Grim Discovery

"But to see her was to love her, love but her, and love forever."—Robert Burns.

Wednesday, October 21, 1992, 11:00 a.m.

There is a dark side to every city. Tucson is no exception. Annie Miles was well acquainted with Tucson's dark side. She had been homeless and on Tucson's streets for ten years now and there was no prospect of any change in the future. It was October and the weather in Tucson while still warmer than many other cities that had begun to become noticeably cooler. Annie was use to these changes. She wore most of the clothing she had. The rest was in the shopping cart she pushed.

Annie was fifty years old. She couldn't remember when she last celebrated her birthday. It was many years ago. Judging by her appearance, she could easily be mistaken for someone much older. Her years on the street had been difficult and they had taken their toll. Her lack of dental hygiene had resulted in most of her teeth going missing. The few teeth that remained were stained dark yellow and her gums were shockingly discolored. Adding to this disability was the fact that Annie smoked prodigiously and her lungs undoubtedly were permanently damaged. She had a deep, permanent cough.

It was surprising that she had lasted so long. Many of the people she originally knew on the street when she first became homeless were dead. Annie had a routine that probably contributed to her longevity. It was a routine that she had established because she knew when the best trash was being thrown out and she was the first on the scene. She wanted to rummage through the trash containers before her competition. She particularly liked to go through the garbage of restaurants on 4th Avenue. Often she found delicious morsels of food buried in the offal. Half a gourmet sandwich or a juicy piece of steak was a valuable find. Annie carried a knife not only to cut the meat into very small pieces, but for her protection. She had witnessed, on more than one occasion, what could happen to you on the streets of Tucson when you were homeless.

Now, she wasn't looking for food. She had already eaten at one of the better dumpsters on 4th Avenue. An omelet had been partially eaten by the customer and the rest was deposited in the garbage. Annie was on the hunt for other items. Once she found a diamond ring. She had no idea how it had found its way to the trash, but she was thrilled when the pawn broker gave her $200.00 for the ring. It was probably worth much more, but she couldn't turn down such a windfall. That money kept her out of the garbage for a month and she was able to eat fresh food. The trash often yielded liquor bottles with residue. When you pour five or six of them together, well it could be enough to help Annie forget about her life. There were always practical items as well. Pieces of soap were discovered and Annie knew where she could take the occasional bath. Towels, rags, blankets, and cast off shoes were also found in dumpsters. If she didn't need an item, she knew she might be able to trade with one of the other homeless people she knew. Some of them were actually Annie's only friends.

Annie pushed her cart from 4th Avenue toward the alley off of 7th Avenue. On either side of the alley were various businesses. You never knew what might be thrown away. Tarps, bags of various kinds, coffee grounds that could be reused, were but some of the treasures a good scrounger might find. Annie bragged to other homeless people that she was the best scrounger in Tucson. No one could dispute that. Annie took her time climbing into the large dumpsters which inhabited the alley. The first three dumpsters had little to offer. The occasional cigarette butt that still had remnants of tobacco, scraps of paper used to start a fire, and, of course, the aluminum cans that she could take to the recycling center and trade for money. The fourth dumpster at the south end of the alley was almost full. Annie climbed on top of the trash and she began to rummage through the refuse. She noticed a dark green plastic bag that appeared to contain something just below the top of the container. It was probably nothing, but Annie knew from long experience in the dumpster diving business you couldn't tell what the package might contain.

Annie unrolled the trash bag only to discover another trash bag. When she unrolled the second trash bag, a third bag presented. As she unrolled the third bag, she dropped the bag and its contents. Two human arms had appeared! Annie clambered off the trash bin, and ran around the building to the front of the small manufacturing company. She was going to do something she never considered doing before—She called the police.

The Homicide Detective

"God didn't promise days without pain, laughter without sorrow, sun without rain, but He did promise strength for the day, comfort for the tears, and light for the way."—Unknown

October 21, 1992, 12:30 pm

Homicide detective William Gather didn't like the smell of the alley. He had been on the job in Homicide for seven years, but the scene of this murder or any murder was something you never really got use to. Various odors of decaying vegetation and meat combined with the smell of chemicals that were used in various businesses that inhabited the area were saturating the air. He even thought he could smell the arms. A large area had been roped off using the yellow tape. Since pedestrians usually didn't come this way, there weren't many onlookers and so there was no need for a large police presence at the scene. William or Bill as he preferred to be called had already given out assignments to several of the detectives and to several uniformed officers. Low ranking officers had been given the unenviable task of searching area dumpsters to see if other body parts could be located. Businesses in the area needed to be canvassed to see if anyone had spotted someone putting something in the dumpster. One officer was assigned to determine when businesses put their trash into the offending dumpster and how much stuff had been placed there. Several officers were assigned to take everything from the arm's dumpster. These officers were suiting up in hazmat suits.

Bill looked at the arms still resting on the top of the trash. They were relatively small with limited musculature. Petite was a word that came to mind. On the left hand there was a small ruby-like ring on the index finger. The faux ruby was small and the gold in the ring probably no more than 10 carats. The fingers on the right hand had some material on them that looked like soot mixed with oil. Bill stood on his tiptoes to get a better look at the place where the arms had been removed from the rest of the body. Anatomy had never been Bill's strong suit, but he could see that the arms looked to have been removed just below the shoulder by something cutting through the humorous. A lazy fly bussed around the wounds looking for a place to land. The heavy bleeding had taken place somewhere else.

Morris Ivory, another homicide detective, called over to Bill. Morris was a wiry guy who ate constantly but never put on a pound. Behind his back people called him the humming bird. Morris was always on the move and he probably would have been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, if anyone had cared when he was growing up. "I got the missing persons list," he said. "Two girls went missing four days ago," he added. Bill walked over to Morris and retrieved the list.

Every year...