The Cutter - It started as an obsession with hacking hair from women's heads. It ended with murder. Michael Litchfield
aspiring Good Samaritan. Probably also on their minds was the fear that, if Heather had indeed been brutally murdered, her killer could still be on the premises.
People always complain of the ‘agonising wait’ for an ambulance and the police, but it is rarely as long as imagined. In life-and-death crises, the perception of time has a tendency to become distorted; similarly here, the reality of time had little meaning for the bystanders or the traumatised children.
‘Where are they? They’re not coming. No one’s coming!’ Terry despaired. ‘They didn’t believe me. They thought I was fooling around. I knew it!’
But the wail of distant sirens soon confirmed that the emergency services were indeed on their way. Still, it seemed ‘an age’ to those waiting before the fleet of police cars and an ambulance stopped in a squeal of brakes outside the house. And with them, one of the most baffling murder hunts in the history of modern crime was about to begin.
From this moment, police procedure took over. As soon as the first police officers at the house had confirmed that Heather Barnett had been unlawfully killed, the entire road was declared a crime scene and secured. No one would be allowed to contaminate evidence. A police doctor was called out, the coroner’s office was informed, and specialist scene-of-crime officers were despatched by the van-load.
The response to a crime of this nature is swift and involves massive manpower and resources. Everything happens fast at first. This is essential because all statistics demonstrate that if a murder is not solved within the first 48 hours, the odds of a successful conclusion diminish proportionately by the day.
Other statistical factors also strongly influence the attitudes and procedures of the police at the outset of any murder investigation. The vast majority of all murders are committed by someone the victims know, maybe even live and share a bed with – a spouse, a lover, a former husband, a jealous work colleague or maybe even an ‘ex’. The police cannot ignore these known factors. They are foremost in the thinking of all detectives because they are so often signposts to a swift and tidy conclusion.
So, despite the visual message from the bathroom of Heather Barnett’s flat, it was imperative that the police began by following the tried and tested methods of inquiry, and sticking with the conventional route until forced to look elsewhere. As detection methods have advanced, so killers have become increasingly cunning in an effort to keep ahead of the latest scientific breakthroughs. Some killers, for example, try to make their victim appear to have been the random target of a mugger, perhaps killed during a handbag snatch, simply having been in the wrong place at the wrong time. All these possibilities and permutations would have been part of the thinking of detectives who were quickly drafted in to get the macabre ‘circus’ rolling.
A fine balance had to be struck in handling the two children. They were in extreme shock, and distraught, naturally. What they had just seen would be engraved on their memories for the rest of their lives.
In one sense, the children were now the priority. How they were handled and cared for – in the immediate aftermath of the tragedy and in the days and weeks to come – was of utmost importance. But they had found the body; they may have been the last people to see their mother alive, apart from the killer. Therefore they were vital witnesses. They had to be questioned. Their testimonies would have to be gently tested for flaws and inconsistencies.
Specialists from the police Child Protection Unit were sent for. Intimate questions had to be asked about the domestic situation. Where was their father? Who else lived there? Who, if anyone, was missing? Had Heather Barnett been involved in a dispute recently with neighbours or relatives? With a man or a woman? Had she been threatened? All these harsh questions had to be put to Terry and Caitlin. All murder investigations are time-sensitive and these questions could not be postponed.
Even before hearing the recording of Terry’s desperate and shocking 999 call, his exact words had been relayed to the police by the operator, which included the phrase ‘My mum has just been murdered.’ On arrival, police found that Mrs Barnett was already cold to the touch. Rigor mortis had begun.
Unless there were special climatic factors, rigor mortis would usually begin about thirty minutes to three hours after death. This stiffening process begins with the eyelids, neck and jaw. The route is always the same – top to bottom – and takes between eight to twelve hours to complete. This rigidity continues for about 18 hours and then starts to recede. The ‘thawing’ process can take up to 12 hours, although it might be considerably quicker. In freezing temperatures, though, rigor mortis frequently never occurs.
Rigor mortis had a firm hold of Heather Barnett’s body when the first police officers arrived on the scene, confirming that, in all probability, she had been dead for at least three hours.
Police photographers not only captured for posterity the grisly scene in the bathroom, but also snapped photographs of every room in the flat and also of the scene outside, including that of the little groups of curious onlookers. Arsonists have been known to derive a great deal of gratification from watching a blaze they had started. Equally, certain types of murderers continue to return time and again to the scenes of their crimes. They have been known to attend the funerals of their victims or to visit the graves. So there was always the chance that Heather’s killer was out there in the street, pretending to be horrified, wanting to cosset the children, yet all the time secretly thrilled by his achievement. During the next few days, the police would examine all those photographs, looking for anything or anyone who stood out as being odd or out of place – male or female.
The pathologist who went to Heather’s flat carried only two instruments – a pen and notebook. Anything else that he and forensic detectives required was provided by the crime-scene manager, the United Kingdom’s equivalent to a medical examiner in the USA. The assortment of accoutrements routinely taken to a suspicious death by a crime-scene manager were containers for ‘bottling’ evidence, swabs for collecting fluid samples, and a thermometer.
Although the cause of death seemed blindingly obvious in this case, it would not be formally recorded until a postmortem examination had been completed. It was not uncommon, for example, for the apparent victim of a fire to be found with a bullet in the head when examined later in the path lab.
Top of the medical agenda here was to try to establish, as accurately as possible, the time of death: the reason for so much initial focus on Terry’s phone message. In respect of getting a reliable handle on the time of Heather’s death, the police had some useful reference points. The children had left for school at around 8.30am; they were home by 4.00pm. Rigor mortis was taking a firm grip, so 9.30am seemed a rational estimate; a combination of scientific deduction and educated guesswork. This aspect of a murder investigation can never be exact, unless there was an eye-witness to the actual killing – a rare occurrence.
The temperature of the corpse was measured with a rectal thermometer. In a normal environment, such as Heather’s flat on a day in early winter, the temperature of her internal organs would be expected to decrease by around 0.8 degrees Centigrade (1.5 degrees Fahrenheit) every hour.
Heather’s partially clothed body had been left undisturbed in the position in which she had been found by her children until the gruesome portfolio of pictures had been taken. The next nagging question was where had she actually died? She had ended up in her bathroom, but was that the location where her heart had actually stopped beating? For the investigators, this was another crucial issue.
The ‘A’ team was assembling by the minute. Some of the country’s top specialists in their particular field of criminal investigation were already there. Others, from near and far, would soon be joining the investigation. Later, it would become an international operation, with investigative tendrils reaching out to every corner of the globe. For now, though, these highly trained men and women were ticking boxes, going through the clichéd routine almost by rote, unaware that they were beginning a roller-coaster ride that would test their collective expertise – as well as their stamina – to the limit for the next eight frustrating years.
The pathologist needed to examine Heather’s body thoroughly before it was removed. Gravity dictated where the blood would settle