Читать книгу Dead Center - Frank J. Daniels - Страница 10

= chapter 2 =

Death Scene

The original 911 call about Bruce’s death had gone to a dispatcher in Delta County who spent a considerable amount of time trying to determine which county sheriff’s department had jurisdiction. The death occurred on the Uncompahgre Plateau in the Uncompahgre National Forest. Uncompahgre, pronounced “Un-come-pah-gray,” is a Ute Indian word meaning “Dirty Water.” The place is located at one of the farthest southern reaches of my jurisdiction and just a few miles from the Delta and Montrose County lines. The Uncompahgre River flows from the San Juan Mountains in southwestern Colorado as mineral-laden waters from myriad small streams draining old mining districts and odoriferous, sulfur-rich hot springs water from near the town of Ouray. It is a beautiful, remote location at an elevation of 9,000 feet on the slopes of Snipe Mountain and is in an area with good-sized herds of deer and elk.

To reach the scene from Grand Junction, one travels about forty minutes on paved roads before turning onto a dirt service road that pretty much bisects the plateau, called Divide Road. One then climbs tight switchbacks for several miles before topping out on the plateau, a rolling landscape of mountains, creeks and canyons where ranchers run cattle from spring to fall. It is populated by a wide array of flora, with meadow grass, sagebrush, gambel oak, pinion, juniper and trees like ponderosa pine, aspen and spruce. It is peaceful and bucolic—at least most of the time.

The shooting had occurred just after sunrise on Sunday, the second day of the hunting season. At 12:45 P.M., Investigator Nick Armand, a twenty-year veteran of the Sheriff’s Department and an officer with considerable crime scene experience arrived on the scene. Armand is a big red-haired man who carries his considerable excess weight effortlessly. He has a gentle manner which is disarming. He quickly scanned the area to get his bearings and to take note of whom and what was present. The rolling terrain was dotted intermittently with sagebrush, mountain mahogany, serviceberry, and other low shrubbery surrounding patches of gambel oak and larger open grassy meadows. Spruce trees grew in the higher areas and north facing slopes. By this time of the day, the mostly sunny sky had taken the chill out of the air. It was unseasonably warm for mid-October, probably reaching fifty degrees and feeling even warmer in the sunshine. Looking around, Armand noticed a sheriff’s department Jeep along with an older Ford Bronco and an even older Volkswagen camper. He also saw several hunters in the area, including a woman. Deputy Patrick, who had arrived first, provided Investigator Armand with what information he had obtained to that point, including the fact that the female hunter was the wife of the victim. He also directed Armand to the location of the body. As he approached the dead man, Investigator Armand continued writing down his observations, which he would later put into report form and detail in several diagrams. One thing which caught his eye was the presence of three fired rifle casings on the ground two and a half feet from the victim’s right elbow.

A foot further in the same direction was a bolt-action hunting rifle with the bolt open. Eight inches beyond the rifle was a blaze orange hunting vest. Close to that was a blaze orange baseball-style cap. Colorado law requires all big game hunters to wear five-hundred square inches of blaze orange outer-clothing, including a blaze orange hat, at all times while hunting as a safety measure. The body lay about twenty feet from a barbed wire fence composed of weathered old cedar fence posts and four strands of rusty wire. One post, approximately twenty feet from the body, had what appeared to be a bullet hole a few inches from the top. Special Agent Dan Michaels with the Forest Service discovered this as he was examining the crime scene. What appeared to be the bullet’s exit hole faced the body and several fresh wood splinters were blown out in the same direction.

At this point, Investigator Armand was rapidly excluding in his mind the possibility of an accidentally self-inflicted gunshot. An accidental stray shot was still an option. Looking through the hole in the fence post away from the location of the body, Armand could see a patch of oak at the edge of a rise around fifty yards to the northwest.

After he examined, recorded and photographed the scene immediately around the body, Armand “strung” the apparent bullet path. Using a fluorescent orange plastic string, with the help of Special Agent Michaels and other officers who had arrived, Armand ran the string from the location of the body, through the hole in the fence post, and back to an area in the oak brush in line with the probable path of the bullet. It led to a spot just at the peak of the rise. If this wasn’t an accident, he thought, it would be a perfect spot for a sniper to remain concealed, while still having a broad view of the trail on which the victim had been walking that morning. Although Armand, Michaels, and Deputy Patrick searched that area for evidence, they found none. Armand took some additional photographs and made measurements that he later used in preparing a crime scene drawing.

By the time he was done with the preliminary processing of the death scene, it was 3:45 P.M. and it was growing chillier. He went up the hill to the hunting camps and introduced himself to the dead man’s wife. “I’m Nick Armand, an investigator with the Mesa County Sheriff’s Department,” he said. “Please accept my sympathy in the death of your husband.”

With a startled look, the woman replied, “No. He’s not dead.”

Not wanting to further alarm her as she appeared distraught, he didn’t argue. Instead, Investigator Armand gently asked her name. She told him, “Janice, pronounced the French way: Janeece.” She provided her address in Cedaredge, Colorado. After obtaining this preliminary information, Armand told her, “I really need to ask some questions about your hunting trip, if that would be okay.”

