August 12, 2018
Riverborn Police Precinct
Homicide Detective Turner's POV
"Let's get this day started." I sighed deeply, walking into my dark office. It was six in the morning and I was one of the first ones to arrive. I loved it! It gave me a chance to prepare for the day and take glance over my cases before I went out on the street to gather more evidence and talk to more witnesses. I expected my partner to be arriving in the next thirty minutes, hungover from the night before. So, I decided to walk down to the staff lounge and brew the morning coffee for the team. Something that became a routine since I joined the Criminal Investigation Unit eight years ago.
For the past 2-3 days, the Chief of Police had every officer available, searching for the killer of Homicide Detectives Crawford and Grayson.
I've heard a few officers make comments on what they would do if they found the killer. Personally, I just want to put the individual away and be done with it. Beating on criminals doesn't excite me. Seeing them being put away for the rest of their life does.
The community on the other hand, is in an uproar and wants justice for the Baron Twins, both murdered senseless within days of each other and this comes months after triple murder of the students from John Hill High School and earlier this year, there was a drive by shooting that left one teen dead in a car.
Kids are dying and people want to know why.
That's where my partner and I come in.
I headed back to my desk and took a seat to review the uncensored and full cellphone video of the shooting.
"Alright, let's see what we got here?" I pressed my finger on the mouse to click the play button. I reached for my coffee and took a small sip and placed it back in its place.
The cellphone video started off all over the place. "Oh my God!" I complained. "I hope it's not going to be like this during the thing." Finally, the witness was able to control the phone and focus the camera on what was happening at the park across the street from them. I can see Brycen holding a young female teen hostage, she had to be at least sixteen years of age. I jot down my observation and continue watching. Brycen removed the blindfold and revealed her full face. I quickly zoomed in and paused the video to take a quick screenshot and had it printed out. I scrolled over to the older male suspect and took a pause. His face was familiar to me. The third suspect in the video, had his back facing the camera. A few moments later, gunshots were heard coming from another direction. The witness ducked for cover and waited a few seconds before standing back up to finish recording. It seemed like that days of people calling for help first were coming to an end.
The witness refocused the camera and zoomed in. Brycen and the older suspect were getting into a verbal altercation. You couldn't have prepared me for the next thing I saw. I watched Brycen's body drop to the ground. The female teen watched in horror while the older suspect stood with his gun still drawn at the boy's lifeless body debating if he was going to shoot again. The third suspect prepared to get up but dropped back down to the ground immediately. Again, gun shots were heard this time a little closer. The witness tried turning getting a view of the shooter but was blocked by neighboring trees.
"Shit. Shit. Shit." The witness panicked in the video. He turned the camera back to the field and it showed the older suspect holding his arm and running into the woods. The third suspect ran to the young female and consoled her. It was evident that they had some relationship with one another. The young girl was distraught, trying to get up and run after the older suspect but he stopped her. She then drew her gun and pointed, not at the third suspect but at unknown man dressed in all black. His back was facing the camera as he casually walked through the field with a gun in his hand.
This was major.
We had fourth suspect, and he could possibly be responsible for killing Crawford and Grayson?
Just like the others, I printed his picture to add to the crime map I was making. For me to solve my cases, I need to visually see what I was working with.
I rose from the chair and gathered the laminated images from off the printer and began flipping through the images until I came across the first one with the young female teen. I needed to find out who she was.
6:30am on the dot, my partner, LT. Samson strolled into our shared office with dark shades covering his eyes. He placed his belongings on his lounge chair and waved, "Morning, Turner. Of course, you're here already." He removed the shades from his dark brown eyes.
"You know me, early bird gets the worm." I commented before taking a sip of my coffee. "Long night?" I asked observing him retrieving a bottle of Tylenol from out his desk.
"Yup, a couple of the guys wanted to get drinks in remembrance of Crawford and Grayson. I think I had one too many." He plopped down in his desk chair. "Please tell me you brewed your famous Joe." He rubbed his face into his hands, attempting to wake up.
I tiled my head sideways and gave him a smile and replied, "You've been my partner for how many years?" I chuckled softly shaking my head. "It should be ready by now."
"You're the best." He staggered to get up and walk out the office towards the staff lounge.
After all these years working together, it was never a dull moment between us two. When I first joined Riverborn Police Department, I wasn't welcomed by most of the men. To them, this was a man's world. A woman had no business fighting criminals and solving crimes. Not Samson though, He welcomed me with open arms, he was excited about having a female partner but not in the creepy way. Samson respected me. He allowed me to lead when it was necessary, and my background spoke for me at the end of the day. I joined the Chicago Police Department when it was twenty years old, quickly moved up in ranks over the years. After becoming a detective, I transferred to Riverborn for a better opportunity. Samson has been with RPD since the late 90s, he has seen a few traumatizing things on the job. He was a good-looking guy, real smart and funny but his downfall was that he always chose his career first.
