I had been working homicide and was on-call that week. The house was a wreck. I remember having the thought that I spent more time with the dead between cases, autopsies, and exhuming bodies than I did with the living. My next call was on July 4th.
The victim was shot among 200 partygoers. She died, and people left her for hours until the party was over. She was shot several times; however, nobody seemed to know it because of the number of fireworks. Yes, we did GSR kits on 200 people…FML.
This case was just one of many that reinforced that people are miserable pieces of shit. There is a lady on the ground. Why are you dancing…trampling her body?
After I began the investigation, it took me to lots of unsavory places and topics, as investigations usually do. The outcome was the lady had HIV, and she was pregnant by a local drug dealer. He gave her HIV and killed her so nobody would know about the baby or the disease.
As a First Responder, the job taught me that there is life, the facade of life, and what everyone wants or thinks life should be. Nobody ever asked if you were OK. We drank, we got divorced, and people said we were salty. But nobody cared why…as long as the suspect was arrested, or in the morgue.
I hope if you are where I was, you reach out to someone like me who cares. You are not alone.
