Sam Kincaid 01 - The Commission

your first prison homicide?”
    “Can hardly wait,” she said, as we headed out the door.

Chapter Thirty-eight
    In cases involving serious injury or the death of an inmate or prison staff member, my responsibilities included the immediate notification of the department director, followed by the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Department and the state medical examiner, when necessary. Since the prison was located in an unincorporated part of south Salt Lake County, the sheriff retained primary jurisdiction. To avoid creating the appearance of a conflict of interest, our role was to assist the Sheriff’s Department with the investigation.
    By the time Kate and I arrived at North Point, the usual procedures were well under way. The entire prison was locked down. That means nobody gets in or out—not visitors, vendors, or staff. All inmates were returned to their cells and locked in. In order to prevent outside communication, the phone system was rendered inoperative.
    The Sheriff’s Office had dispatched two homicide detectives as well as their mobile crime scene unit. I had known Detective Sergeant John Webb and Detective Harvey Gill for several years. Kate knew them as well. Both were veteran homicide investigators who had worked major crime cases inside the penitentiary in the past. They were both top-notch.
    A large area inside the furniture plant had been cordoned off around Sorensen’s body. He lay face down on the concrete floor in a large pool of blood. We saw a metal pipe and a sharpened prison-made shank, about ten inches long, lying next to the body. The back of his white prison-issue jumpsuit was dotted with spots of blood, and several small tears in the fabric were indicative of the numerous stab wounds caused by the shank. A jagged cut was visible running almost from ear to ear across the front of his neck. The battered condition of his head and face provided ample evidence of the damage inflicted by the metal pipe. Near the body was a floor drain. A pool of blood and tissue flowed several feet from Sorensen’s head and wound toward the drain.
    Speaking to no one in particular, I muttered, “What a mess.”
    “So, this is how it happens in prison,” replied Kate. “I think I prefer a nice, clean gunshot wound. It’s usually a lot less messy.”
    “This is pretty typical of a prison homicide. Since inmates rarely get their hands on guns, it’s always a beating, strangulation, or stabbing. This one just happens to be a beating and a stabbing.”
    “Two weapons,” said Kate curiously. “You thinking one perp, or two?”
    “Can’t say for sure, but I’d bet two. It’s unlikely that one perp would use two different murder weapons. Not unheard of, but unusual.”
    “Right. Tell you what, Sam. With all the blood loss, there’s a fair chance you’ll find trace amounts of the victim’s blood on the perp’s clothing—shoes, socks, and pants in particular.”
    “Exactly what I was thinking,” I replied.
    As Kate and I waited for the Sheriff’s Department team to arrive, we were joined by Duty Captain Steve Schumway and Deputy Warden Bob Fuller. I introduced Kate and asked to speak with the officer who discovered the body. We were introduced to Officer Alice Warner, who reiterated what Schumway had told me earlier when he reported the incident.
    Warner had been making a routine sweep of the closed prison industries programs and had entered the furniture plant at approximately five-fifty, when she discovered the victim’s body. She immediately sounded the alarm and secured the area until help arrived. Warner hadn’t seen anyone in or around the furniture plant as she’d made her rounds.
    I turned to Fuller and Schumway. “While we’re waiting, we might as well start rounding up any of Sorensen’s inmate friends, including those he worked with in the plant. The Sheriff’s Office will also want to interview our employees who worked with him. Let’s start with his cell mate. Minus any witnesses, Webb and Gill are going to want to talk to anybody who knew him. They’ll want to find out whether Sorensen was being threatened, strong-armed, or if he was in debt to anyone. If he was being pressured, maybe he said something to somebody.”
    ***
    Burnham spent the afternoon checking on the whereabouts of William Allred. He called an acquaintance who worked for the Board of Pardons as a victim coordinator. That person told him that the board members were conducting administrative hearings all