M. William Phelps

She believed Schwartz was murdered with some sort of long, thin sword, more pirate-like than Conan the Barbarian.

It occurred to me that Schwartz's killer had entered into some sort of blackout rage, meaning there seemed to be a disassociation with the crime on some level.

I've investigated several of these murders, and the psychological framing is always the same.

The killer's intent jumps from murder to complete annihilation or, interesting here, punishment.

Locke was certain the wounds inflicted post-mortem were personal.

Still, the working theory was that a dark, fantastical individual or group, perhaps practicing witchcraft or Satanism, was involved.

One major fact investigators confirmed is that Schwartz had been interrupted.

Now they have a general timeline.

evening, somewhere near 7 or 8 p.m.

on Saturday, December 8th.

Detective DiBenedetto is back at home base, digging through finances and the paper trail to see if any patterns or information jump out.

Was Schwartz in financial trouble?

Did he somehow get himself involved in a bit of shady business that could have led to his murder?

Could he himself be part of a satanic group nobody knew about?

If there is one thing I have learned about murder investigations of this nature, include every possibility until you can exclude it.

So DiBenedetto began combing through Dr. Schwartz's credit card receipts and bank statements over the previous week to see if that information might tell a story.

For Greg Locke, after leaving the autopsy, like any old school police investigator, he next focused on the most obvious, Dr. Schwartz's friends, family, colleagues, and neighbors.

The chances that anyone in the neighborhood had seen anything were slim.

with the house being secluded, set so far back into the woods.

Being good neighbors and decent people, the couple invited the young guy in.