THE BODY

Epilogue

Most cases, if worked well by an investigator, will never be heard from again. There will be no trial and no story in the newspaper. The family of the victim will be forgotten and the suspect will disappear into the prison system.

The exception to this is a murder case, especially Capital Murder cases. In most states these cases have mandatory appeals which will drag the case on for years. It will cost millions of dollars and the suspect will still die in jail and the victim will not come back to life.

Murders don't just end in the death of the victim. Often the family dies also in every way that is important. This is true for both the family of the victim and the family of the suspect. No one ever expects to raise someone to die horribly in a murder, nor do most parents ever raise a son or daughter with the expectation that they will someday become killers.

This case was both those things. The family of the victim and the murderer were the same. There are no words that.

In the end the case did not go to trial. For a few weeks the family hung on to the hope that I was wrong. That I had lied and somehow forced Jose to say things that he did not do. Jose's wife went to the DA's office and swore out an affidavit that I had told her in secret that I thought Jose didn't do it. That I had told her I made the whole thing up.

Exactly 8 months after the arrest Jose plead out to 55 years in prison. By then all his family had already abandoned him. I don't know what happened to him after that.

A year or so later I drove into Jo Ana's neighborhood and drove by her house. There was a different mobile home there now. Some other family lived there. The only thing I recognized were the two cement pools in the ground in the front yard where Jose used to keep his tropical fish. The new tenants had made them into small flower gardens. I don't know where Jo Ana's family moved to.

Some time later after that I assisted another agency that had gotten a tip that a murder victim had been dumped along the canals on the outskirts of our city limits. I found myself walking along the same canal where we had found Jo Ana. This time I was along the opposite bank with several officers looking for another body. I searched the bank across the canal with my binoculars and located the tree with the cross that Jose had carved into the trunk. It was barely visible now. Some day it would be gone completely.