Under Cover of the Night

It was planned to look like a suicide.
But even in the best-laid plans, evidence is left behind…

Jocelyn Branham Earnest was found dead on the floor of her living room in Forest, Virginia. By her side was a gun and a suicide note—typed, lacking a signature, and with one fingerprint on it. A fingerprint apparently belonging to Jocelyn’s estranged husband…

Wesley Earnest was a respected high school administrator, poised to restart his life in a new community. Parents entrusted their children to his care and believed he was above reproach. But the investigation into the life the couple once shared would reveal adultery, troubled finances, and shattered dreams—enough for one man with murder on his mind to travel hundreds of miles…

Under Cover of the Night
 
INCLUDES PHOTOSPraise for Diane Fanning:

“Very few writers have the insight and gift to take a true story and make it one hell of a page-turner. In my opinion, Diane Fanning does just that in A Poisoned Passion.”—Susan Murphy Milano, domestic violence victims’ advocate

“Author Diane Fanning tirelessly recounts the young woman’s lying ways, theorizes how Anthony might have disposed of her daughter, and concludes that Anthony is ‘an individual whose self-absorption and insensitivity to others is a destructive force.'”—Orlando Sentinel

“I’m sitting on a couch in our newsroom, pouring through the advance copy of your book. Unbelievable stuff!”—Mike DeForest, WKMG-TV, on Mommy’s Little Girl

“I couldn’t put it down until I had finished it. I’m amazed at how much research you had to have done, and for the parts I actually knew about, the accuracy was more than I could have expected. I have to tell my friends that if they read this book, they will be able to experience everything that I did, just as if they had experienced it themselves. I’m a reader and have read many books and still do, but I’m still surprised at how well you wove everything into a story that’s enjoyable to read and accurate to detail.”—Herb Betz on Through the Window

“I was astonished by how good this book was—insightful, well written, and fascinating.”—Hugh Aynesworth, four-time Pulitzer Prize nominee, on Out There

“With the publication of Diane Fanning’s book, Written in Blood, the official record is now complete. Fanning provides a full account of the epic Peterson murder mystery. Her writing is superb. Most importantly, Diane Fanning has written a true crime book focused more on the truth than on the crime, and in that sense, her work honors the spirit of the victim, Kathleen Hunt Atwater.”—Vance HolmesDiane Fanning is the Edgar® Award–nominated, national bestselling author of twelve true crime books—Sleep My Darlings, Her Deadly Web, Mommy’s Little Girl, A Poisoned Passion, The Pastor’s Wife, Out There, Under the Knife, Baby Be Mine, Gone Forever, Written in Blood, Into the Water, and Through the Window—as well as the Lucinda Pierce Mysteries and a World War II mystery, Scandal in the Secret City.

She has appeared on numerous network and cable news shows and radio stations across the United States and Canada, including TODAY, 48 Hours, 20/20, Forensic Files, Snapped, bio., Investigation Discovery, E!, and the BBC. Raised in Baltimore, she now lives in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Bedford, Virginia.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ONE

Marcy Shepherd often took two weeks off from her job in the human resources department of Genworth Financial around Christmas, to spend time with her children and finish up her holiday preparations, and 2007 was no exception. On Sunday, December 16, 2007, the perky blonde went shopping with her friend and co-worker Jocelyn Earnest, and they made plans to get together again on the evening of Wednesday, December 19. Text messages bounced between the women throughout the day that Wednesday as Marcy ran errands, even briefly stopping at the Genworth offices to deliver popcorn that co-workers had purchased from her son’s Cub Scout troop.

At home that evening, Marcy sat down with her eight-year-old son to watch SpongeBob SquarePants. Just before seven thirty, she received a text from Jocelyn asking if she was there. Marcy responded, “Y.” When she didn’t hear back from Jocelyn, Marcy sent another message spelling out her answer more clearly, “Yes, I’m here.” Still no reply from Jocelyn, which was unusual since she had answered every other text that day promptly. Marcy knew a momentary pause could have a lot of innocent explanations: another phone call, taking a shower, a temporary separation from her cell phone, whatever. At first, it was not cause for alarm.

