In the summer of 2000, a small fire in a condo basement in Malden, Massachusetts, seemed like just another routine call. But behind the smoke was something far more disturbing—a violent scene with no victim in sight. Detective Lieutenant Bill Powers of the Massachusetts State Police and his team of seasoned investigators joined forces with local detectives to uncover what happened in that quiet building.
As the team dug deeper, they faced a complex case without a body, a confession, or clear answers. Clues came slowly: strange behavior from a tenant, a missing person no one had reported, and a hidden crime scene soaked not only in water and gasoline—but in blood. With persistence and teamwork, they traced the path of a young woman, Kelly Hancock, a runaway who had vanished without a trace.
This book follows every step of the investigation, from the moment firefighters broke down the door to the final verdict in a packed courtroom. Along the way, it reveals the work of detectives, prosecutors, forensic scientists, and everyday people who helped bring justice to a victim whose voice was almost lost.
Told with care and clarity, When the Smoke Cleared isn’t just about solving a murder—it’s about what it takes to stand up for someone when no one else will.
CHAPTER 1
THE CRIME SCENE
Few things can piss off a cop or firefighter quicker than an unexpected, surprise callout at the end of a shift. Just ask any one of us and watch for the narrowing of the eyes and the scowl or wince that crosses our face remembering times when it happened. The recall is usually negative because it caused the cancelation or alteration of premade plans. On occasion, though, you might hear, “Except there was this one time when something seemingly small and inconsequential turned into something big and far-reaching, and we later found out we were standing on the tip of an iceberg—and I’m glad I was there and that we got it right.”
Tuesday, July 18, 2000, was a warm, muggy summer morning in Malden, MA. The rising sun was barely visible as it strained to bore a hole through the overcast sky and shine its blinding orange light onto the awakening land below. It’s what guys on the mid-shift referred to as God’s searchlight, making an opening to brighten the day. For those rolling out of their beds it was a welcome sight, but for those up all night it meant squinting through some tired eyes, as the glare made for difficult driving at the end of a shift.
An unremarkable twenty-four-hour tour of duty was winding down for the firefighters assigned to the trucks at the Salem Street Fire Headquarters. They were packing their ditty bags and watching the clock. At seven a.m., they would be out the door and heading home to get breakfast for their kids or off to their second job in one of the trades. However, at precisely 6:21 a.m., the blare of the stationhouse alarm signaling a report of fire disrupted their getaway plans. The call came from Master Box 3121 at the Malden Mills condo complex at the corner of Eastern Avenue and Linwood Street, a building less than a half mile away.
“Shit, shit, shit! I swear to Christ this happens every freaking time we are ready to go and I have family plans!” one of the guys bellowed out. It was what everyone else was thinking. “You know it is some dipshit who burned his bagel while he played in the shower and it tripped the freaking alarm,” he added.
But it wasn’t a call they could ignore or a decision they had to make. Like it or not, they had just moments to gear up and jump onto the truck as the huge white overhead doors rolled up, the red lights flared to life, and the high-pitched scream of the siren announced to the neighborhood that they were pulling out and needed clear passage.
The deputy chief led the way in the company car, and both Engine 1 and Ladder 1 followed as they rolled across Salem Street. They screamed down Holden Street past Malden High School on the right before taking a left onto Eastern Avenue, and after a few hundred yards, they took a quick right and immediate left into the parking lot for the condo complex. The entire trip took less than a minute and a half.
As they jumped from the apparatus, the firefighters could hear the alarms blaring inside and watched as the residents slowly streamed into the parking lot in their nightclothes or business attire. There was a noticeable but faint smell of smoke with no visible flame. This was certainly more than the burnt toast they had groused about as they dressed for the call.
They went about the business of coupling and pulling hose from the truck, attaching it to the nearby hydrant, dragging it into the building, and once the nozzle man was poised and ready to enter the fire scene, they would charge the line with water and ready for the attack.
The deputy ran up the front stairs, entering through the glass doors, and located the fire alarm annunciator panel on the wall. A flashing icon indicated the alarm was coming from the basement level in the function room located down a flight of stairs from the atrium-style entrance. He detected a light haze of smoke wafting up from the stairwell.
