Hauntings of My Past

Indisputably, every cop who has spent their life “on the job” has that the one case that still haunts them at night. The times you keep waking up in the middle of the night thinking what could I have done differently? If I could have one wish, please let me solve this case. Longing to bring closure in some way. If I could only show respect for the victim. But it never happens. As times change, retirement comes, and things move on in life; it slips away from your grasp. But still, in the grand scheme of things, it gnaws at you.

I was a detective sergeant assigned to the Sex Crimes Unit in Savannah, Georgia. We were called out on a weekend night to a horrific sexual assault. During this era, Savannah was going through its renaissance of downtown; old vacant antebellum and Victorian homes were falling in due to neglect. There were vast antebellum homes that were in disarray and days from the wrecking ball. They needed to be restored and renovated and returned to their once grandeur. This was a redeveloper’s and investor’s dream; buy cheap, fix-up and turn a big sale. Sadly, they were on the perimeter of some disadvantaged, tough neighborhoods. The crack epidemic, empty dilapidated homes and hoodlums were common in the area.

This is where a young female decided to move to Savannah and invested all her life savings into antebellum home renovation. She began the labor of restoring it while also living alone in the home. While this may have maximized her money, it was risky at best. One Saturday night, a perpetrator broke in, beat her senseless while sexually assaulting her several times and left her basically to die. Somehow, she survived this ordeal, rallied for help and contacted 911. Patrol officers were the first there with EMS. She was going to survive the physical wounds, but the psychological, financial and futuristic wounds of her life would never be determined. Soon afterwards, she decided to just recoup her losses, put the property up for sale and moved back up north.

A detective and I spent hours working on this case, and through the years we tried to solve the case. Now this was back in the late 80s when fiber evidence, DNA and a lot of the new trendy forensic investigative tools were in their beginnings; we had to do it the old-fashioned way. Years after I had left the Savannah Police Department, I would receive phone calls and emails inquiring on the case. While working as a chief in Pennsylvania, I would receive the calls from the Evidence and Property Room managers wanting to know what to do with the evidence. It remains an open case to this day.

The whole thing of it is this: when you step back and look nearly 40 years later, I am still awakened at night by this case. I want to know how the victim is this year. Where did she move to or did she change her name? Did she psychologically recover? Did she ever financially recover? Is she in a safe and happy life today or is she is still living at all? I studied the perpetrator, the complete violence that he dished out in this horrendous attack. This could not have been his first time, nor could it have been his last. Hopefully someone has dealt with him within the law or on the streets. I hope he is in prison for other crimes he committed. The whole point of this story is that it is not what we go through sometimes on the job but what we carry with us after we leave it.

I was once told that it is not the years, but the mileage that wears down on a police officer. And too it is not the occupation where when you hang up your uniform and shield that last time and all the bad goes away; it never does. After over 40 some years in law enforcement, I have the case that wakes me at night. Granted, there are few others, but this is ‘the one’ that will not go away. Every cop that I know who is worth their salt still has the same reoccurring nightmare of what could I have done better to solve this case. Even now today, I think if I only had some of the current scientific technology available back then could I have brought this to justice? Did we fail this young woman? I cannot really say that we did. I can see that we did the best that we possibly could with what we had available to us at that time. My only hope is she found closure and went on with her life and was able to forget about that horrific night in a downtown historic Savannah mansion. And where is the perpetrator? I hope you find your place in hell, for no person, no woman ever needs to be treated the way you treated her — end of story. As for my detectives and myself, we still wish we could solve this so we could have our closure. One of the cruel things about being a cop is sometimes you will never see the impacts of your life on others. Sometimes you will never see the impacts of the good that you have done for people, or what differences you have made in the lives of others. With that being said, we gave it our best. Now this is not about me, this is about the young cops who are reading this today. It is my hope with all the technological advances that we have in this world, you can do everything you can to bring to justice those who prey on the weak and give victims closure because without you standing by the gates of justice, there is no justice.