to do the ultimate dirty work so he wouldn’t be responsible for it.”
    “So, why dig her up and try to get rid of her after all this time?”
    “That’s the twenty-five-thousand-dollar question. Something changed in the killer, or something else happened that caused him to dig her up and move her like that. He may have just wanted to be rid of the memory of it, or it could have been a combination of things that happened at once. When we figure that out, we’ll have all the answers.”
    “What about the way she was killed? You said you thought she might have meant something to the killer, but it looks to me like he just executed her.”
    “I think he did, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t mean something to him. In fact, he had more of a reason to kill her if she meant something to him. He may have even planned it out in his mind before.”
    “Elaborate.”
    “Maybe the killer believed she did something to him for which she deserved to be ‘executed’—and it’s possible that the deceased may not have even actually committed the offense for which she was killed.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “I mean that if the killer was paranoid, which is totally possible, and thought she did something to deserve being killed, then he probably thought about killing her for a while. It satisfied the paranoid feelings he had. In fact, it may all be in his mind anyway, and we may find in the end that this victim didn’t even do what the killer thought she did. This kind of killer would kill for some offense with or without any real proof, based solely on what he believed, because he convinced himself in his mind that it’s absolutely true, that someone is to blame, and he believed that the person deserved to pay.”
    “That’s interesting. What gives you the impression the killer might be this kind of killer?”
    “The way she was killed seems calculated and organized and I don’t see any passion in it. The lack of passion leads me to believe that he thought she deserved this in some way. In other words, it wasn’t done spur of the moment—thought went into it. Hence the execution style to the shooting. But this burial and reburial and what I see in that isn’t organized or thought out at all in my opinion—and he reburied her in a way that he wouldn’t be responsible for discarding her remains. It’s completely irrational. Plus, in my gut I feel that his attempt to discard her is part of his denial of guilt and that goes hand in hand with this kind of personality—‘Someone else is to blame in all this, not me. She deserves all of this.’”
    “So, in a nutshell, he thinks she’s done something to him and he kills her. He plans the killing, but then later his actions—the reburial—are committed in response to some other event?”
    “Right.”
    “This helps a lot.”
    “It’s all just my impression—a gut feeling at this

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