Captain Trimble from Engine 1 hooked a nozzle onto a hose neatly tucked into the wall beside the first floor standpipe and stretched it out. This would be a backup to the larger hose and would draw its water from inside of the building. They descended the stairs to the basement level and headed toward the function room in the familiar attack formation firefighters trained on for decades. There were two doors to the function room and the deputy, with a key handed to him by a trustee, unlocked the nearest, and apparently safest, one.
There was light smoke coming from the edges of that door, but the firefighter’s eyes focused on a second entrance door about thirty feet farther down the hallway. They noted smoke and soot marks at the top of the door and smoke and water pouring out the bottom and into the hallway rug, a clear sign to them that was the hotspot, or the place where the fire was concentrated.
Trimble opened the door cautiously, and saw the billowing smoke gather and rush into his direction. He slammed it shut and told the other firefighters to mask up before they pushed their way in.
Dan Thoman, an eighteen-year veteran, was the nozzle man from Engine 1 and the first to enter the room in front of the captain. The big hose was perched on his shoulder, the activating lever at his fingertips ready to set in motion at the first sight of flame. The open doorway now provided a natural exit route for the thick, acrid smoke that had been building inside. It charged toward the firefighters with fury, turning the visibility to zero. The stench from the smoke had the unmistakable odor and taste of a petroleum product, probably gasoline. Trimble put his hand onto Thoman’s back, and they inched deeper into the room with their right shoulders rubbing along the wall, grasping the hose like a lifeline that would allow them to back out of the room if it became treacherous or unbearable inside.
The firefighters entered the room into a small kitchenette area. On the left side of the room there was a makeshift dining area with portable tables and chairs. After twenty feet, the right wall ended and the room opened wide to a living room area complete with a couch, comfortable chairs and a glass table. The second wave of firefighters entered from behind, and using their Halligan tools, smashed the four ceiling level windows to vent the smoke and then shut down the sprinkler system. After the heaviest smoke made a hasty escape, their view became a lot clearer. They pushed up their masks and quickly surveyed the scene. They extinguished what remained of the smoldering fire, which appeared limited to the living room section. The flood of water that poured from the ceiling sprinklers suppressed the spread of flame, so the fire damage was minimal and limited to the rug and furniture, but the damage from the smoke and water was extensive. The room was in disarray, and a love seat and chair lay tipped over, as did a glass table. There were several inches of water on the floor streaked with an iridescent sheen, and a strong odor of gasoline remained in the air, all unmistakable signs of an arson—and based on what they saw, maybe other crimes as well.
Seventeen years of training and experience told the captain this was likely an arson case and a criminal police matter.
“Hey, guys!” Captain Trimble bellowed over the commotion. “I think this room is definitely a crime scene, so treat it accordingly. Continue to search for victims and hotspots, and vent the smoke and water, but don’t, under any circumstances, touch or move anything, or you’ll be in court explaining to the judge why you did.”
He called into the dispatch center and requested they summon Malden PD detectives to the scene. Sergeant Steve Ruelle and Inspector Johnny Rivers from the criminal bureau were heading in for the day shift when they heard the call and rerouted their approach to the fire scene at the occupied condo complex.
Ruelle and Rivers had a long, cooperative history with the deputy and the captain. Rivers had been the department’s Arson Investigator for years and responded to virtually every suspicious fire scene. The four met outside the building, and the deputy got right to the point.
“This is a weird set of circumstances,” he started, “the sprinklers knocked the fire down before we got here, but there was a huge mass of thick black smoke and it reeked of gasoline, so I obviously thought it might be an arson. When we got to the source, though, there were chairs and a table knocked over, and it didn’t come from us. I’m no expert, but it looks like there may be some blood on the furniture and maybe the walls, but it could be soot from the fire. I’m just not sure. But you guys taught me that it is your call and always better to be safe than sorry. That’s why I called for you.”
They all went inside, and after a few minutes of looking around and smelling the obvious accelerant, Rivers said he wanted to reach out to the State Fire Marshal’s office for added expertise. When he called, he specifically asked that they bring Lucy, their arson-sniffing dog, along for the ride.
