| REPORTING OFFICER'S NARRATIVE(Brief narrative of the facts surrounding the offense and the arrest.)
At 12:32 p.m., Dispatch received a 911 call reporting a human finger found in Room 120 at the Rebel Inn, 2133 South Lamar Boulevard. The caller identified himself as Richard Crawford, manager of the Rebel Inn.
Yoknapatawpha County Sheriff's Unit 209 (Officer P. Winston) was dispatched and arrived at the location at 12:38 p.m. Reporting Officer (R/O) Winston confirmed the presence of a severed finger, apparently human, and notified Dispatch and requested assistance.
Reporting Investigators (R/Is) Detectives S. Murphy and E. Parker were assigned and proceeded 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 1:23 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: Partly cloudy; Exterior Ambient Temperature: 88°F / 31°C, Relative Humidity: 61%; Interior Ambient Temperature: 72°F / 22°C, Relative Humidity: 41%.
R/O Winston made the following verbal report, which is stated in summary and not verbatim.
On arrival at the scene, R/O was met in the lobby of the Rebel Inn by an adult male who identified himself as Rick Crawford (Person 3), manager of the Rebel Inn. Crawford escorted R/O to Room 120.
Crawford advised that Raquel Santos (Person 2), a housekeeper at the Rebel Inn, had discovered a bloody finger in Room 120. Upon arrival at Room 120, R/O and Crawford found Santos standing outside the closed door of Room 120. R/O said Crawford and Santos indicated they had seen no persons inside Room 120 that day and said the room had been under continual observation since the discovery of the alleged finger and the subsequent 911 call.
R/O said Santos indicated she was making her daily rounds cleaning rooms when she entered Room 120 at approximately 12:27 p.m. R/O said Santos claimed she entered Room 120 to clean and discovered what she described as a "bloody finger" by the desk. At that time, she ran out of the room and contacted the manager, Rick Crawford, who responded to the room and also observed the bloody finger. R/O said Santos and Crawford both said they then exited the room, and Crawford immediately called 911.
R/O entered the room using a passkey provided by Crawford and confirmed the presence of an apparent severed human finger as well as a possible bloodstain on the floor approximately two feet from the finger. R/O then cleared the room and found no other persons present.
R/O Winston further stated that, to the best of his knowledge, the following persons had occasion to enter the crime scene area and must be documented by CSU personnel: witnesses Raquel Santos and Rick Crawford, and himself.
After receiving the verbal report from R/O Winston, R/Is conducted a preliminary inspection of the scene. The motel guest room is categorized as a standard king bed room measuring 12 feet x 25 feet. Entrance is via an interior corridor west of the room. Approximately 20 feet south along that corridor is an alarmed exit door to the outside.
Inside Room 120, there is a closet to the north and a bathroom to the south. Straight ahead at the far east end of the room is a window. The bed is on the south wall with a nightstand on both the east and west sides of the bed. A small table is located east of the east nightstand and south of the window. A lounge chair is located north of the window along the north wall. West of the lounge chair, a television is atop a dresser on the north wall opposite the bed. A desk and chair are west of the dresser, and a mini-refrigerator is west of the desk, both on the north wall.
Approximately 13 feet east of the room entrance and 3 feet south of the west wall, R/Is observed a possible blood stain measuring approximately 12 inches by 12 inches. North of the stain, approximately 8 inches from the north wall, R/Is observed what appeared to be a human left thumb.
Coroner's Inspector Luwinda Johnson arrived at the scene at approximately 1:35 p.m. and joined R/Is at the location. Inspector Johnson examined the thumb and estimated it had been non-surgically amputated 12 to 18 hours before and therefore would not be viable for possible re-attachment, even if the owner was found immediately.
Inspector Johnson noted that this kind of injury would not typically be fatal. Inspector Johnson could not say whether the possible blood stain was related to the thumb injury.
CSU arrived at the scene at approximately 1:45 p.m. R/Is instructed CSU to preserve the thumb in evidence along with samples of the possible blood stain and to process the entire scene according to standard procedure.
R/Is interviewed the witnesses, Santos and Crawford, in a vacant guest room at the Rebel Inn. Transcripts are currently being processed. Crawford identified the registered guest in Room 120 as Oscar Knight of Tupelo, Mississippi, whose whereabouts are currently unknown.
Upon completion of the interviews, R/Is returned to Room 120 and were notified by Forensics Officer T. R. Douglas that the alarm on the exit door at the south end of the corridor was not functional. Douglas could not say how long the alarm had been disabled but indicated that CSU would continue to investigate.
Douglas further reported that a preliminary search of the room uncovered no weapons or other implements capable of causing the injury to the thumb. CSU will conduct a more intensive search of the room and report their findings.
R/Is left the scene at 5:35 p.m. 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 was 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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