| REPORTING OFFICER'S NARRATIVE (Brief narrative of the facts surrounding the offense and the arrest.)
At 6:35 p.m., Dispatch received a 911 call regarding a dead body at the address of 424 Turnberry Circle, Oxford MS. The caller identified herself as Lee Merryweather.
Yoknapatawpha County Sheriff's Unit 209 (Officer P. Winston) was dispatched and arrived at the scene at 6:41 p.m. After confirming the presence of a body at 6:45 p.m., R/O notified Dispatch and requested backup and medical assistance.
Reporting Investigators (R/Is) Detectives T. Armstrong and S. Murphy were assigned and proceeded directly to the scene. At R/Is' request, Coroner's Inspector L. Johnson and a CSU team were notified to respond to the scene.
R/Is arrived at the scene at 6:55 p.m. Upon arrival, R/Is found that R/O had secured the area. Environmental conditions at the scene upon arrival are as follows: Weather: Clear and Calm; Exterior Ambient Temperature: 52°F / 11°C, Relative Humidity: 100%; Interior Ambient Temperature: 68°F / 20°C, Relative Humidity: 64%.
R/O Winston made the following verbal report, which is stated in summary and not verbatim.
R/O was met at the front door of the residence by an adult female who identified herself as Lee Merryweather (Person 2). Merryweather led R/O into the kitchen of the residence, where R/O observed the body of an apparently deceased adult male, later identified as Victor Jennings (Person 1).
R/O then secured the scene, called for backup and medical assistance, and escorted Merryweather to the exterior of the residence.
Yoknapatawpha County Sheriff's Unit 221 (Officer M. Richards) arrived at the scene at 6:49 p.m. R/O Winston left Merryweather in R/O Richards' custody and cleared the scene, finding no other person present in the residence.
YCFD EMTs R. Peterson and J. Bilkey arrived at approximately 6:51 p.m. and, after confirming the victim was deceased, withdrew from the crime scene.
R/O Winston further stated that, to the best of his knowledge, the following personnel had occasion to enter the crime scene area and must be noted by CSU personnel: witness Lee Merryweather, EMT Peterson, EMT Bilkey, and himself.
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Click to enlarge |
After receiving the report from R/O Winston, R/Is conducted a preliminary inspection of the scene. In the kitchen area of the residence, R/Is observed a lifeless human body, a male apparently in his late 40s.
Visual inspection indicated the victim was wearing a blue pajama top, blue pajama bottoms, a white terrycloth bathrobe with blue stripes, and brown slippers. The victim was prone with the left arm extended above the head and the right arm alongside the body. The victim's head was pointing northwest. The left leg was bent at knee, and the right leg was extended to the southeast.
A pool of blood was visible underneath the body. R/Is delayed further inspection of the body until the arrival of the Coroner's Inspector.
Coroner's Inspector Luwinda Johnson arrived at the scene at approximately 7:01 p.m. and joined R/Is at the body's location. Inspector Johnson pronounced the victim deceased at 7:15 p.m. by visual observation that the victim was not breathing and by tactile observation that the victim did not have a palpable carotid pulse or any other signs of heartbeat or respiration.
Inspector Johnson visually examined the posterior of the body and observed no wounds. When the body was moved to allow the anterior to be visualized, an apparent stab wound to the chest was observed. Inspector Johnson also noted an impression on the neck but could not immediately identify the cause at the scene.
Inspector Johnson noted that the body was still warm to the touch and that rigor mortis and livor mortis were not yet evident. While she withheld an official estimate pending an autopsy, Inspector Johnson speculated the victim had been dead approximately 1 to 2 hours. Inspector Johnson indicated that further details would be available in the official autopsy report.
After Inspector Johnson completed her initial inspection of the body, she stayed with the CSU team to ensure the integrity of the body, while the team took photographs of the scene and performed preliminary analyses, until the body could be removed from the scene without affecting other evidence.
CSU arrived at the scene at approximately 7:12 p.m. R/Is instructed CSU to take samples of the apparent blood at the scene and to process the entire scene according to standard procedure.
The body of the deceased was remanded into the custody of Coroner's Inspector Luwinda Johnson and was removed from the scene at 10:01 p.m. and transported to the coroner's office for autopsy.
After the body was removed, CSU observed an object in the blood that had been underneath the body. Closer examination indicated the object appeared to be the handle of a knife. No blade was found at the scene. CSU will conduct a more intensive search and report their findings.
R/Is left the scene at 10:38 p.m. to interview witness Lee Merryweather, who had been transported to the Yoknapatawpha County Sheriff's Department. Before leaving, R/I Murphy instructed CSU to seal the scene upon completion or end of day suspension of processing. CSU to notify R/Is of progress by the end of this date. As of this filing, CSU is still actively processing at the scene.
Evidence remanded into the custody of Forensics Officer T. R. Douglas for transport to the State Crime Lab for routine analysis. CSU is expected to submit an inventory of items taken into evidence within fourteen days of this report, with detailed report(s) of their findings to follow at a later date.
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