The detectives were sloshing around the function room in their rubber boots, rough sketching the scene, and documenting their initial observations when Lucy poked her head into the room. She announced her presence with a series of excited whines, and she was straining on her leash and panting to get to work. Lucy was a highly trained and decorated accelerant detection canine. At the other end of her tether was Paul Horgan, a state police sergeant attached to the Fire Marshal’s office. Lucy and Paul had met more than seven years earlier at a training in Connecticut, and they were inseparable from that moment on. They trained together every step of the way, always receiving their certifications as a team.
There were still a couple of inches of water flowing out the door and into the building’s drainage pipe when Lucy first put her nose to the water. She alerted on four distinct stain areas, sitting and wagging her tail each time, looking up to Horgan for approval and a couple of kibbles from his pocket. When she wasn’t signifying an alert, normally Lucy would stand and wait for the next command. This day, however, she bent her head down and lapped at the water around the stains in the carpet. No matter how many times Horgan tugged at the leash to keep her focused, Lucy kept going back to the water.
He turned to Rivers and said, “John, I know this sounds crazy, but the only time I have to pull her away from drinking water at a fire scene is when there is blood or ‘deco’ (body decomposition) in the mix. I think we have a lot more than an arson here.”
Pat Silva, another investigator from the Fire Marshal’s office, arrived shortly after Horgan to help with the investigation. Pat began his professional career as a full-time firefighter a few miles up the road in Salem, MA, where he worked for eight years before switching gears and careers when he joined the ranks of the state police. It was safe to say he knew his way around both a fire scene and an investigation. The responsibility of determining the cause and origin of the fire would fall to him. After some introductory conversation about what they knew and what they were learning, Pat thought it was critical to reach out to Crime Scene Services for a trained specialist to photograph, fingerprint, and document the entire room.
When the water level was near zero and the smoke had cleared, a couple of large pinkish-colored stains appeared on the rug and there were similar noticeable spots and blotches on the furniture. Deeper and closer inspection of the wall by the door showed what appeared to be reddish-brown smears and possible blood spatter. Lucy’s instincts were right on the money, and she earned a bonus cookie or two for her efforts.
Silva then called the crime lab and requested assistance from a chemist to collect the arson evidence for further analysis and to test and collect any of the apparent bloodstains that were starting to show through the saturated surfaces.
In an unconventional and unscientific way, Lucy confirmed what Ruelle and Rivers were already thinking. Her instinctive behavior changed the focus and concern from the original call for an arson to a more intense investigation of a potentially violent crime.
Johnny Rivers made the call to the state police office in the Middlesex DAO to request assistance. He thought it might not turn out to be a homicide, but there was no sense waiting for a victim before they activated the full team. Ruelle and Rivers preferred to be proactive in cases like this where the need for a death investigation was apparent. They wanted a full team in place advancing the case together from the beginning. Experience told them things always went better that way.
I was at my desk when the phone rang at around eleven a.m. Lana fielded the call. Her seat was located a few steps from my office and within easy hearing range. I wasn’t eavesdropping, but I caught her friendly voice, “Hi, Jimmy, where are you guys? With Rivers and Ruelle? That must be good for a few laughs.”
For a few seconds, she was quiet and a small gasp seeped out while she listened Then, in a much different tone, she commented, “Oh wow, really? Oh my God! Seriously?” and then a pause, followed by, “Yeah, he’s right here. I’ll put him on.”
Lana had a cheerful disposition, and her delightful laughter usually filled her conversations, but not this time. I sensed trouble when she turned in her seat and simply said, “Billy, I have Jimmy Connolly on the phone, and he needs to talk to you.”
Lana transferred the call, I answered and listened as Jimmy said, “Good morning Boss. I don’t know if you got the heads-up on this, but I’m with Duke and Eddie, and we are over in Malden at a fire in a condo building. It’s an interesting situation. It looks as though someone started a fire in the function room to try to cover up a crime scene. There’s a couple of big pinkish stains on the floor and what looks like blood spatter on the walls. So far, the firefighters have pumped out about a foot of water that poured out of the sprinkler system and smothered the fire before it could do any heavy damage. They cleared the residents to return, but most of them are just grabbing some stuff and leaving or going to work.
“It might be a good idea if you filled the DA in and then headed this way. We are at the Malden Mills Condo building on Linwood Street where it intersects with Eastern Avenue.”