When the television show ended, Marcy went upstairs with her son, made sure he brushed his teeth, read a story to him, and tucked him in for the night at eight thirty. She sent an email asking Jocelyn if her text messaging was not working. Jocelyn still remained silent.

Ten minutes later, Marcy left her son with her husband and drove to CVS, still waiting to hear from Jocelyn—still expecting they would meet up that night. She sent another message to Jocelyn while she was in the store, before completing her purchases and leaving at 9:08 P.M.

Marcy was beginning to think that she might not see Jocelyn that evening after all. She had Jocelyn’s Christmas present—an enormous box of festive outdoor holiday lights wrapped in gold Santa Claus paper—in her car, however, and not wanting to take the package home for fear its size would stir up her children’s heightened state of holiday excitability, Marcy decided to drop it off at the office instead.

She drove fifteen minutes to the downtown Genworth Financial offices and used her key card to gain access to the building after hours. The security system recorded her walking through that door at 9:24 P.M. and taking the elevator to the first floor. She placed Jocelyn’s gift on her desk and then returned to her car, checking out at 9:28.

Still not having heard from Jocelyn was making Marcy anxious. She realized that she could be indulging a senseless agitation, but she could not quiet her escalating fears that something might be wrong. It took a quarter of an hour to drive out to her friend’s house, which was situated in a quiet, serene neighborhood in Forest, Virginia, part of scenic Bedford County, nestled up against the Blue Ridge Mountains.

When she arrived, Marcy saw Jocelyn’s green Honda parked in the driveway, but while the outside light was lit, only a single low-wattage light burned inside the white-clapboard bungalow with silver metal roof. Had Jocelyn gone out in someone else’s vehicle? If so, why hadn’t she called or texted about her change of plans? Had she accidentally left her phone behind? Had she fallen asleep? Maybe turned off her cell?

Marcy had planned to just drive by the house without stopping, but instead she turned around in the next driveway and drove back to her friend’s home. She parked and walked up the curved sidewalk to the quiet house and knocked on the front door. There was no response, and no sounds seeped from inside.

Still unsettled, Marcy returned home at a little before ten o’clock. She texted Jocelyn that she was worried and asked her to call. Marcy had difficulty getting to sleep but finally reassured herself that she’d surely get a simple explanation the next morning. Jocelyn would explain what had happened, and they’d laugh about Marcy’s unwarranted concern.

The next morning, Marcy rose a little bit after seven and at a quarter past the hour sent Jocelyn another text message. When she still didn’t get a response, Marcy set her phone to send her an alert when Jocelyn logged in to the instant messaging system at Genworth. That way, she would know right away that her friend was safely at work.

When by 10 A.M. she had not received any alerts, Marcy called someone who worked for Jocelyn and was told, “We’re expecting her but we haven’t seen her.”

Something was wrong. As long as Marcy had known her, Jocelyn was always one of the first people at her desk. At 11:30, Marcy again made the drive to Jocelyn’s home, in escalating anxiety.

Jocelyn’s car was still parked in the same spot. Just as the night before, only one weak light glowed beyond the windows. The temperature had risen a bit from the morning’s low of twenty-four degrees, but with the light breeze, it was still cool enough to make Marcy shiver on the way up the sidewalk.

Once again, she knocked on the front door. When she got no answer, she balled up her fists and pounded on it as hard as she could, desperate to capture her friend’s attention. The possibility of calamity roared in Marcy’s ears. Was Jocelyn sick? Injured? An innocent explanation (could Jocelyn have gone to bed early, turned off her phone, and overslept?) seemed less and less likely.

Marcy moved around the exterior of the home; coverings on all the windows prevented her from seeing the interior, but she knocked on each one. Still no sound from inside. She called a mutual friend and co-worker, Maysa Munsey, hoping she had answers. But Maysa did not know where Jocelyn was, either—and she, too, was worried.

Maysa knew the code to the home’s alarm system, and Marcy knew where to find the keypad—if only she could get inside. Then Marcy remembered Jocelyn telling her about a spare key she kept in the shed, inside the six-foot fence that surrounded the swimming pool area. Marcy went over to the gate, surprised to find it unlocked when she tugged on the handle.

