Project Title
At about 2:30 in the morning of September 20, 2014, Detective James Reid called in for assistance in processing a possible murder case in No. 306, White Ridge Apartments, located in the corner of Strange Valley and Liberty Streets. The undersigned investigator arrived at the scene approximately 20 minutes later.
No. 306, White Ridge Apartments is a single bedroom apartment and its current occupant was identified by the building management as Chuck Matthis, a single, white male working as IT technician at the Silver-Toned Company. The light at the lobby to the apartment was busted and the main door of the apartment was unlocked when the first responders to the scene arrived. The condition of the knob indicated that it was forced open. The door opened to the unit’s living room and to the left is the kitchen. A door to the right leads to the single bedroom in the unit, which was the primary crime scene of the incident.
The bedroom was a small 12 m by 12 m lit by two desk lampshades – the green one sitting on top of a bedside table across the entrance door and the red one perched atop large table with drawers leaning on the eastern wall from the perspective of the bedroom door. There were actually four tables in the bedroom arranged around a bed standing in the middle of the room its headboard resting on the north wall. To the left of bed was a two-drawer bedside table and on top of it were the green lampshade, a cellphone and a digital clock. There was no indication from the position of the three items that a struggle had taken place in this part of the room.
At the top right corner of the room was a study table with neatly arranged sheets on top. A chair was also neatly pushed to the table’s edge. The eastern wall had two windows located at the extreme side of the wall and the large table with drawers where the red lampshade sat had a width that began from the center of one window and ended at the center of the other occupying more than half of the length of the wall. Aside from the red lampshade, a portable other items were also on top, such as a portable audio system, a couple of brushes and other personal items. There was also no indication by the position of these items and the closed drawers that a struggle took place in this part of the bedroom. Another table was also standing on the southern wall to the left of the bedroom door. A television and some sheets were on top of it. The television was facing slightly to the right. A trash bin was standing on the left side of the table and it contained some crumpled papers and cigarette butts. Although the items here were not so neatly arranged it was unlikely that a struggle took place in this part of the room.
In the center of the western side of the room was a door that led to the bathroom. This door was framed by two closets on either side. The closets contained hanged shirts and pants, shoe racks and other personal items. All items were neatly hanged and stacked and there was no indication that someone went through the items hurriedly and left things in a disarray.
The victim identified as Chuck Matthis was lying on top of the bed near to the left on his stomach. He was wearing a blue shirt and green pants with a belt, but had no shoes. His head, which was facing the left side, rested on a pillow. His right hand was tucked under his belly while his left hand was partly stretched to rest on the left side of the pillow. He had a single gunshot wound to his left head at the top of the brow and blood can be seen spattered on the pillow. Stippling was found in the victim’s skin surrounding the entry wound indicating a close range shot. The pillow had blood spatter and stain where the victim’s head rested. Lying on the floor to the left of the bed and near the bedside table with the green lamp was a shotgun, about 26 inches in length, with half of its barrel and its entire muzzle covered with a pillow. The pillow had a soot-ringed mark on one side and a blood-stained tear at the other side where a polyester pillow-fill material protruded out of the pillow.
Conclusion and Analysis
The evidence revealed and gathered in the crime scene point to a potential murder case. This can be inferred from the unlocked condition of the main door with signs of the knob being forced open. Although there was no indication of struggle, this can be explained by the fact that the victim was soundly sleeping after ingesting alcohol - as evidenced from result of the blood analysis conducted by the medical examiner’s office - when the perpetrator forced his way in to the apartment. The position of the deceased at the time of death lying on his stomach with his left arm raised at the level of his head and the other hand tucked under his belly, the use of the pillow, the location of the blood spatter and stain – all exclusively found on the pillow where the deceased’s head rested are incompatible with a self-inflicted death.
Follow up investigations were conducted and are still being pursued to determine the perpetrator of the crime. An interview of the other tenants in the building, especially those located on the same floor as the deceased, has been commenced. The activities of the deceased, especially immediately before the occurrence of the incident, are being traced and his close friends and associates have been tracked down and interviewed one by one. The follow-up investigation revealed so far that at the night of the incident the deceased had a drink in a local pub with some of his friends. The last person to see him was his friend Ted Dandy who took him to his apartment as the condition of victim precluded him from driving. The shotgun belonged to a man named Rex Beard who had reported it stolen about six months ago. A background check of the victim revealed that he was a gambler and was heavily indebted to Lambert Young and Yung Hai, both of which have criminal backgrounds. Investigations are still being pursued to validate and confirm the alibis of the suspects.