My first thoughts were that it had all the indicators of a major crime scene that could gain a great deal of media attention and we would need to prepare for that eventuality. More importantly, and because of the complexity of issues, particularly the potential legal ones around search and seizure as well as evidence collection, we needed to have someone from the DAO on-scene to guide us through the maze. I asked Jimmy if Adrienne Lynch, the chief of the Malden division of the Middlesex DAO was aware of the situation. He reminded me that she was in Columbia, SC, lecturing at a DA’s conference and wouldn’t be back until Monday. Gerard Butler, a senior ADA, was filling in for her, and he expected him to arrive shortly.
The distance from our office in the Cambridge Courthouse to the scene in Malden was a little less than six miles, and with regular congestion and traffic it could be a half an hour ride. Flashing blue lights and a blaring siren could open the pathway and shorten the travel time, but as the crime scene was secure and under control, my arriving a few minutes sooner wasn’t going to help solve anything and would only piss off every commuter I passed. The slower trip also gave me plenty of time to think through the facts, as I knew them, and start to formulate a game plan to make sure all our bases were covered. It was a great comfort knowing that the best-trained crime scene specialists were either on-scene or would be in short order and that the detectives from both the Malden PD and the state police were experienced and knowledgeable. Most importantly, we had worked together in the past on other homicides with very successful outcomes.
My fundamental role as the detective lieutenant throughout a death investigation was one of oversight and direction. Experience and guidance mattered most, the institutional memory gained from literally hundreds of past investigations coupled with the battle scars and remembrances of both screw-ups and successes. My goal was always to diminish the former and accentuate the latter.
The detectives working on the case did the bulk of the work. In this instance, as in most others in my office, my detectives had a history of working together and great investigative instincts, a passion to solve the case, and most importantly, relied on one another to prevent mistakes. We all worked as a team and had no tolerance for lone wolves who wandered off and followed their impulses rather than the plan. When working with competent detectives and ADAs, it often reminds me of a quote from Mahatma Gandhi, “There go my people. I must follow them, for I am their leader.”
When I arrived at the scene, firefighters were washing down the equipment and returning it to their trucks. Strands of dark smoke were still streaming out of the broken windows on the building’s ground level, and there was a noticeable stench of gasoline in the air. There were several people milling around in the lot that I presumed were residents and neighbors.
Jimmy Connolly and Johnny Rivers walked over to me as I approached the building's entrance. A few moments later, Steve Ruelle, Duke Donoghue, and Ed Forster broke away from what they were doing and joined the conversation.
They were gathering information from personal observations and conversations with firefighters, and were in the beginning stages of interviewing residents, neighbors, and people working in nearby businesses. Canvassing is a long and tedious part of any investigation and perhaps the second least favorite, just ahead of diving into putrid dumpsters looking through garbage bags for hidden evidence.
We talked for a few minutes about the uniqueness of what they discovered, then they brought me in to look at the crime scene firsthand. After a quick familiarization with the room and the scene as the firefighters first encountered it, I spoke with Pat Silva. Although a trooper now, Pat still spoke in firefighter’s jargon. He talked of the “fire load” and said it was limited to the furnishings in the living room section of the function room. He said there were no accidental heat sources that could have caused a fire. He went on to describe what he considered a pour pattern (the manner of distribution of the accelerant prior to ignition). He pointed out a trail of burn areas and soot marks that supported his comments and mentioned that Lucy’s “hits” for accelerants were consistent with what the physical evidence showed. Lastly, Silva pointed to the six sprinkler heads in the living room section and noted that the fire activated four of them, which poured down with enough pressure and volume to drown the fire shortly after it began. He noted the four open heads centered in the area where the fire occurred. There was still a lot of work to do, but he said he was confident that he would be able to establish the cause and origin of the fire.
In addition to the two pinkish blotches in the rug by the furniture, there were also areas of reddish-brown stains on lower parts of the wall nearest to the unlocked door. John Drugan, the crime lab chemist, joined the conversation. “Guys, I think these preliminary tests are affirming what we thought. They have all been positive for blood, and the quick reaction to the chemicals has been dramatic.”
Silva’s experienced eyes allowed him to offer an initial opinion that someone caused the fire by spreading an ignitable liquid over the love seat, chair, and flooring, and then introduced an open flame to the accelerant. The fire spread laterally across the floor and onto the chair and love seat. As the fire progressed, the increasing heat set off the sprinkler heads, which consumed and extinguished the flames. It was the collective opinion of all present that someone had set the fire intentionally and deliberately to cover up and contaminate the scene of a violent crime.
