A Dallas Suite

Chapter Twenty Seven

We responded in code, with full lights and sirens activated. Sean Richards was the radio host of Richards Talks About It, an incredibly popular morning radio station that probably generated more daily listeners than any other show did in Texas over a weeks time.

Richards was also the founder of multiple charities, on local and national levels. He was born into wealth and only added to his bank account as he got older.

He was as much of a local celebrity as you could be. Including his hundreds of thousands of followers on social media, he was also made dozens of television appearances a year. Everyone in the city knew who he was. I even followed him on social media. I remembered seeing all of his happy pictures including his wife and kids. He seemed like the perfect family man.

I was silently praying as we pulled up to the crime scene that we wouldn't find him with a slit throat and multiple stab wounds. I didn't want to believe that such a seemingly great man would be involved in any of this.

Working a murder crime scene is a task all on it's own. Put it smack dab in the middle of a busy street, it gets vastly more difficult. Now take that same scene on the busy street and allow the public and reporters to find the body before the police, you find yourself on the brink of impossibility.

There was only a handful of uniformed officers on scene when we arrived. Moore was out of the car before I had it in park.

"Anyone who doesn't have a badge needs to get the fuck back!" He grabbed the closest officer by his shirt sleeve and yanked him in close, "get these people back at least 100 feet and do it now!" People didn't argue with Moore when he gave orders. In large cities like this with so many different districts and departments, officers could retire without knowing the guy who worked a few streets over for 20 years alongside them. Very few people were recognized by everyone. Moore was one of those people. When he gave orders, he got results.

The officers started to gently push back the civilians and began forming a perimeter around the scene. More officers were pulling in to help out. It didn't take long to get the scene cleared so we could start our job.

I didn't even have to look at the body as I approached Richards to know what I was going to see. The giant of puddle around it gave it away immediately. You just don't get a pool of blood like that unless you bleed out from your carotid arteries and have multiple holes from a sharp knife in you body.