The homicide report written by Detective Jim Davis was dated two days after Margaret’s body was found in Golden Gate Park and put her murder between November 20–21, 1967. The cause of death was listed as “Homicide (suffocation).” The location was listed as the one Colleen had visited at 50 Stow Lake Drive.
“Upon responding to the above location, R/Os Evans and Madrid reported taking the statement of a Stan Paul, a cab driver who resides at 1042 Fell Street, San Francisco, who reported finding the victim while walking his dog at approximately 5:30 a.m.”
The victim was reported as wearing “one white go-go boot” and showed signs of “extensive physical trauma” with “her legs twisted around,” suggesting “sexual trauma.” The direction of the body was listed. The condition of the victim’s nails was described. The state of the victim’s clothes—short Afghan coat, miniskirt, tie-dye T-shirt, white underpants and “hippie headband”—were detailed, and their location—11 ft. away from the victim—was given. The times that the crime lab and coroner were called were listed, as were their names.
The single-spaced report was nearly three typed pages. It was signed by Detective James Davis, officers Frank Madrid and Robert Evans, and a lieutenant whose name Colleen could not make out as the signature was on top of the typed name, but all were accompanied by badge numbers. The time of report completion—9:45 p.m.—was listed.
Attached was a copy of the coroner’s report.
Colleen had seen two other homicide reports in her time and this was the most detailed one she’d read. Jim Davis was—or had been—thorough.
But nowhere was there any mention of a green Ford Falcon, as supposedly stated to Reporting Officer Frank Madrid by Larry Dunmore, the maintenance man at Stow Lake.
She smelled a rat.
Colleen got up, placed her hands on her hips, and stretched back to crack out her spine. It was late, almost one a.m. She refilled her coffee cup, lit another cigarette, and sat back down, picking up the autopsy report, knowing she would have to fortify herself. She had caught a glimpse of the photograph of Margaret Copeland’s brutalized body earlier when she pulled the paperwork out of the manila envelope and now had to face it head-on.
She wasn’t the squeamish type, but just looking at Margaret Copeland’s leg—the one not wearing a white boot—raised up to almost a sitting position and twisted over her abdomen, leaving her groin wide-open and defenseless amongst the leaves and pine needles, filled Colleen with repulsion. She couldn’t help but notice that Margaret’s chipped toenail polish matched that of her long fingernails.
Colleen felt cowardly placing her hand over the photograph as she read around it, which included a rape victim examination account: injury to lips, injury to throat, bite marks, injury to arms, injury to wrists, injury to nails—as if that made any difference—injury to thighs, injury to ankles, and then a detail of the vaginal area, with a long list of scratches, bruises, abrasions. Specimens listed included swabs: introcoital, vaginal, anal. Blood, loose hair, pubic, matted and combings.
Enough.
She put the report facedown. She didn’t need to read any more. She knew what had happened. She just needed to find out who made it happen.
And why certain things were missing. Like a green Ford Falcon. And Larry Dunmore’s testimony.
Stomach contents showed no recent evidence of opiates, stimulants, or ethanol, but a RIA—radioimmunoassay—blood measurement showed 327 micrograms of entactogen—lysergic acid diethylamide—LSD—in the victim’s system. An asterisk pointed to a footnote at the bottom of the page that stated that as little as twenty-five mcg of entactogen was capable of producing potential deleterious psychedelic effects and that 300 units was sufficient to produce severe perceptual, visual, and psychoactive disturbances. The fact that LSD dissipated from the bloodstream within twenty-four hours of ingestion suggested the victim’s initial dose was in fact much higher.
Significant levels of chloroform were also detected in the blood and tissues by gas chromatographic/mass spectrometric analysis and traces were found in the victim’s lungs, as well as on her face, indicating that Margaret was subdued with chloroform during the prolonged attack.
Cause of death was listed as smothering, as opposed to suffocation—which was what was recorded in Jim Davis’s police report. Suffocation referred to general deprivation of oxygen, a footnote explained, whereas smothering indicated the closing of the external repository orifices either by the hand or the introduction of a foreign substance such as mud, paper, cloth, plastic, etc. Jim Davis may not have known that. Colleen hadn’t.
Although Colleen did not understand half of the technical details of the coroner’s report, Margaret Copeland’s last twenty-four hours were nonetheless painfully clear. She had been tripping her brains out on acid and been taken advantage of by someone who knocked her out with chloroform, beat her mercilessly, sexually abused her, and smothered her to death with a dry-cleaning bag. Colleen attempted to blink away the horror the girl must have gone through. She ran her fingers through her hair and thought of Eva Unknown in her pauper’s grave in Santa Cruz. Colleen had tracked down Eva’s killer with a perseverance fueled by wrath.
She felt the same drive now.
Hoping she had passed the worst of the report, Colleen pushed on.
Stomach contents as stated were devoid of food or alcohol; however, two foreign objects were discovered—both small pieces of plastic. Curious.
A grainy photograph of the two pieces on a sheet of paper next to the tip of a sharpened pencil established their size, showing them to be small, innocuous fragments of black plastic, one three millimeters in length, the other two millimeters. Both pieces were of a similar width, 2.5 mm high, with a thickness of less than 1 mm. The exact material was cellulose acetate, a lightweight and relatively inexpensive plastic.
That didn’t seem to make any sense at all. Except that people out of their minds on drugs might be likely to put funny things into their mouth and chew on them. But still, something wasn’t right there.
Getting out her pad of yellow-lined paper, Colleen made notes. Unfortunately, tomorrow was Saturday, but perhaps she could find Millard Drake, the forensic analyst who had signed Margaret Copeland’s autopsy report.
She checked her wristwatch. Almost two in the morning. She wasn’t going to sleep tonight, not with the image of Margaret Copeland’s body, left like trash in the park for the coyotes.
There were just some things you couldn’t unsee.