A quick study of the visual evidence, including the bloodstains, suggested there had been a chaotic fight in the room prior to setting it ablaze.
While the specialists continued to comb the crime scene for signs of trace and physical evidence, my team wandered away to pick up where they left off, interviewing anyone and everyone in the area who might have seen or witnessed something unusual or remarkable before, during, or after the fire alarm sounded.
Perhaps the most difficult circumstance at the start of every case is that detectives come in blind and work backward to gain information. Initial observations of a crime scene are important, but what we see is the aftermath of the event. We need to find witnesses with information that supports and/or explains what we, the detectives, saw. As the saying goes, “We don’t know what we don’t know,” and the only way to learn is by talking with people and learning from them. Eyewitnesses are the best sources, but unfortunately, like all gems, they are rarely easy to find. In many instances, they have left the scene to go about their business, thinking someone else will be there to fill in the blanks for the police. At other times, they are afraid of real or imagined consequences and leave hoping to remain anonymous. In yet other circumstances, they are in the wrong place at the wrong time and have a fear of discovery because their presence could put their marriage or employment in jeopardy. On occasion, they just don’t like or trust the police or the criminal justice system. Regardless of the reason, locating honest cooperating witnesses can be a difficult task.
The canvassing spread out in two directions: first with the condo residents then with the people working at the neighboring businesses. Most of the initial resident interviews were quick because many had left after the fire alarms went off, and those who remained had mostly been asleep at the time and had nothing to offer in the way of observations or personal thoughts. To be thorough, my investigators would return later that evening and for several days afterward to ensure they spoke with every resident. This gave everyone the opportunity to share information about not only the fire but also any suspicions they may have about people they had seen in the building or scuttlebutt they had picked up from neighbors about possible suspects or persons of interest. There didn’t appear to be any forced entry into the building, so there was every reason to believe the assailant was either a resident or a guest of one.
Just as important as the gathering of information, the opportunity to create some face time between the police and residents is valuable. First impressions are lasting and can go a long way in building trust. Knowing there is a police presence and an active investigation helps to calm some of their fears. A simple handshake and exchange of a business card can be the opening to a positive dialogue that might not take place at that moment or for weeks, months, or even a year. Then, if that person either learns more information or has prior information they were initially unwilling to share, they have a number to call, and the person on the other end will be a detective with whom they have already met and shared a conversation.
It was evident from speaking with several residents that they were understandably scared and concerned for their safety and security. From our initial dialogues, we learned that they were not all cut from the same bolt of cloth. Most of the units were owner occupied, but several were sublets. Many residents worked at white and blue-collar mid-wage professions, while others were, for any number of different reasons, without work and around the property most days. This was by no means a homogeneous community. This wasn’t the setting the writers considered when they created Melrose Place. None of the residents shared that there was a big, happy family feeling atmosphere throughout the building. It was a decent place to live but not one with smiley face welcome mats lying beneath unlocked doors.
There were pockets or small groups that knew one another in a superficial but friendly way. They might share some Chinese food from the restaurant across the street, watch a movie together, or even go halves on the cost of some recreational drugs, but that was about it. Most stayed to themselves and, at least while they were there, walked softly and wore blinders and earplugs.
With the outside interviews completed and the function room in the competent hands of the crime scene and arson specialists, my onsite detectives ventured into the management office on the first floor to learn a bit more about the building and the people who called it home. They got a list of the residents and a floor plan showing fifty-five housing units that corresponded with those names. The manager was cooperative and knowledgeable, answering questions as best he could. He also provided a little insight regarding a few of the residents, and why they might or might not be willing to speak with us. The manager told them that the function room was not a gathering spot, and rarely did anyone use it at night. The doors remained locked, and the only way to access it was with a key. Keys were few, and they were in the sole possession of the trustees or in the management office. He only loaned out the keys for planned, preapproved events and always got them back from the renters.
Steve Ruelle was combing through the manifest when he noted the name Lester Morovitz in Condo Number 115. “Isn’t he the guy who owns the taxi company across the street?” he asked.