Still on the phone with Maysa, Marcy located the spare key inside the outbuilding and ran back to the front door. But it didn’t work. She tried again and again, thinking that it was just her anxiety making the simple task difficult. Finally, she gave up and dashed around the house to try the back door instead.

Bingo.

When the door, which opened to the kitchen, swung open, it brought with it a blast of heat, enough to fog up Marcy’s eyeglasses and momentarily obscure her vision. She called out, “Jocelyn! Jocelyn, where are you?” Then she tilted her head back to peer under her lenses and gasped. She could see Jocelyn lying still on the floor.

“Maysa, call 9-1-1 right now!” Marcy cried. She disconnected from Maysa and punched 9-1-1 into her own cell phone as well.

The 9-1-1 operators asked her to check for a pulse and try CPR.

Marcy felt her hands trembling with panic as she walked across the living room, still on the phone with 9-1-1. As the fog faded, her vision improved, allowing her to see her friend clearly. Her fears morphed into visceral horror. Jocelyn was dressed as if she just walked in the door in a pair of jeans, a sweater, and her winter coat, but she was lying flat on her back on the floor. Her legs stuck straight out. She appeared stiff and unnatural.

Marcy didn’t want to believe what she was seeing. Maybe Jocelyn just bumped her head, her heart insisted. But logic kicked back into gear when Marcy saw the pool of dark red surrounding Jocelyn’s head, mottling the blue carpet with dark, streaky stains trailing across the floor.

The blood puddle was predominately to Jocelyn’s right, so Marcy stepped to the left of the body and kneeled down. That was when she saw the firearm. “There’s a gun,” she said. She moved away from it, kneeling on her friend’s other side. She placed her fingers on Jocelyn’s throat. It was stiff. It was cold. And nothing beat beneath her skin.

Marcy got a close look at her friend. Her lips were blue. Her fingernails were blue. Blood stains ran in multiple directions on her face, forming a strange hatch pattern. At the operator’s request, she reached down and touched Jocelyn’s left wrist. Nothing.

The 9-1-1 operator told Marcy to see if Jocelyn was breathing by placing her hand on the stomach area. Marcy slipped her hand in between Jocelyn’s sweater and the shirt beneath, desperate to feel the up-and-down movement of respiration, but it wasn’t there. Marcy’s heart pounded, her mouth dry. She wanted to breathe life back into her friend, but she knew it was far too late. Jocelyn was obviously past the point where CPR would be of any use.

As Marcy stood there, shaking with grief and horror, she thought about all the times that Jocelyn had expressed fear that her life would end violently—the moments she had expressed her paranoid-sounding thoughts about her estranged husband, the many times Marcy observed Jocelyn gripping the armrest in a fear that she’d see Wesley as soon as they’d completed the last turn in the road approaching the house.

Marcy knew Maysa was on her way to the house and that Maysa would have her own children with her. She did not want them to arrive and walk right inside. Marcy opened the front door and stood there watching and waiting, then suddenly wondered about Jocelyn’s pets—her black Lab, Rufus, and her two cats. She left the doorway and went down the hall far enough to look into the master bedroom, where she was relieved to see Rufus safely in his kennel. Locating the cats would have to wait.

She hurried back to stand guard at the front door, the phone still connected to 9-1-1. Maysa Munsey, her long, wavy brown hair flying, arrived before any of the first responders. When she pulled up, Marcy shouted out, “Leave the kids in the car.”

The operator agreed, saying, “Don’t let them in the house. Don’t let them in the house.”

Marcy blocked the front door as Maysa joined her on the front porch. Wrapping her arms around Marcy, Maysa asked, “Are you certain she’s gone?”

Marcy nodded. The two women hugged and sobbed as they waited for the police cars to pull up. Deputy Jason Jones was the first to arrive at the home in the Pine Bluff subdivision. Speaking to Marcy and Maysa, he said, “Please remain here at the house until investigators arrive and talk to you.”

The two women left the porch and waited in the driveway. They felt helpless and out of place. Less than a week until Christmas, and instead of making holiday preparations and wishing “Happy Holidays” to friends, family, and co-workers, they stood together in the cold without a single merry thought. The very idea of Christmas spirit felt obscene on that dark winter’s day.

