Armchair Genealogy

By Melinda Cohenour

As a young teenager, I had dreamed of having an exciting, glamorous job like my television heroine, Della Street, able Secretary and investigative assistant to the great defense attorney Perry Mason.

In 1968 my husband and I had just moved to Ocala, Florida, with our toddler son, John, and infant daughter, Melissa. Johnny had just accepted a job with the local TV station and I had just landed my dream job, Della Street to the Assistant State Attorney, Young Joe Simmons (a Southern tradition, naming the first-born son with the mother's maiden surname).

As the paralegal to Asst. State Attorney Young Joe Simmons in Ocala, Florida, almost 60 years ago, it was part of my duty to select the crime scene photos we would use for trial. I felt impervious to emotional impact ... Until ...

Back in that time expensive CRT television sets had to be "degaussed" to remove or reduce magnetic fields to ensure color purity and prevent image distortion. (*) We had a state-of-the-art console TV and while my husband worked and I busied myself unpacking and setting up our home (while caring for a two year old son and an infant daughter), I was also tasked with admitting the TV specialist to install and degausse that console. I was very busy and became impatient at the length of time the process took. It was particularly annoying as the older expert guy had a young 20-ish helper who had spent the entire time sitting silent on a large toolbox in the middle of my living room, staring into space. He had provided zero assistance to the older guy.

After a couple plus hours, I approached the older man and said, "I certainly hope you don't intend to also charge for your assistant's time as he has done nothing but take up space in my living room." His response shamed me. "I apologize ma'am but I just couldn't leave him alone. This past weekend his best friends were killed by another buddy of theirs in a jealous fit."

I had interviewed for and landed the job before getting completely settled in our new home. My first challenge in the interview had come after my prospective boss inquired, "What is your shock level? How tough are you?" I flippantly replied something like, "I've been married to a military man for years. I can handle just about anything!" Joe picked up a large brown envelope, opened the flap and poured out color photos of a crime scene onto the desk. Those photos seemed to float down in slow motion in my memory. Picture after vivid horrible picture of the bodies of a young man and woman covered in blood, flesh blown away by close range double barreled shotgun.

The young woman had just separated from her abusive young husband. She needed groceries and, having no car, asked the young male friend to drive her. The jealous hubby lay in wait. Once they returned to her home and parked he approached the car from the rear and blew out the back window as he shot the driver in the head ... practically decapitating him. He then rushed to the passenger door where the young woman was scrambling to exit. He caught her with right foot on the ground, left foot still in the floor well. He blasted her in the chest leaving a huge gaping wound, then in her face, grazing her jaw and doing more damage to the body behind her, still in the driver's seat.

I had done my job, sorting those pics in what I believed captured the scene in the order that made sense of the timing of the assault. At the time I was disengaged emotionally, most interested in acing the assigned task in order to land the job.

Of course, I had to type up my first Information Sheet, detailing the facts gleaned from the investigating officer's handwritten notes, referencing the photographs and ensuring the photo was properly labeled with the same identifying alphanumeric code as used in the Information Sheet. I had the autopsy findings for both victims but was directed to prepare separate Information Sheet for each. The autopsy findings for the female victim documented in the pro forma sequence: general description of the body (sex, age, height, weight, etc ), narrative text of the step-by-step process - "Y" incision of the tissue remaining in her chest cavity, visual impression (for each step), removal and description of each organ to include weight and reference to the evidence jar in which it would permanently reside. all the tissue appearance referencing the gunpowder residue from close range discharge of the weapon.

Next the diagrammatic body outlines, front and back, with handwritten notations of the wounds inflicted, measurements of entry and exit points along with visual impressions made by the medical examiner.

Finally, the official Coroner's determination of Cause of Death and Manner of Death. Signed, notarized, stamped and recorded.

All of this clerical work in preparation for trial had been done with a sterile, unemotional, professional attitude. (After all, my paternal grandmother had given me True Crime magazines to thumb through as we took our afternoon naps ... but that's a whole 'nother story.)

That whole process took place BEFORE I actually started my job and before I unpacked and impatiently awaited the completion of the expert installer degaussing our costly TV console. And, most importantly, BEFORE I saw the emotional devastation rendered by the jealous rage that took the lives of not two, but three of the close friends of the young man sitting ... staring ... tears staining his cheeks ... in the middle of my living room.

That night the nightmares that would haunt me for decades began. I was in deep, pleasant sleep, dreaming a dream I no longer recall when that series of ghastly evidentiary photos began to fall. Smashed window...glass everywhere, then in the dark background what remained of a head and the torn flesh of his right shoulder. Next, the close-up series of the young woman ... her death captured in a series: her body prostate against the front seat, the photo shot by the officer kneeling outside the car, the picture capturing her legs splayed as she had attempted to escape, her bloody gaping chest wound, her head turned slightly sideways, flesh and blood and gore splattered in her pretty hair ... Nightmare stuff now. I had met the friend who grieved silently the loss of his three friends. Yes, three. The killer was also his friend, a friend who would pay for his jealous rage at the misconceived "tryst" that was actually an innocent trip for groceries, who would pay with his own wasted life with a finding of LWOP: Life WithOut Parole.

(*) For the curious: (Why was degaussing necessary?) CRT TVs and monitors use a shadow mask (a metal grid) to separate the red, green, and blue electron beams, and this shadow mask can become magnetized over time, leading to color purity issues and image distortions.

A degaussing coil emits a rapidly changing magnetic field that disrupts the magnetization of the shadow mask, effectively "resetting" the colors. )