Less than a week later, Gary Casper McKinney, husband and stepfather of the victims, was arrested, and in 1998 he was on trial, facing three charges of capital murder and multiple other charges, including tampering with physical evidence, arson, and abuse of a corpse. The courtroom testimony mesmerized Pulaski County for more than a week, drawing spectators who filled the churchlike pews, curious to hear what had really happened there on Poplar Bluff Road on that quiet Sunday afternoon. The crowd was divided, somewhat like a rural wedding service, with friends and family of the victims on one side of the room and McKinney 's kin on the other.
The sheriff, his deputies, and the arson and ballistics experts testified one by one. Then it was my turn. We each presented evidence that was pertinent to the case, even playing a videotape of the crime scene that showed men removing the charred bodies from the burned-out structure. When Drs. Hunsaker and Coyne, the two forensic pathologists, gave their testimony, the defendant's fate was sealed. The vivid description of mother Shirley Bowles's death from multiple gunshot wounds was gripping enough, but no one even seemed to breathe as Dr. John Hunsaker revealed that a gun had pumped three bullets directly into the top of eleven-year-old Brian's head. Moments later a gasp echoed throughout the courtroom when Dr. Carolyn Coyne revealed that three-year-old Amy had died instantly after the trigger was pulled on a gun that had been thrust into her mouth.
The day I testified, Sam was waiting for me outside the courtroom. He came up to me, extending his right hand for a handshake and putting his other hand on my shoulder. We stood there looking at each other for the longest time, and I could see the tears in his eyes. “Thanks, Doc,” he said finally, and squeezed my hand one last time before he walked away.
After eight days of testimony and only five hours of deliberation, the jury found McKinney guilty of all three murders and he was sentenced to death. It was the first triple death sentence that anyone could remember in the history of the Pulaski County Circuit Court.
The Pulaski murder was the last one I ever cried over-until my friend Sam himself was assassinated in April 2002. Sam's life was ended abruptly by a sniper's bullet as he was leaving a rally and fish fry held during his campaign for a fifth term as sheriff.
Kenneth White, one of the biggest drug dealers and bootleggers in the county, thought that if Sam was out of the way, a more pliable sheriff might be elected, someone who would look the other way at the criminal activity in Pulaski County. White managed to get one of his henchmen, a former sheriff's deputy, named Jeff Morris, on the ballot, but it soon became clear that no one could beat Sam Catron in a fair election. So White and Morris decided to take more desperate measures. Danny Shelley, a local addict, seemed to be the perfect pawn in their plan, so they convinced him that Sam would kill him if he didn't kill Sam first. On that fateful night, Shelley pulled the trigger from a wooded hilltop overlooking the site of the fish fry and then sped off on White's motorcycle. Men in pickup trucks took off after him, and after a high-speed chase through the mountains, Shelley crashed. The impromptu posse pinned him down until he could be handcuffed and arrested by Sam's deputies.
Shelley almost immediately told authorities all about the scheme, then pled guilty before his case could go to trial. Eventually Morris also pled guilty, but White decided to take his chances before a jury. After more than a week of testimony, that jury took less than an hour to convict and sentence White to life in prison with no possibility of parole.
Sam was a beloved figure throughout the state and was nationally known for his dedication, honesty, and skill. The brutality-and the stupidity-of his assassination sent shock waves through the nation and the world, with his death receiving coverage from as far away as England, Poland, and Russia. More than two thousand mourners turned out for his funeral, and the Kentucky state legislature adjourned for a full day in his honor.
Whenever I think of Sam, I remember the day we were working a case we called “River Legs,” after a pair of decomposed legs that some canoeist had found floating down the Rockcastle River. Sam, Coroner Alan Stringer, and I went down to the river with several deputies to look for the rest of the remains.
The Rockcastle was a real wilderness river, deep down in a ravine, with high banks on each side. Sam and Alan flew reconnaissance, looking for other body parts in Sam's Huey helicopter, a craft he'd learned to fly so he could patrol his large rural county for signs of marijuana growing. I was out on a huge rock at the river's edge, flat on my belly, peering into the clear water with my binoculars-when suddenly I looked up in alarm. Sam and Alan had been flying low, of course, but now they were too low, the helicopter flying straight at me at what seemed an incredible rate. I later learned that Alan, who'd never been in a helicopter before, had shifted his weight unthinkingly, resting his thigh on the helicopter's collective, which controls its flight. With Alan's weight on the collective, Sam couldn't pull out of the deadly trajectory-and from what I could see, the helicopter was going to kill me for sure. But they flew so close in their open craft that I could look right into Sam's eyes-and then I wasn't frightened anymore. I just knew by the flicker in his stare that Sam would put that helicopter in the river before he let it hit me. And at the last possible instant-I mean, that thing was blowing river water into my eyes-Sam reached over and somehow pulled Alan off the collective. The craft whizzed right on by me. I was all right.
“Sorry to scare you, Doc,” Sam said when we all met up on solid ground later that day.
“I wasn't scared,” I answered, and we both knew I was telling the truth.
Losing Sam has given me a little bit of insight into what the relatives of homicide victims go through. I wasn't sure I could make it through his funeral. I wouldn't have missed it, though-and I'm so glad I went. My law enforcement colleagues welcomed me like a sister, and I knew once and for all that I was finally part of their community. That, I guess, was Sam's last gift to me.
5. A Single Death
A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.
– JOSEPH STALIN
I'VE ALWAYS LIKED to work jigsaw puzzles. I like looking at the picture on the box and then trying to make hundreds of oddly shaped pieces add up to one coherent image. I enjoy that chaotic period at the beginning when all the little bits look alike and you have to keep a sharp eye out for the ones with straight edges that go around the border, or the light-blue ones that are probably the sky. And I get an enormous amount of satisfaction from putting in the final piece so that the picture is finally complete.
I've often thought that my work as a forensic anthropologist resembles a four-dimensional jigsaw puzzle. A series of events happened: Somewhere back in time someone was murdered or died violently, or maybe even died peacefully, leaving behind a few bones or some body parts. Days, weeks, or even years later, I come along and try to reconstruct the picture on the box, using whatever pieces I can find: a bone, a skull, a broken plant, a pile of ashes, perhaps a personal possession or two. I'm looking at the evidence in front of me, and I'm also looking back in time, trying to figure out how I can make the pieces fit, hoping that the picture I put together matches the events that really happened. When I start out, it's chaos. But when I finish, with any luck, it all makes sense.