He shortly returned to the office moments later, savoring the hot drink. "Thank you so much."
"No problem. You got any information on Samuel and Brycen Baron ?" I asked from across the room.
He grabbed a folder off his desk and walked over to hand it to me. "Them two were double- trouble together."
I opened the file as he took a seat in front of my desk and began reading.
"Samuel and Brycen Baron were born on August 21, 1999 to a Kandace Baron. The father is listed as unknown. Child Protective Services were called on Kandace multiple times from 2002 until 2004 by her mother, but the investigators never found anything wrong when they visited the house."
I jotted Kandace's name down on my notepad and continued.
"On August 4, 2010, they were arrested for a Breaking and Entering."
"A BNE? They were only eleven." Samson chuckled. "These kids getting wilder by the day."
"Eleven and... they had guts to break in the house belonging to the late Dominic Kane. You remember him, don't you?" I looked up to see his reaction.
"The Frank Lucas of Riverborn." Samson huffed, "Of course. I didn't sleep for weeks working that damn murder case." He tried not to reminisce. "And to make matters worse the shit is still unsolved." He shook his head disappointed.
The murder of Riverborn's biggest drug dealer since Papa Brown resulted in countless drug wars and law enforcement working over-time to keep the streets safe. Dominic's operations ultimately collapsed, and his rivals began killing each other to be the next HNIC of Riverborn. I remember working sleepless nights trying to help solve that case but came up with only a few pieces of evidence that led to dead ends.
The case went cold and I, divorced.
"What did they steal in Mr. Kane's house?" He wondered.
"Nothing. They didn't have a chance to apparently. The report states, a 911 call was made around 10:45 in the evening about a break-in. Two officers arrived at the home around 11PM and found Dominic, Samuel and Brycen standing on the front porch of the home. The boys were shaken but not harmed. The responding officers asked him did he want to pray charges and he responded no."
"That's shocking. You don't want to know how many stories I've heard about Dominic making an example out of people for less."
"Instead, he told the officers to take them home. There's another report a few years later from June 16, 2015. Sam and Brycen were pulled over for driving with a broken taillight. Officers smelled marijuana upon walking up and called for assistance. After checking the license and registration. They asked them to step out of the car so it could be searched. They found paraphernalia in the ashtray and two pounds of marijuana saran-wrapped in the trunk of the 2013 Chevy Malibu. Officer Hamilton searched the DMV and found that the vehicle is registered to a Tonya Hendrix."
"Who is that?"
"Don't know." I answered adding the name. "But maybe she can tell us more about who Sam and Brycen was, along with their mother, Kandace."
I scanned through the rest of the report and read, "They were arrested and given a fifty-thousand-dollar bond each."
Samson whistled from hearing the large number. "A hundred grand? Did they make bail?"
"A woman by the name of Grace Morgan posted their bail three hours later and paid cash. A court date was set for the following month and... You won't believe this." I laughed. "They got off and the officers who arrested them got fired. Apparently, it came out that they were taking bribes."
"That's why Hamilton and Michaelson got fired?" He responded shocked. "Hell nah."
As more of my colleagues arrived to work. I ran background checks on their mother and Tonya. It was noted in Kandace's background that she had a troubled past with drugs. She was arrested a few times for drug possession and agreed to do a few months of rehab and two years of probation to avoid jail time. Tonya's record was squeaky clean. Not even a traffic ticket was in her name, but sadly she had passed away in the fall in 2014 from a heart attack.
"Tonya Hendrix is a no go." I said never taking my eyes off the computer screen.
"Why is that?" Samson asked from his desk.
"She died in 2014 from a heart attack."
He then asked, "Is Kandace still alive?"
"Yeah, I have her address." I waved the piece of paper in the air, "You want to go give her visit? It's almost 7:30AM I'm sure she's home."
"Sure, why not."
Samson retrieved his suit jacket off the hanger, and I grabbed my Gucci shades off the desk and followed him out the door, closing it behind us.
We arrived at the home of Kandace Baron around 8:30AM, the front lawn of the home had towering grass and weeds everywhere. The home itself needed some major repairs on the porch and roof. I grabbed the file from out my briefcase and stepped out the car. The porch stairs were partially collapsed and required skipping a few to make it to the top.
Samson knocked on the front door first and yelled, "Riverborn Police Department."
I placed my right hand on my service weapon and checked behind us to make sure nobody caught us off guard.
Samson knocked on the door again and repeated, "Riverborn Police Department."
Seconds later, the front door opened slightly, releasing a foul stench from within the home. As much as I wanted to cover my nose, I kept it professional. "Hi." I greeted with a welcoming smile.
