After grabbing a few hours of sleep, Investigator Mike Mayhew went to the autopsy suite in Roanoke, Virginia, where a body bag lay stretched ominously on the stainless steel table. Assistant medical examiner Dr. Amy Tharp unzipped it, and a tech photographed Jocelyn Earnest’s body. They propped a block under her head to facilitate x-rays. Viewing the film, Tharp noted the darkness where the bullet’s trajectory created a pocket of air in Jocelyn’s skull, while the fillings of her teeth and the outline of her necklace glowed white on the image—though brighter still were the bullet fragments scattered in her brain.
Next, Tharp removed the bags that had been placed on Jocelyn’s hands and swabbed the palms and fingers for any gun residue. She observed that there was no blood spatter on Jocelyn’s hands (as would typically be present had she been holding the gun when it fired) and noted that there was no injury to the nails, no foreign material visible under them and no debris elsewhere on the hands.
Tharp also documented Jocelyn’s personal effects and clothing before undressing the victim. As she removed them, she preserved the victim’s green and black coat, jeans, belt, sweater, shirt, shoes, socks, panties, bra, watch, necklace, and cloth bracelet. In the process of removing Jocelyn’s clothing, they found a fragment of a bullet lying in the bag that transported her body and saved it as evidence. Tharp thoroughly examined the body, seeking out any external damages, scars, birthmarks, or tattoos. Except for the obvious wounds to Jocelyn’s head, she found no other fresh injuries.
Tharp shaved and cleaned around the wounds on the deceased woman’s head and examined them closely. On the right side, above and slightly behind Jocelyn’s ear, Tharp noted a round, crisp hole with scraped edges and stippling, little red marks created from bits of burning (and unburned) gunpowder, smoke, and flame, which marked the point of entry. It was not a contact wound, meaning the weapon had not been in direct contact with the skin. The gun had obviously been two inches to two feet away when it was fired.
Tharp then turned her attention to the left temple at the outer corner of the eye. The skin was pushed slightly outward, without any abrasion to its surface, just as she expected to see from a tumbling bullet that escaped at a slightly sideways angle. A skull fracture had caused blood to pull in the tissues near the wound, giving Jocelyn a classic black eye. Without a doubt it was an exit wound, confirming the possibility posited by Dr. Paul Lilly at the scene.
Next, Tharp conducted a more invasive examination of Jocelyn’s head. Making an incision from ear to ear, she moved the scalp away from the skull and documented the hemorrhage between the two as well as the fractures that caused the fused sutures of the bone to pull apart.
Tharp then removed the top of the skull to follow the deadly track of the projectile. It traversed the right back portion of the brain, causing unconsciousness; cut across the brain stem, causing instant death and a total loss of voluntary and involuntary movement; then went through the other half and exited through the left temple. Jocelyn’s death was instantaneous—she could not have moved her own body.
• • •
Meanwhile that morning, Investigator Gary Babb reported to the sheriff’s office to await the scheduled 9 A.M. arrival of the new widower. That hour came and went with no sign of him. Then Babb received a call from defense attorney Joey Sanzone, informing him that his client, Wesley Earnest, would arrive at 5 P.M.
In the meantime, Mayhew and Babb returned to Jocelyn’s house for a second search of the crime scene. They quickly located a bullet fragment, smaller than a pencil eraser, lying in a shoe. They found another fragment on the couch, and the remaining lead wedged between a cushion and the arm of a chair. Each shard of lead was removed and preserved. The investigators looked around the room. Could Jocelyn have held a gun to her own head at such an angle to have caused the bullet to lodge in those locations?
No matter how hard they searched, investigators could not find any additional fragments. But two rounds had been fired from that gun. They went down to the basement and examined every inch of the ceiling beneath the living room to see if the other one had been shot through the floor. They found nothing—the second fired bullet remained a mystery.
