Bad Girls (46 page)

“The apartment was in disarray,” Sileo said later. “There were signs of a violent struggle.”

Indeed. The body of a young female was stretched out on the floor, her legs spread open, one leg propped up on a box, the other on the floor. There was blood all over, smears and smudges on the white tile underneath her body, the walls, the carpeting, heading toward the bathroom, on her jeans, on her bare feet. She was fully clothed, but her white shirt (a sweater) had been pulled up to her breasts (not sexually, but amid some sort of struggle for life). By her foot on the wood floor was a barbell, a ten-pound chunk of steel, essentially. Next to that was a plant, its dirt out of the pot, spread all around during the deadly skirmish. They found her adjacent to the stairs heading up to a second level inside the home and the front door. A laundry basket was tipped over, as were other pieces of furniture. There were boxes and everyday items found in any home scattered around as though there had been a terribly violent, extended scuffle. The smudges of blood on the floor told a story these officers were immediately familiar with: There had been a terrific fight
after
blood was present.

Another officer was
on his way to the scene when he heard a superior over the radio notify dispatch that BCI was needed at the Harbor Drive scene. The Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the officer knew, was called out only when there was serious trouble.

“We got a ten-one,” the superior announced over the radio.

And the officer knew:
10-1 equals homicide.

The troops were on their way. Scores of officers were then dispatched to the scene.

As the officer headed toward Harbor Drive himself, he was called off.

“We need you to head out to the Duchess Restaurant to secure a pay phone there,” dispatch intoned.

“Ten-four.”

Seemed like a strange request, but the officer shifted his destination and went on his way.

Back at the
Harbor Drive condo, it was immediately clear that the dead woman on the floor had been viciously attacked. No doubt about it. But what was also made clear by quickly analyzing the scene around the woman was that it had taken a while for her to be murdered. It wasn’t fast. The scuffle had started in one place and finished in another. She put up one heck of a fight, too. That was obvious in the way in which things were tossed around and blood was spattered and smudged all over. It wasn’t as if she had been murdered in the spot where an obvious argument took place. The fight—and that’s what this was, for certain—started in a place and went throughout the home and ended where she had been found, lying on the floor.

Officer Sileo, gun in hand, eyes roaming the condo, his colleague covering him, reached down and checked the victim for vital signs.

There were none.

The wounds appear fresh,
Sileo thought. The blood had not even had time to begin coagulation. Puddles of blood were shiny and wet.

Whatever had taken place inside this home had perhaps happened within the hour. A few hours, maybe.

The officers knew what to do next. They had been trained and had been in this circumstance before. The first thing an officer should do upon entering a residence with a dead body (DB) is clear the remainder of the home. Make sure there were no additional victims or a perp hiding out, waiting on them.

After a cursory search of the home, Sileo was confident they were alone with one victim.

Now, all Sileo and his colleague could do was seal off the front door, not allow anyone in, and greet the team of investigators on their way, and begin the process of finding out what in the name of God happened to this woman and, more important, who was responsible.

Robert “Bob” Dow’s mother, Lila Dow, was elderly and ailing when Bob started to spend time at her Mineral Wells, Texas, home in early 2004.

The rundown home that Bob Dow turned into a party house also served as a set for his amateur porn filming sessions. His videos featured underage girls, booze, drugs, and sex parties.

(Courtesy of the author)

This photo of Bob Dow was taken shortly before he was murdered at age 49.

This diagram shows the areas of the body where Bob Dow was shot on the night of May 4, 2005.

(Courtesy of the Mineral Wells Police Department)

The Baker Hotel was an iconic tourist destination in Mineral Wells, Texas, in its heyday. Celebrities and visitors came from around the world to enjoy the “healing water” baths on the top floor. Today, the hotel is rundown and nothing more than a memory of what Mineral Wells once was.
(Courtesy of Gerard Selby)

Before she became a party girl and realized she was a lesbian, Jennifer Jones was a child trying to find her place in the world.

(Courtesy of Melanie and Robert Brownigg)