“Yes,” was the reply, “but he doesn’t live here. He’s on the deed, but his kid lives there with a woman and two kids. His name is Tommy Crouse. He is an odd duck, coming and going all hours of the day and night, but he doesn’t cause problems. I think he works for his old man. He would be a good person to speak with, but I don’t think he was around this morning. I didn’t see his Chevy Blazer out there.”
The taxi service operated twenty-four hours a day, so there was always someone fielding calls in the office’s dispatch center. Eddie, Duke, and Ruelle took a walk across the street to see if Morovitz was in his office. Fortunately, he was, and he invited them in. After introductions and small talk about the fire and the weather, they asked him what he knew about Tommy Crouse.
“Oh, Tommy’s my stepson; I’m married to his mother. When they fixed up the building and turned it into condos a few years ago, I bought one of them so Tommy, his girlfriend, Esther Fournier, and their kids would have a place to live and I could keep an eye on him. He works here for me. He’s an unreliable employee, but what am I going to do? He’s family.”
They asked if he knew where Tommy was, and he said the whole family had gone to visit with Esther’s family in New Hampshire earlier in the morning.
“They were fortunate,” he recalled. “They left a few minutes before the fire alarm went off. Tommy called me early this morning and told me Esther had the ‘itches’ really bad and she had to go to a doctor but her medical insurance was in New Hampshire and she had no coverage in Massachusetts.”
Morovitz reached for his cell phone and quickly scanned through it to see what time he had spoken with Crouse in the morning. “Here, he called to tell me at five forty-five a.m.” Eddie Forster asked him if he thought five forty-five a.m. was a little early for a wake-up phone call from his stepson to say he wouldn’t be in for work. Lester told them he had thought it was a bit odd at the time, but so were many things about Tommy Crouse. He said he thought it would be best if they talked directly to him about the fire and his early departure. He added that he spoke with Crouse several times during the day and he got the impression that Tommy wasn’t planning on coming back tonight. Morovitz gave them Crouse’s home and cell phone numbers as well as an address in Candia, NH, for Esther’s parents.
As the day wore on, our team made telephone calls to area hospitals asking about emergency room visits with unexplained, serious injuries. We alerted the OCME to the situation, and they promised to notify us if they received a call to any death scenes with unexplained injuries.
The canvass wore on, and my detectives approached people on the street, at the bus stop in front of the building, and in the parking lot of the condo complex, and questioned them about anything they may have seen that seemed unusual or out of the ordinary as they headed out earlier in the day. Most shrugged their shoulders and had little or nothing to offer. The condo owners were just glad the sprinklers suppressed the fire with minor damage and they were able to return to their homes. The check marks next to the names on the building’s roster grew by the hour, but there was little information gained.
A tenant who lived in a unit on the third floor that overlooked the parking lot and Eastern Avenue was different. He turned out to be the guy who inaugurated the flow of relevant information that the officers were waiting to hear. Duke and Pat Silva spoke with him as he arrived home from work. Duke opened the conversation and told him they were investigating a small fire in the function room. Duke only referred to the fire and not their suspicions of violence. The tenant said he had wanted to speak to the police all day about his early morning observations.
“I have a regular daily routine I follow on workdays,” he said. “Today was no different. At around five thirty a.m., I took the elevator down to the first floor and was heading toward the front door and out to my car for the short drive to where I work in Cambridge. I remember when I stepped out of the elevator; I heard voices coming from the doorway of the condo to my immediate right. The guy who lives there is Tommy Crouse; he lives there with his girlfriend, and they have two kids. When I walk through the lobby toward the front door I pass by an open area, and I can see right down to the floor below where the function room is located. I don’t remember seeing or smelling anything unusual.”
He continued, saying that normally he never saw anyone in the parking lot that early in the morning but that day had been different.
“Once I stepped outside, I noticed Tommy Crouse walking away from his blue Chevy Blazer, pulling an empty child’s wagon behind him. He has his own parking spot, but he’d parked in a space reserved for visitors and close to the handicap ramp that led into the building. We never said anything to each other, and I don’t know if Crouse even saw me.”
The tenant asked a few questions, focusing on whether or not the fire was deliberately set. Pat simply replied, “That is what we are trying to determine, and the information you are sharing is very helpful to us reaching a conclusion.” The tenant went on to tell Pat and Duke that he first learned of the fire when his girlfriend called him at work with the news around seven a.m.