• • •
Before five that afternoon, the investigators were back at the county courthouse with Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Wes Nance, awaiting the arrival of Wesley Earnest and his attorney, Joey Sanzone. It was after six before they saw Wesley pull up in a pickup truck. Mayhew snapped a photo of the truck just in case they needed it in the future.
At six feet four inches with a trim frame, the dark-haired thirty-seven-year-old Wesley was a gangly man with a disarming, slightly goofy smile. He towered over his shorter, rounder attorney. When they were seated, Babb told him again about Jocelyn’s death and asked, “Had you heard about that before receiving my call yesterday?”
“Yes. I arrived at Shameka’s between six thirty and seven last night,” Wesley said, referring to his girlfriend Shameka Wright, “and Shameka’s mom asked, ‘Didn’t you used to live on Pine Bluff?’ I told her ‘yes’ and she said there was a story on the news about some woman dying there.”
Maybe that accounts for his lack of curiosity, Babb thought, or maybe not. He explained to Wesley that in a “normal death investigation” they had to establish the whereabouts of the people connected to the victim in the window of time around the time that Jocelyn died.
Wes gave minute details about everything he’d done on Tuesday.
“What did you do on Wednesday?” Babb asked.
“I went to work at the school. There was a fight there that day. I was tired and didn’t feel well after that. I went home and went to bed.”
“You didn’t go anywhere that night?” Babb continued.
“No.”
“You didn’t talk to anyone?”
“No.”
Despite his vague recollection of Wednesday’s events, when Babb asked about Thursday and Friday, Wesley was again very thorough in his descriptions of his actions and activities.
Babb moved on to asking about Wesley’s estranged wife. “What was Jocelyn like?”
“She was the greatest woman—a great person, a great athlete. I broke her heart. I hurt her,” Wesley said.
Everything Wesley was saying seemed to be in accord with the comments of her friends regarding her personality, her collegiate basketball career, and her black belt in karate, but Babb wondered about what Wesley wasn’t saying. “What did you think of Jocelyn?”
“She was wonderful.”
“If she was so wonderful, why did you go out with others?”
“Jocelyn was okay with that. She told me to sleep with other women.”
Babb knew that directly contradicted what he’d heard from Jocelyn’s friends who’d cited his infidelity as what ended the marriage. “Really? I thought you were getting a divorce.”
“My brother was the catalyst for that. He caused a big confrontation at the house and I left. He’s a very controlling guy. You know, when we separated, it broke Jocelyn’s heart. She stopped eating and lost forty pounds. I was just doing my thing,” Wesley said with a shrug. “She was very depressed but I didn’t do anything about it.”
Babb made a mental note to find out everything he could about Wesley’s brother, Jocelyn’s attitude toward infidelity and any possible dark moods she may have experienced. He said, “My only problem is this: she seems like a real strong person to do what she did with basketball and karate and that image clashes with her being depressed,” Babb said.
Most disturbing of all to the investigators was Wesley expressing the belief that Jocelyn had committed suicide. Of all the friends and family members interviewed so far, he was the only person who thought it was possible that she had taken her own life.
Wesley switched subjects. He mentioned one of Jocelyn’s co-workers, a man he said he suspected she’d had something going with, since they spent so much time together doing projects.
Wesley admitted that he’d purchased a .357 Magnum in the past but added, “It was a present for my wife, for her protection.”
A .357 Magnum was the weapon that they’d found at the scene, the one that in all likelihood took Jocelyn’s life. Babb now thought it was in all probability also the same weapon Wesley claimed to have purchased for Jocelyn.
Consulting with Sanzone, Wesley agreed to provide a DNA sample and fingerprints. He would not, however, agree to a polygraph test.
“What kind of vehicles do you have? I know you have a truck,” Babb said, referring to the one that Wesley just drove to the meeting.
“That’s not my truck. I just borrowed that truck,” Wesley answered.
The investigators exchanged a glance. They’d both noticed that Wesley appeared a bit rattled when they asked him about the vehicle. There had to be a reason for that, and they were determined to find it.