TWO

Bedford County deputies Jason Jones and Robbie Nash had been the first officers to arrive at the scene at 1482 Pine Bluff Drive on Thursday, December 20, 2007. The medic unit was right behind them, but Jones told them to wait outside until they cleared the residence. The two lawmen separated and searched the home, sweating from the heat in the house. Finding no one there except for a black dog in a kennel and two cats, Jones allowed the medics inside but warned them not to disturb the body or anything around it any more than necessary. After determining that Jocelyn Earnest had no vital signs, they gathered up their equipment and went back outside. Jones stayed in the room with Jocelyn’s body waiting for the arrival of an investigator.

•   •   •

Gary Babb, the sergeant in charge of investigations for the Bedford County Sheriff’s Department, had stopped by his home in the small city of Bedford for lunch when he received a call from the dispatcher requesting that he respond to a DOA in Forest, approximately twenty-two miles away. He grabbed the rest of his sandwich and went out the door.

He took Route 221 toward Lynchburg, then traveled down roads that twisted and turned under canopies of tall trees and past pastures of cows and fields lying fallow for winter until he reached the small suburban development where the body had been discovered.

A lot of civilians sat in cars or milled in the street in front of the house in question. As he walked from his car, they stared at him with expressions of naked longing that blended an unsustainable mixture of hope, hopelessness, and denial.

The outside of the house appeared ordinary enough with white vinyl siding and a large bay window, enhanced by a stunning stone chimney and foundation. A tall weathered wood fence surrounded the backyard. Uniformed officer Robbie Nash stood on the porch in front of the open front door, guarding the scene. Jones stepped out onto the porch upon the detective’s arrival, and the two deputies explained what they’d found inside of the home and the futile efforts of the rescue squad.

“Did you find a suicide note?” Detective Babb asked.

Both officers shook their heads and said, “No, sir.”

Stepping across the threshold, Babb noted that the deceased thirty-eight-year-old woman was five feet six inches tall, of medium build, with hazel eyes and light brown hair with dark blond highlights. She was lying on her back, wearing jeans, brown shoes, and a car coat. One step inside, he noticed that despite the open door and the winter air slipping through it, an uncomfortable heat filled the home. The smell of death and blood had dissipated to some degree, though, leaving only traces of the ominous odor.

Between the front door and the body, Babb spotted a sheet of paper facedown on the floor, appearing to be insignificant household clutter. But it bore four creases, as if it had once been folded into quarters, and that piqued the detective’s interest. He pulled on a pair of gloves and flipped the paper over. On the reverse side, he read:

Mom, I just can’t take it anymore. I’ve tried so hard to be strong but I just can’t continue. The ups and downs are too much to deal with. I keep trying to appear as though I am doing fine but the days are so overwhelming and lonely. My new love will never leave the family. Wes has buried us in debt and starting over is too much. I am so sorry mom. I am so sorry everyone.

Babb was immediately suspicious of the note. To begin with, it was typed and did not bear a signature—unusual for the last words of someone about to commit suicide. In addition, the tone of the message was more impersonal than other final messages he’d read in the past, and it raised more questions than it answered. Nevertheless, the note was not sufficiently unsettling to rule out the possibility that Jocelyn had taken her own life.

To avoid tracking through the pathway in the immediate vicinity of the victim, Babb walked through the kitchen and came around the other side to get a closer look at her. Leaning forward, he saw bloody streaks running across her face. A revolver lay on top of her coat—an unusual position for a suicide. Usually, the weapon ended up under the body. But again, Babb knew it was way too soon to reach any firm conclusions.

The detective moved down the hall where he found a thermostat. It had been pushed all the way to the highest setting, as far to the right as it could go. He continued on to the bedroom at the end of the hall and saw a cage containing a large black dog who wasn’t barking and didn’t appear distressed, but who panted heavily from the heat or lack of water or both.

A cabinet by the bed had a drawer that gaped open three or four inches. Beside it, an unopened condom package lay on the floor. On the bathroom floor, Babb found an empty wrapper for another one in the trash can.

Babb had not seen anything in the home that indicated the possibility of a forced entry.