She nodded and without waiting for his first question, said, “Bruce and I arrived at our campsite on Friday evening, October 13. I got up around 5:00 A.M. this morning, lit a fire in the stove in the camper and made Bruce some coffee, since he is ‘cold blooded’ and always needs something hot in the morning. The day before I took him to a spot along the ridge and told him that was where he should sit in the morning.” The plan was that she would leave first and that he would leave about half an hour later. This would give Bruce time to get to his spot before first light and Janice would have time to get to the bottom of the draw from where she would drive the deer toward Bruce. Janice had an elk license and Bruce had a deer license. “We did the same thing the morning before. We were supposed to meet back at camp at 9:30 A.M.”

Janice continued on, telling the investigator that she arrived back at the camp around 8:30 to get a drink of water. While in camp, she noticed a hunter at a tent just sixty yards from her camp, at the edge of a clump of oak trees. “I went over and talked with him,” she said, “and learned that he and I are from the same part of East Texas.” According to Janice, she returned to her camp after that and checked the oil in the Bronco. When asked what rifle she carried that morning, Janice spoke almost in a whisper. “It is an Austrian-made .270-caliber Mauser. I unloaded it and put it in the back of the Bronco when I first returned to camp. I haven’t fired any rounds this hunting season and Bruce was hunting with a .243-caliber rifle.”

“Did you hear any gunfire?”

She shook her head. “No, I didn’t hear any shots fired in the area of my camp.” She told Armand she changed her clothes upon her return to camp as she had gotten them muddy by stepping into a bog. Turning his head, the investigator could see a pair of overalls with dried mud on the lower portion of the legs hanging from the sideview mirror of the camper.

“When did you miss your husband?” He tried to keep his voice sympathetic so she would not get more agitated.

“I decided to go looking for Bruce as 9:30 approached,” Janice said. “Bruce was very punctual and he had never been big game hunting before. I was the experienced hunter of us two.” She paused and brushed away a tear. “Today was our third month anniversary.” Without commenting, Armand, who was taking notes, wrote down that they had been married three months to the day. Janice was still speaking. She looked lost in memory. “I walked in the direction Bruce would have taken and that is when I saw him lying on the ground. His orange vest was nearby. I yelled at him ‘Why did you take your orange off?’” According to Janice, she then picked up his rifle with the intention to fire it to summon help and racked the bolt, ejecting an empty case. “There were no live rounds in the rifle,” she explained. After that she pulled his arm, trying to get him up, telling him to get up, all to no avail.

“Did you see anyone else nearby?”

She shook her head, looked off in the distance as if trying to recall the events, then added, “When I was making my drive toward Bruce earlier in the morning I saw a hunter on the ridge, a bit higher than where Bruce was supposed to be, and thinking it may have been Bruce, I waved, but the hunter did not wave back.”

Armand excused himself at that point and returned to the crime scene. He finished surveying the area, noting the exact location of the body. Then other officers helped him put the dead man into a body bag. Armand sealed the bag and turned it over to the deputy coroner. He went back up to the campsite. It was 5:25 P.M., nearly twilight; the air was rapidly cooling now and there were a number of people milling about, including Deputy sheriffs, Division of Wildlife Officers, other hunters and Forest Service personnel. Janice was with Dawn Bray, the Victim Assistance representative from the Sheriff’s Department. Armand walked over to Janice. “How are you doing?” he asked.

“Okay,” she replied in a flat voice. She asked him how Bruce was doing.

Armand replied, “I am sorry, Ma’am, but he is deceased.”

She emphatically said, “No. The paramedics just took him away!”

Armand shook his head. “That was the coroner who took Bruce away. We’ll be arranging to take you down the mountain. Can we call anyone for you?” She shook her head. “Janice, will you give me consent to look through your vehicles for any guns and to remove any guns for safekeeping and to examine as a part of my investigation? It will avoid questions that might come up later.” She said he could. Seeming frail and unable to walk she shuffled and leaned on Armand as he led her to the back of the Bronco. As the investigator was completing an inventory form for the firearms, Janice collapsed and was carried to the Sheriff’s Department Jeep. The captain in charge, Warren Smith, called the Air Life helicopter which soon arrived to take Janice to St. Mary’s Hospital in Grand Junction.

When she was safely on the helicopter, the detectives searched her vehicle. The only rifle the detectives found suitable for big game hunting in either vehicle was the .270. There was also a .22-caliber Ruger brand rifle and a .22-caliber pistol in the Bronco.

Investigator Armand listed the findings at the scene for later study.

three .243-caliber shell casings

.243-caliber rifle

blaze orange hat

fence post with bullet hole

wood fragments from fence post

blaze orange vest

He then collected the two rifles and the pistol from the Bronco.

Armand also made diagrams of the fence, showing the location of the gate and the bullet-holed post; a diagram of the scene with the body and various items of evidence; and another of the fence post showing the location of the bullet hole.

At this point, no one was sure how the man had been shot, so it was important that the preliminary findings on the scene be very carefully noted.