"What do you want?" Says the woman inside the house. We could only see part of her face due to the door still being chain locked.
I stepped a little closer and asked, "Are you Kandace Baron?" Trying not to take into too much of the stench.
"Who wants to know?"
"I'm Lt. Turner and this is my partner, Lt. Samson. We have a few questions regarding Samuel Baron and Brycen Baron."
Kandace looked at us both hesitantly and then shut the door. The sound of the chain lock coming undone came next and she reopened her door and stepped out of the house. "I'll talk to you outside." She walked over to a wooden chair and took a seat. What I expected to see is not what I saw. Kandace was frail woman in her forties but appeared to be twenty years older. Her dark hair was not combed and becoming matted. The drug use had taken its toll on her skin, dark circles surrounded her eyes, and she couldn't stop from fidgeting with the random string on her robe. The smell of Alcohol spilled from her pores and the stench in the house had sunken into her clothes.
"I saw the news. I know they're dead." She closed her robe and folded her arms in front of her chest.
I took out my notepad and began jotting down notes, "When was the last time you had seen Samuel and Brycen?"
"The last time I saw my sons were a year ago, before that it was the day, I gave them away to their father."
"Tell us about the visit from last year?" Samson asked, with his pen in his hand, ready to write down everything she'll say.
She took a deep breath, "Wasn't much of a visit. They came over here to tell me how much of an ain't shit mother I was and that I'm going to rot in hell for giving them up to a monster."
"And you said you gave them to their father?"
"Yes."
"And his name is?"
"Rakim Hendrix but he goes by Rocko."
We both wrote down the name in our notepads.
Suddenly it finally clicked in my head. I met Rocko a few years prior leaving the hair salon. He worked at a Nike store next door and was on his lunch break when he saw me and introduced himself. He asked for my number and I respectfully declined, and he didn't like that. Red flag. I told him that I just got out of a marriage and I wasn't looking for anything. He insisted that to take me on a date and again I respectfully declined. I told him to have a good day and kept it pushing. I was good a reading people, a reason behind why I became a criminal investigator and something about Rocko wasn't right. Now, to see what has unfolded two years later. I'm glad I made the right choice in walking away. He was a murdered and not only that he murdered Brycen, his son. It made me wonder, did he murder his other son as well? I debated on telling Kandace that Rocko might be responsible for the deaths of her sons but from her cold demeaner, she probably wouldn't have cared.
" I have a photo; can you confirm if it's Rocko?"
"Sure."
I reached into the folder and pulled out the photo of Rocko and handed it to her. She stared at it for moment before saying, "Yeah, that's him. I recognize those ears from anywhere." She handed it back to me.
"Why did you give up your sons in the first place?" Samson questioned.
She looked him dead in the eyes and said coldly, "To be honest, I didn't want them. I never wanted children in the first place. When I got pregnant with them, I was devasted." She stopped and paused. "I took my birth control faithfully." She stressed, "And then one day, I noticed I haven't gotten my period. I been so busy working to notice. I immediately drove to the drugstore and bought a pregnancy. I later found out that I was two months pregnant with twins. I had the doctor check three times to make sure they were seeing shit right. I could've gotten an abortion like most of the girls during that time but personally I couldn't lay there and let someone suck a baby out of me. So, for the next seven months I prepared on becoming a mother. It wasn't until after they were born when things went downhill."
I asked, "In what way?"
"Nobody really told me about this thing called Post-Partum Depression and I had it bad! Everything made me either sad or mad. Their cries pierced my ears to the point I thought they were going to bleed." She confessed. "If it wasn't for my mother, they would've left this earth years ago and ya'll wouldn't be at my front doorstep asking me about some kids I didn't care for."
Samson and I made eye contact towards the comment and kept listening. This woman seriously had some issues.
"After my mother died in 2004, I couldn't control them anymore. They were constantly running around all over the place. Knocking shit over and breaking it. They had broken my glass table that costed thousands of dollars from wrestling. That's how Sammy got that scar across his face." She showed where the scar started and ended on hers. I called their father after Sammy came back home from the hospital and threatened that I would kill them both if he didn't come get them in the next five minutes. Two minutes later, he was at my doorstep banging on my door."
"So, did your life get better after giving away your kids?" Samson asked nonchalantly.
Really, Dude?
She replied with an attitude, "Look around, does it look like my life got better? Now, if you don't need anything else. I will be going back inside." She got up from the chair.
"That will be all. If you have any questions or hear anything, please don't hesitate to call." I handed her my business card and concluded our interview.
Samson helped me down the damaged stairs and we returned to the car. "So, a mother who never wanted them in the first place gave them up to their father who ended up killing them or at least one of them."
"Some fucked up shit, ain't it?"