He backed out of the house to obtain a search warrant. Once he’d gotten the paperwork moving, he went out to talk to the people who’d gathered outside.

The two women who’d found the body, Marcy Shepherd and Maysa Munsey, had telephoned other friends and co-workers while they waited. They wanted no one to learn of Jocelyn’s death from a reporter calling with questions. By now, many others who cared about Jocelyn had gathered in the driveway, wanting to deny the reality of her death and comforting one another in their time of loss.

Marcy’s eyes were red from crying, Maysa clung to her boyfriend, and both women seemed too upset to communicate well, so Babb first spoke with other friends of Jocelyn’s, Jennifer and Bob Kerns, a nurse and a public school administrator.

Jennifer provided the name and the West Virginia phone number for Laura Rogers, Jocelyn’s sister, for Babb to make the next-of-kin death notification call. Then she asked, “He finally killed her?”

“Who?” the investigator asked.

“Wesley.”

At Babb’s prodding, Jennifer explained that she suspected Jocelyn’s estranged husband, Wesley Earnest. He and Jocelyn had been married for twelve years but had been separated for the last two to three years, and were embroiled in an acrimonious divorce. Wesley was a PhD, Jennifer said, who lived on the other side of the state in Chesapeake, working as an assistant principal at a high school. Despite the distance, she claimed that he’d made an unexpected late-night visit to Jocelyn in the past.

The detective assured her, “We’ll find who did it.”

•   •   •

Jocelyn’s sister, Laura, was driving on the interstate when the call arrived, en route to pick up two birthday cakes for co-workers, but all thoughts of celebration fled her mind when detectives delivered the news. As soon as she heard about her sister’s death, she, too, immediately suspected Wesley, and warned the investigator, “You will not break him. He is narcissistic and has a borderline personality.”

Babb made his first attempt to call Wesley, but couldn’t reach him.

•   •   •

Like Detective Babb, Bedford County sheriff’s investigator Mike Mayhew had been on his lunch break when he got the call about a death scene on Pine Bluff Drive in Forest. He left his SWAT training exercise to report to the scene, and fellow investigator Ricky Baldwin pulled up right after him. The medics with the rescue squad were still there when they arrived, and Mayhew obtained their statements about what they observed and how they had gone through the assessment but found no signs of life in the victim and their resuscitation attempts were wooden steps in procedure.

When Mayhew walked through the door, he, too, was rocked by the high temperature. The smell of cat urine wafting from a litter box masked the odors of decomposition, blood, and gunpowder that he might otherwise have noticed. He looked to the right, where Jocelyn’s body lay, and saw what appeared to be an entry wound in her left temple and the gun on her right side. Something’s not right here, he immediately thought.

Mayhew was also concerned about the way she was dressed, with her keys just lying there. The victim looked as if she’d just come in, or was about to leave. Although her body didn’t appear posed, neither did he think it looked natural—it seemed to have been straightened, and he could tell her head had been moved at least three feet by the way her strands of hair appeared as if they were dragged through the blood and remained spread out on the carpet.

The investigators asked everyone on the scene if they had moved the body—none had. Mayhew did a walk-through of the house, snapping photos of each room from the perspective of three different corners. He kept his eyes open for evidence as he proceeded, pausing to collect and bag anything that seemed fragile. While doing so, he also sketched and took measurements of every room. Once the initial documentation was complete, Mayhew turned down the thermostat to a normal level and opened all the windows to cool the house down.

Mayhew and Babb went outside to talk to Maysa and Marcy, respectively. Like Jennifer Kerns, both of the women immediately mentioned Jocelyn’s estranged husband, Wesley Earnest. Both women had made plans with Jocelyn for Wednesday and Thursday nights. Both insisted that Jocelyn had not been seeing anyone. Jocelyn was happy, they said, and caught up in the Christmas spirit. She’d bought presents for everyone. While the detectives talked to the two friends and co-workers, neighbors milled around on the road in front of the home.

The forensic techs went to work inside, searching for anything that looked as if it could have any significance to the death. The house was ranch-style, with a full finished basement. The front door opened into a living room with a beautiful stone fireplace. The open floor plan wrapped around with a doorway to the dining area and then on to the kitchen. In between the kitchen and the living room was a guest bedroom. A deck stretched across the back of the house.

