Secrets and Shadows

Chapter 13

It was late by the time Grace left the Jarrett’s house and headed for home. A Peter Gabriel CD was softly playing in the audio system, but she wasn’t listening, the events of the day were surging around in her mind like film on a loop.

Once out of West Garside, she joined the A629 and then the A61 going south. Both roads were relatively traffic free and she was quickly through the centre of Sheffield and onto Abbeydale Road South. Opposite Dore and Totley train station Grace turned up Dore Road and into Dore village. Fieldview Grove was off Church Lane and her house, number 6, was at the end of the cul-de-sac.

She did not immediately get out of the car but simply sat there, dog tired and mentally drained, reviewing all her actions at the murder scene, ensuring she had followed every homicide procedure correctly. Although Grace had attained PIP level III, she had only twice acted as SIO on murder enquiry and was determined to get it right. As she had on the two previous enquiries.

Guidelines and strategies for the investigation of homicides are given in the Murder Investigation Manual, a document of more than 300 pages produced by the Association of Chief Police Officers. Accordingly, as SIO, she had to stay on the scene until she was satisfied that all initial investigation procedures had been satisfactorily carried out.

She had to coordinate with SOCO, the Scene of Crime Officers, ensure the scene and potential evidence were preserved . Every inch of the murder scene in the kitchen and the apparent suicide in the garage, as well as the rest of the house was photographed and videoed and the garden and surrounding area subject to a finger-tip search. All computers, phones, iPads in the house had to be bagged and removed, as were letters and utility bills.

She gave the instructions for extensive house to house enquiries and for CCTV cameras in the vicinity to be scrutinised for signs of unusual activity such as cars speeding away from the area or parked suspicious vehicles. She delegated Terry Horton as D/SIO, to ensure that her instructions were carried out to the fullest.

Re -entering the crime scene, Grace and Terry made a preliminary assessment what type of homicide it appeared to be, no assumptions could be made based on first impressions. The Manual classifies homicide into Domestic Homicide, Homicide in the course of other crimes, Gang Homicide, Confrontation Homicide, Jealously/Revenge and five other types. All that Grace and Terry could do at this stage was provisionally eliminate the more obvious categories, such as Racial violence, s****l attack or Gang murder.

appearedprovisionally ‘It looks like a domestic, but we can’t rule out a botched burglary, jealously or revenge,’ said Grace, speaking more to herself than stating the patronisingly obvious to Terry, who nodded in agreement.

‘Whoever did it, Grace, hit him with a lot of anger. He must have seriously pissed somebody off. there’s a dozen or more blows to his head, but I agree, it does look like a domestic.’

‘Open mind, Terry, open minds,’ she chided gently, but with a smile.

‘Yeah, I know, just saying.’

They were joined by Erika Berger, the Home Office pathologist.

‘Hi, I’m Erika Berger, and this is Keith, my assistant.’

Erika , Terry surmised, was in her fifties, about 5’5’’, blonde from what could be seen of her hair from under the hood of her forensic protection suit and exuded steady professional demeanour as she set about examining the body. She carefully lifted his hands to check for trace material such as skin scrapings scratched from his attacker. The hands were then bagged in polythene bags to preserve any evidence. The bloody hammer was then carefully lifted and bagged.

Like the Dr Phil before her, she lifted Donald’s eyelids and manipulated his jawbone, assessing the extent of rigor mortis.

Body temperature and ambient temperature of the kitchen were recorded and then Erika, avoiding the pool of blood on the floor, knelt under the table, lifted Donald’s trousers legs and checked the extent of lividity. When Donald Jarrett died, his heart stopped pumping blood through his body, the blood then settled to the lowest extremities of the body. From what she could see, Erika was reasonably certain that he had died where he sat.

Erika next examined the body hanging in the garage, presumed to be that of Janet Jarrett.

Close to the body was a 4’0’’ stepladder, lying on its side. Further over, towards the door of the garage, they saw a small blue and grey remote-control fob.

It looked as though Janet had entered the garage, closed the floor behind her, tossing the fob to the floor as though she no longer required it. She then tied the noose to one of the roof joists, climbed the step ladder, put the noose about her neck and then kicked the ladder away.

That was what it looked like, but for Grace, and every other police officer, suspicious deaths are always considered as murder until proved otherwise, ‘Think murder’ was the creed every investigating officer had to follow.

lookedThe Coroner’s office was informed, and permission given to remove the bodies. The bodies were bagged in body bags and driven away to the Medico-Legal Centre in Sheffield. 16 miles away.

This was because the mortuary at the hospital in West Garside did not have the same specialist advanced technology as the Medico-Legal Centre. It was here that Erika Berger would conduct the autopsies.

The yellow nylon rope used by Janet Jarrett to supposedly hang herself had to be preserved for forensic examination. The rope, with a ready tied noose had apparently been tossed over a roof joist, adjusted for length and then tied to the joist. That knot was also critical evidence so a 19” section of the joist was cut away with the knot intact and a piece of 4” x 2” nailed in its place.

Grace had been at the scene for more than ten hours before she finally felt able to leave and head for home; to catch a few hours’ sleep before the first case briefing at 8,30 am the following morning.

Weary to her bones Grace finally got out of the car and slowly made her up to her front door and stepped inside.