“I’ve been thinking about it all day and how odd it was to see Crouse pulling a kid’s wagon in the parking lot at the crack of dawn.” He said he was relieved that the officer’s spoke with him and gave him a chance to share what little he knew. Neither the tenant nor the investigators realized it at that moment, but they had just begun to pry the lid off Pandora’s Box.
After talking with the tenant and Morovitz, everyone started to feel and believe that the slow, painstaking, but logical march toward the truth had begun. We knew we had a crime scene with bloodstains and blood spatter on the walls, obvious signs of a brutal fight, and an accelerant-rich fire that was apparently set to destroy any physical evidence. That was a good start, but we still had no victim, no known eyewitnesses, no weapon, no talk on the street, and no missing person report. We were officially nowhere, but we were starting to head somewhere.
The initial crime scene processing was completed by late afternoon, and until everything inside dried and the smoke completely cleared, there was little more that could be done. Before the troopers, crime lab chemists, and the Fire Marshal’s officers left, they briefed Connolly on what they were able to do and what still needed completing. They collected several pieces of possible evidence, including blood and water samples from the floor, walls, and furniture and burnt areas of cloth from the furniture and the rug. The seized samples would go to the state police crime laboratory for testing. The crime scene officers would be back in a day or so when the room had dried and the smoke had completely cleared to finish their work. The Fire Marshal’s officers would be back as well to further inspect and test the fire suppression system and seek out other evidence and witnesses. We planned to be back very early in the morning to pick up where we left off. Canvassing and the search for witnesses and evidence would come first for us.
An issue that arises at the start of all investigations is the urgency of getting the primary work done and then prioritizing the next steps. Everyone involved has an already open and burgeoning caseload that requires him or her to break away for days at a time to complete a myriad of responsibilities surrounding their other cases. The big advantage to the team concept is that members can drop from sight for a day or a week to attend to other business and the investigation will continue seamlessly with the other team members filling in as and where needed.
It is also the reason that team members meet or speak daily, either in person or on the telephone. They share and review the information gathered from new interviews, talk about potential leads that require follow-up, and discuss lab results that trickle in from evidence seized at the crime scene, autopsy findings, and questions from the medical examiner. The meetings keep everyone engaged and updated so there is no disruption or need to reeducate later.
Darkness was settling in, and the summer air was cooling off after the rain had passed. It had been a miserable day punctuated at several points with drenching downpours. The early momentum was waning, and fatigue was growing. Everyone was physically and emotionally exhausted and very, very hungry. The initial adrenaline rush for all of us had long since passed. Everyone had sweated through their clothes more than once that day, and we all smelled of the oily, acrid smoke that had settled into our shirts and pants from the time spent mucking around in the function room. There was a feeling in all of us that this was probably a good time to hit the pause button and stop for the day. Go home, throw the grungy clothes into a plastic bag, shower, grab a beer and some food, and get a good night’s rest. We could gather at the Malden PD early in the morning, review what we had learned, discuss any new information that might come in overnight, and formulate a game plan for the day. There were always things to do, but we also had to follow the evidence and be prepared to adjust the plans when more relevant and important information became available. Adapting to a changing environment and redirecting our attention happens in every case; following a predetermined template never works.
As we stood in the condo parking lot and discussed our next steps, the one piece of information we couldn’t get away from was that Tommy Crouse had left at the break of dawn to go to New Hampshire with his family—and they had fortuitously left moments before the alarms went off.
“Seriously,” Jimmy Connolly said, “who does that? Think about it. At five thirty in the morning, you wake up two little kids and your girlfriend from a sound sleep, get them dressed, pile them into a car, and drive an hour-plus to New Hampshire. The only urgency to the trip is your girlfriend has the itches and wants to see a doctor in New Hampshire. It makes no sense at all.”
There was concern that waiting overnight wasn’t the right answer. Johnny Rivers spoke up and said, “Look, Crouse is Morovitz’s stepson, and whether he likes him or not, we know he’s already been on the phone telling him we were there and asking questions about him and his early departure and we were looking to talk with him. Crouse and his girlfriend are probably already trying to create an alibi and get their story straight.”