Going the other way from the front door again, they passed a bathroom on the right and a second guest bedroom on the left. Down the hallway from there was the master bedroom. In the basement there was another bedroom and an entertainment area, and there was a swimming pool in the backyard.

In the master bedroom, the techs secured an unopened LifeStyles ultra-sensitive ribbed condom—its presence reinforcing the statement about a “new love” in the note by the victim’s side. In the master closet, behind hanging clothes and underneath a fabric bag of softballs, they collected a very large box of assorted ammunition—.40 caliber shotgun shells, 12-, 20-, and 22-gauge shotgun shells and .40 caliber bullets—but none matched the .357 found lying on the body. In fact, they didn’t find any ammunition that fit that particular weapon anywhere in the house.

Among the more notable items found were several handwritten, spiral-bound journals authored by the victim. Their presence raised the question, since she’d written all those pages in longhand, why wouldn’t she have handwritten her suicide note, too?

In the craft room, investigators were greeted by holiday chaos: piles of wrapping paper, scissors, ribbons, and wrapped Christmas gifts. They recovered a box of condoms from the guest bedroom, and noted stray hairs and a small amount of blood in the basin and on the pedestal of the sink in the guest bathroom. The bathroom was otherwise dusty and a bit disheveled, as if rarely used and seldom cleaned.

Back in the living room, forensic expert Marjorie Harris pointed to Jocelyn’s body and told detectives that it appeared the victim’s head had landed in three distinct positions—tilted back and to the right, tilted forward and to the right, and ended up turned to the left. “If her head happened to bounce on the carpet, that might account for the changing positions but it doesn’t explain a couple of other things,” she told them.

“The pattern of the blood stains on her face, the way her hair is stretched and pinned under her head and the streak of blood across the floor all indicate a distinct possibility that someone dragged the victim’s body a couple of feet soon after she was shot.”

The detectives wanted to know if the deceased could have dragged her own body across that floor before she died, but they would have to wait for the autopsy report for an answer to that question. The investigators turned their attention to locating the fatal bullet, following possible trajectories for a shot traveling front to back, and looking for evidence in the floor, walls, and ceiling behind her.

With the arrival of Dr. Paul Lilly from the medical examiner’s office, however, they realized that they had been looking in all the wrong places for bullet fragments. Lilly noted that the shot had entered the back of Jocelyn’s head and exited in the front. They would return to search again using this new line of trajectory.

After his examination, Dr. Lilly ordered the removal of the body and its transport to the medical examiner’s office. With that accomplished, the techs then removed a section of stained carpet with its pattern of dried blood. Investigators and forensic personnel gathered everything that might be considered relevant in hopes of piecing together an answer to the big question: homicide or suicide? Was the suspicious nature of the scene mere coincidence? Or had a murder been staged to appear like a self-inflicted death? Detectives did not yet know with any certainty, but what they’d already observed made their instincts twitch.

•   •   •

After trying all day long, Investigator Babb finally reached Jocelyn’s estranged husband, Wesley Earnest, at 7 P.M. “Your wife has passed away, Mr. Earnest. I’d like to get with you if you could come in and talk to me.”

Without the slightest indication of surprise about the news, Wesley said, “I’ve been traveling and I’m tired. Could I come around nine tomorrow morning?”

Babb objected. “I’d really like to do it tonight.”

“I can’t do that,” Wesley insisted.

They agreed to a meeting in the morning. Wesley never asked how Jocelyn died. He did not have a single question about what happened.

•   •   •

Investigators Babb and Mayhew finally left the scene at Jocelyn’s home at 1 A.M. on Friday morning. They hoped the medical examiner’s postmortem examination of the deceased and the forensic evidence analysis would provide definitive answers to all their questions. They needed to know one way or another. Until those results were available, all they could do was interview and speculate. For now, it was simply a death investigation, and whether or not they would ever have someone to arrest and charge with a crime was unknown.

If it was a homicide, the three prime suspects would be Marcy Shepherd, the woman who found the body; Wesley Earnest, the estranged husband; and the “new love,” identity unknown.

THREE

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