UNAIRED VIDEO FOOTAGE
The Marcus Colton Experience - Charlie Stine Investigation
Date: July 25, 2017
Location: Memphis Police Department - Cold Case Division
Interview Subjects: Officer Dwayne Williams (Keisha’s cousin), Detective Ray Morrison
[TIMESTAMP: 00:00:00]
[Interior: Sparse interview room. NANCY behind camera. MARCUS, JACKSON, OFFICER WILLIAMS, and DETECTIVE MORRISON seated at metal table]
Marcus: Detective Morrison, we appreciate you taking the time. Officer Williams said you worked the Terrell Washington case back in ‘06?
Det. Morrison: [Heavy sigh] October 2006. Yeah, I caught that one. Still think about it. Kid was seventeen.
Officer Williams: Terrell was a year ahead of me at Broward. Coolest damn kid you ever saw. We all wanted to be him. Dude could ball too. He could’ve gone D1 with his game.
Marcus: Can you tell us about the case?
Det. Morrison: [Opens file] Found him in a dumpster behind the Piggly Wiggly on Third Street. Dismembered. Whoever did it... took their time. Sloppy work though. Not professional.
[TIMESTAMP: 00:02:15]
Jackson: [Quietly] Sloppy how?
Det. Morrison: Hesitation marks. Multiple attempts at the joints. Like they were learning as they went. Took ‘em probably four, five hours based on blood coagulation. Small cuts. Weak cuts. Like someone without the strength to cut through bone clean.
Nancy [off-camera]: Jesus.
Det. Morrison: Here’s what always stuck with me—middle finger, left hand. Gone. Clean cut, unlike the rest. Like they took their time with just that one piece.
Marcus: A trophy?
Det. Morrison: That’s what I figured. Never found it.
[TIMESTAMP: 00:04:38]
Officer Williams: Tell them about Mr. Park.
Det. Morrison: [Flips through papers] February 2007. Geoffrey Park, 52, owned the Gas-N-Go on Poplar. Same thing. Dismembered, only he was left in the freezer of his own store. Middle finger, left hand—gone.
Jackson: [Tense] Same signature. Not to nitpick, but why not call in the FBI. This all sounds like something out of a serial killer movie.
Det. Morrison: [Uncomfortable]. We did. But their investigation took a wildly different turn. Terrell’s murder got passed off as just another day in Memphrica. That’s what I heard one of them feds call us.
Officer Williams: Racist ass mother fuckers.
Det. Morrison: I know that’s right. They wanted to dig into Park. After what we found in his house…
Marcus: What was it?
Det. Morrison: [Uncomfortable] Homemade videos. Illegal stuff. Animals. Kids too. I mean… nothing done to the kids on the video but they were in the room while… [gags] anyway…
Officer Williams: [To Jackson and Marcus] Nobody pushed too hard for justice after that came out. Family wanted it quiet. Community was glad he was gone. And the feds were looking into connections on his computer. Other freaks.
[TIMESTAMP: 00:07:22]
Marcus: Any hint of what Park was up to before that? Any complaints?
Det. Morrison: Hell nah. If anyone knew… Shit, even them boys who do the dog fighting wouldn’t have stood for that. We certainly wouldn’t have. We’d have put him under the jail.
Marcus: Well obviously someone didn’t like him. But no way to tell if this was the motive? [Shakes head]. Based on the crime scene and the body, any possibility the perpetrator might be female?
Det. Morrison: [Laughs grimly] You know what? Yeah. The bodies were dragged, not carried. The cuts showed someone struggling with the physical work. Plus the missing fingers—that’s intimate. Personal. Not typical male violence. Female serial killers are rare, but they out there.
Jackson: Any suspects?
Det. Morrison: In that neighborhood? 2006? We looked at gang members, drug dealers. Never occurred to us to look at... [shakes head] We figured strong kid like Terrell, had to be a grown man took him down. But if someone got him by surprise...
[TIMESTAMP: 00:09:44]
Officer Williams: My cousin Keisha mentioned y’all were asking about Crystal Barnett?
Det. Morrison: [Sharpens] The white girl from the trailer park?
Marcus: [Leans forward] You knew her?
Det. Morrison: [Long pause] Not too many white folks in this part of town. Then or now. And she was... odd. Real odd.
Jackson: Odd how?
Det. Morrison: Hung around death scenes when we’d respond to the trailer park. Suicides, ODs. Just watching. Taking it in. Prone to being too touchy too. I was a young man back then and if I say so, I looked damn fine in my uniform. She let me know she noticed. Unsettling is what she was.
[TIMESTAMP: 00:11:33]
[Marcus and Jackson exchange looks]
Marcus: You ever arrest her for anything? Or give her a warning?
Det Morrison: Nope. She was a weirdo but didn’t get into trouble. Not once.
Marcus: After Mr. Park, was there ever another case? Something you thought was the same killed?
Det. Morrison: [Closes file] Sort of. In 2012. Same neighborhood. But it was a single stab wound to the gut, no dismemberment. Except for that same missing finger. Could be a coincidence.
Officer Williams: I remember that. Homeless guy. Only reason anyone cared at all was because he’d been bothering folks. People were glad to have him gone, sad as that is to say.
[TIMESTAMP: 00:12:45]
Det. Morrison: So why focus on Crystal in all this? You think this girl... at seventeen years old...
Marcus: We’re just gathering information.
Det. Morrison: [Stands] Well, good luck with that. But if you’re right... [shakes head] Keep me posted if you turn anything else up. It would be a feather in my cap to close a cold double murder.
[End of interview footage]
[TIMESTAMP: 00:15:22] [Exterior: Police parking lot]
Marcus: [To camera] Two confirmed victims. Same signature—missing left middle finger. Both murders showing signs of an inexperienced but determined killer.
Jackson: [Off-camera] Park was into bestiality and the feds opened an investigation. Maybe human trafficking? If Crystal was already... if someone was making her...
Marcus: We don’t know that yet.
Jackson: But it fits. A seventeen-year-old girl doesn’t just start dismembering people. Something happened to her first.
Nancy: [Behind camera] Her mother still lives here?
Jackson: Same trailer park. We’re going tomorrow.
Marcus: [To camera] Whatever we find there... I don’t think any of us are ready for it.
[Jackson walks out of frame, visibly shaken]
Nancy: He’s gonna be okay, right?
Marcus: [Quietly] Yeah, but he’s gonna need a minute. Of all the psycho bitches in the world, she’s the last one I’d want fixated on me.
[Camera shuts off]
[END OF FOOTAGE]
Er-hem… 3 parts? THREE?!? Where is part 4? We DEMAND part 4!
We were led to believe we would get part 4!
We protest! We have torches and pitchforks! You there, missy, come out of your ivory tower with the fourth part!!