There was a unified and, at least for this group of detectives, obvious reaction. Duke said what everyone else was thinking.
“Look, we don’t think they are returning tonight. We know what we want to do and really must do: blitz them with questions now. Let’s jump in a cruiser, head up to New Hampshire, and catch them by surprise. They will never expect that we would be knocking on their door tonight. They will be shocked and disorganized when they see us. Let’s go and catch them off guard.”
We all agreed. With a new shot of adrenaline to the system, there was a noticeable and collective rise in the energy level. Steve, Johnny, Eddie, and Duke piled into Eddie’s unmarked Crown Vic and headed north at “state police speed,” which normally cuts fifteen minutes off an hour and a half ride. On the way up Route 93 to New Hampshire, they talked over what they had learned, what they didn’t yet know, and what they hoped to learn from the interviews. They came up with a few common questions for both Crouse and Fournier so they could compare their memories and answers. They also wanted to speak with her parents and see what they knew and what they had observed during the day.
Earlier in the evening, a couple of Malden’s night detectives had dropped by for a briefing on the case and to offer their help. Once the cruiser headed off to Candia, they headed back to their station to continue the search for a victim. With no information other than a blood-soaked crime scene, it was going to be a difficult task.
Even though we made calls earlier in the day to try to locate a possible victim, there had been shift changes and new personnel manning emergency rooms and the OCME. The detectives started by re-contacting more than a dozen hospital emergency rooms in the Greater Boston area. Malden’s only hospital closed the previous year, so by then, most ambulance transports brought the victims to Massachusetts General Hospital or one of several other outstanding Boston trauma centers. The steady answer was, “No, not here, sorry. We will call you if anyone comes in reporting they were the victim of an assault.”
After an hour or so of nothing but no, they turned their attention to checking the teletype files for recent missing persons or unidentified victims of a violent assault, both dead and alive. They started locally but then spread the area of concern throughout New England and eventually nationally. They constructed a message about an apparent arson scene in their town with signs that it was possibly a cover-up for a violent crime. They electronically distributed the message throughout New England hoping the other departments would post it on detective bulletin boards and in dispatch centers and speak about it at shift roll calls. The midnight shifts would be coming on duty shortly, and they would most likely be the ones to take note of any strange encounters from the previous night.
Jimmy Connolly and I remained at the complex for a bit longer, tying up loose ends and making sure to secure the function room doors. At our request, the building manager had had the locks replaced by a locksmith earlier in the day, and the only set of keys was in our possession. The room was still an active crime scene, and just in case a defense counsel raised the issue of evidence contamination or tampering during a trial, we could respond that we closed, locked, and secured the room for the day. Jimmy and I headed home just as the other team members were rolling up on the Fournier home.
My trip home, although punctuated with a lot of uneasiness about unanswered concerns and questions, was more relaxed than the drive to Malden earlier in the day. While we had no known victim, we did have sufficient evidence that had the appearance of a homicide scene. Until we learned otherwise, we would proceed on that premise and not specifically consider it an arson scene. If we waited for a dead body to turn up critical evidence would be lost, altered, or destroyed and rendered useless. Likewise, memories would fade or change as residents shared information with one another, and eyewitnesses might go quiet.
Massachusetts law only requires the local police contact the DAO when they learn of a death, not if or when they suspect one. There was great comfort knowing that our office, the state police, and the DA had worked with the Malden detectives on a number of past homicide cases. The combined detective units shared a genuine respect and camaraderie that allowed us to work together as a harmonious and unified team. I was grateful that they brought us in on the case right away.
From my perspective, we were in a very advantageous situation. Bringing the investigative units together at the beginning of the day eliminated any friction, distrust, or finger pointing about lost or damaged evidence. Likewise, having an ADA working alongside lessened the chances of legal missteps during interviews, searches, or identifications. Gerard Butler was one of the most knowledgeable ADAs, and there was nobody more discerning and thorough than his supervisor, Adrienne Lynch. We were off to a very promising start.
As was always the case in these kinds of mysteries, we had no idea how long it would take to solve and prove. None of us realized we were just a few steps down a long, dirty road with more twists and turns and highs and lows than an amusement park roller coaster. This case could turn out to be the most challenging ride of our careers, but we all buckled in and prepared for whatever lay ahead.
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