M. William Phelps

She counted 27 stab wounds to his torso, along with several additional stab wounds, some superficial, some penetrating the skin an inch or more, others all the way through his body.

Just as they had thought back at the crime scene, many of those stab wounds going all the way through Schwartz's body were inflicted when he was not moving and did not have blood pressure, Revercombe confirmed.

This was significant.

Schwartz's killer repeatedly stabbed the guy when they didn't have to.

So Schwartz was on the floor, face down, not moving, his killer standing over him, jabbing the weapon into him over and over in a sordid, murderous frenzy.

Overkill.

The pathologist then saw a possible pattern.

There were three particular wounds in a group on Schwartz's upper left back, very close in space, that appeared to be in the shape of a three-leaf clover.

The suggestion was that these three wounds had a ritualistic sensibility about them or were inflicted for a purpose other than to cause pain and death.

Then one other point Reverend Cone made was the weapon.

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.