The bodies came special delivery. Each was wrapped in butcher paper with sparkly pink ribbon. We traced the ribbon to a dollar store in Brookline. The paper was impossible to trace, although from the residue we could tell it had once held animal products (mostly pork, although on some samples we found lamb, beef, and chicken). When the bodies arrived they were placed carefully, as though the gifter had a loving touch.
The first was delivered directly to my front door. I don’t know how the gifter found my home address. My personal information wasn’t available to the public. It would have made more sense to drop the body where I worked, as I was a forensic autopsy technician. I wasn’t well known, even though Boston is a high profile city to work in. I’d been at that position for five years.
The gift was waiting for me on the porch in the morning. I recognized the shape immediately as a body. It wasn’t hard to distinguish, considering the corpse was intact. The brown paper was covered in a fine dusting of dew. None of the neighbors saw anyone drop it off. It just appeared there, shockingly tranquil except the sparkly ribbon.
The police collected all the evidence they could, although there wasn’t much. No fingerprints on the body, despite its obvious damage. Whoever the gifter was, he did a good job covering his tracks.
I was used to death. I dealt with corpses every day. But this gift left me extremely uncomfortable. Maybe it was because it was delivered to me personally. Like it was meant for me. I tried to separate my emotions from the job, but for the first time in my career it was nearly impossible.
The body itself was of a white woman, probably in her mid 40’s. I estimated her time of death to be just three hours before I found her. 1She was extremely malnourished. Her skin was covered in knife wounds. The cuts were seemingly random and shallow. There was muscle damage around her neck. Her hands were bruised. There was no sign of sexual assault. I assessed that she had been kept captive somewhere for probably a matter of years, most likely denied food and sunlight. There were also indications that at least some of the knife cuts were self-inflicted. Cause of death – suffocation.
As gruesome as this sounds, it’s actually not that bad. Working in Boston had allowed me to see some absolutely horrific crimes. This body was hurt, definitely, but she remained intact. Better than the man they fished out of the Charles in eight separate duffle bags.
We never could identify her. She wasn’t from Boston or the surrounding areas. She was an average looking white female – there are thousands of missing people exactly like her. For the purposes of the investigation we called her Jane X.
Jane X was the first. The next we called Jane Y. She was propped up in my car after work. I had already driven half way home before I heard something slide down in the backseat. I nearly crashed my car when I saw the gift. She was wrapped exactly the way Jane X had been, with the same ribbon and butcher paper. The police tore apart the car but found no fingerprints again – not even a stray hair.
Jane Y was in similar condition to the first corpse. We laid Jane X and Jane Y next to each other for comparison. Although Jane Y had the same shallow knife cuts, they were in different places and showed no pattern. Both women had bruising on their necks and hands. Neither had been sexually assaulted. Jane Y was darker, perhaps Latina or Native American. She had longer hair and was most likely in her early 30’s. And finally, same cause of death. Suffocation.
No one could understand why these ‘presents’ were given to me. I had no enemies or anyone who might want to hurt me. I had no connection to either victim. I had worked on criminal cases, obviously, but was not responsible for any specific person going to jail. The FBI vetted all my friends. I didn’t have any family (my mother died when I was young and my father died recently).
A week went by and a small part of my hoped that was the end of it. But of course, that was naïve.
Jane Z was waiting for me in my apartment. I had no sooner stepped into the living room than I saw the brown paper. Nothing was out of place and the door was locked when I got home. She was positioned lovingly on the carpet. I called the FBI as soon as I spotted her but stopped mid-sentence. The paper was rustling.
I ran to the body and tore open the packaging. I saw her throat bulge. I pressed my hands to her chest to give her CPR, but soon realized it couldn’t be breath that was coming out of her. She was already in rigamortis. With shock I stumbled backward. Her throat pulsed and then her cheeks moved. Suddenly an orange hamster slipped from between her lips and started shrieking. It dashed away from me and hid somewhere. The body’s mouth was left open from where the rodent escaped.
The FBI found the hamster and tried to see if there were any human hairs in its fur, but came up empty. They again found no fingerprints on the corpse. I was visibly shaken so they offered to take me off the case, but by this time I was too involved. Someone was targeting me and I needed to know why.
Jane Z was laid out beside her two counterparts. Unlike the other two, Jane Z was Black. But otherwise she had similar knife wounds and damage to her body. The hamster could not have survived long inside a corpse, so I estimated that it was put there post-mortem. Most likely the body had been wrapped in my living room right before I arrived. The thought of this maniac in my home made my blood cold.
We now had three women, all unidentified, murdered in a grisly fashion for seemingly no reason. Serial killers typically have a type. It is rare for them to kill people of multiple ages and races. Clearly the killer was targeting women. Other than that we had nothing. One profiler said he was most likely of low intelligence, and selected any women he could easily overtake. Another said he was most likely college educated and picked women who stood for different people in his life. I am no profiler, but to me this just looked insane.
No one was quite prepared for Jane A.
Unlike the others, I didn’t find her. She was delivered to the local fire station. It was about three blocks from my house. No one saw who put her there. The firefighters were out on a call and came back to the large brown paper package in their driveway. They called the bomb squad first, which made the most sense to them. When they arrive they found a body in the bundle. One of the officers had been briefed about our situation with the deliveries. He called the FBI, who called me.
It was in the middle of the night. I groggily reached for my phone. The voice of the FBI agent woke me up fast. He said they found another body, but this one was different.
I sputtered, not sure what to make of it. Why did they even call me? I was a specialist on dead bodies, not live ones. I asked them what I could do to help. The agent on the phone paused for a second. The next words he said are burned in my brain.
“She says she will only speak to the bitty birthday boy.”
I nearly dropped the phone. ‘Bitty birthday boy’ is what my mother used to call me on my birthday. She’d even write “BBB” on my cake. She died when I was six. I hadn’t heard that phrase in over twenty years.
I met the agent downtown and he went over what was going to happen next. Jane A, who refused to identify herself, was currently in the hospital being treated for her injuries. She was uncooperative. Despite her grievous wounds all she did was repeat, “I need to speak to the bitty birthday boy. Bring me the bitty birthday boy.” If a doctor tried to approach her she would hurt herself or others. Currently she was strapped to a hospital bed, for her own protection.
I was to go in alone, but the door would remain open and FBI agents would be listening. I was supposed to try and get her to talk. I had never done this before. The agent told me to picture it like a dead body who could tell the story of how it died. This was not helpful.
When I got to her room the lights were dim. A flurry of doctors and nurses waited by the door. They had managed to hook her up to some fluids and put a gown on her. Otherwise she was exactly as they found her. I was warned it was a disturbing sight. With a deep breath I went in to meet Jane A.
