Louis Donovan (strikethose) wrote in rooms, @ 2015-01-12 17:42:00 |
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Entry tags: | !marvel comics, *news |
[marvel: news update]
[In the early hours of Tuesday morning, following the release to news outlets of an odd double murder, another corpse is found.
The victim is Paul Messerman, 27, convicted on nine counts of rape and assault. He escaped during a prison transfer three years ago, and he has successfully evaded the law ever since. His next appearance on the public record will be this one, dead in a crackhouse tucked between a pair of half-inhabited buildings.
He's found in the building's one functional bathroom on the first floor. A girl broke the lock when she saw smoke pouring out from under the door.
An officer patrolling the neighborhood saw her stumble out onto the street, paranoid and screaming. He then saw a number of people flee the building, all apparent inhabitants of the home, all now of persons of interest to the investigation.
Messerman is in the stained porcelain bathtub up to his neck in brackish red-brown fluid. The officer reports that the building smelled nauseatingly of charred flesh, smoke, and burnt metal and human filth.
The fluid in the bathtub tests later as human blood, some likely native to the body that was submerged in it, some from an unknown donor, and enough to fill the tub to overflowing. Cause of death, though, was burning, not drowning. There is no sign of accelerant at the scene, but Messerman's arms and face are charred almost to the bone. Police make a preliminary identification with prison dental records.
His personal effects are folded neatly atop the filthy toilet. The girl who ran into the street reports smelling smoke, but not hearing any screams or voices, or seeing anyone walk into the bathroom at all.
Based on fingerprint evidence on the inside doorknob, Messerman locked himself in. There is no vessel the blood was carried in, no evidence of how it was made to burn. There is just a dead man, half-submerged in a miniature lake of blood and fire.
Despite the lack of evidence for the presence of anyone else in the bathroom, the death is, not shockingly, ruled suspicious, and placed under investigation.]