Working my first murder
I started out in the Graysville Police Department. A little community of about 1500-2000 people in western Jefferson County. We had one major highway that ran through the town. US Highway 78, which runs from Birmingham to Memphis. We were about ten miles from a "dry" county (Walker) and had a lot of DUI's and wrecks because of the people that lived in Walker County coming to Jefferson to buy their booze, then heading back up Hwy78 to their homes. So, on the weekend, we were fairly busy with that type crime and more traffic fatalities than I care to remember. However, generally, there was very little crime in the city limits.
I have to tell you a little about Graysville. It was a mining community in the beginning, then the mines started getting shut down and played out. People went from making $100k a year to $0 in a short time. But, they were just country people trying to eke out a living. One thing about it is that it had to be the most segregated community I have ever seen. Black people lived in Alden and Redwine communities and white people live in the downtown area and in the Portercrest area. The people never ventured into the other area's.
I was 23 years old and thought that I could make a difference. I quickly learned that police work really isn't about making a big difference. It is about making small differences everyday. It can go from dead boredom to sheer terror in a split second. I carried at the time, a Colt Gold Cup National Match SA .45 ACP. It was my pride and joy. It had been throated, polished and accurized to fire the "flying ashtray", a 200 grain CCI-Speer Hollowpoint that flew at an honest 1000 fps. And I practiced with it constantly. (At the time I shot in IPSC type pistol competitions and was deadly with that gun).
Because of the segregation of Graysville, our Chief Of Police decided that we needed to hire a black officer as Graysville had never had one. So, he hired a pretty good guy, Curtis Carter from Bessemer, AL. Now, Curtis had just gotten out of the academy and was full of piss and vinegar and quite excited to be hired.
I worked a 7pm-3:30am split shift on the weekends. Curtis worked 2pm-10:30pm and then the night guy, Carl Butler worked 10pm-6:30am. I kinda overlapped both of their shifts so that on a busy day we could have two officers on duty. All other nights, it was just one on duty. But, again, small town and hardly any crime that one could not handle. If we got into trouble, we called our neighbor city, Adamsville, which was bigger and bordered us.
One week we kept getting calls from a woman, Cynthia Dowdell. She lived in the Redwine community with her boyfriend, Carl Tartt. It never failed, every night they would get drunk, Carl would beat the shit out of her, and Cynthia would call us afterwards. This was before it was mandatory to arrest in domestic violence cases. Cynthia would always decline to press charges against Carl. We would leave and they would be okay for a day or two.
Let me describe Cynthia a little for you. This may sound racist, but I assure you this is what she looked like. She was cross-eyed and talked really "ghetto". She sounded just like a modernized version of the way that black people were portrayed in the movies long ago. She had a hairstyle that, I swear to God, looked like "Buckwheat" could have styled it. They were dirty and filthy and lived in a "shotgun" house. (A shotgun house, for those that don't know is a house that you could shoot a shotgun through the front door and hit someone in every room of the house)
Carl was your basic, sterotypical black, country drunk with bloodshot eyes, nappy hair (uncombed) and he talked worse than Cynthia. Sometimes Curtis would have to translate, and even he had a hard time understanding, especially if they were drunk. Both smelled like day old piss and beer. Their house was over run with roaches. Really, a sad situation, but that was what they had to deal with.
Anyway, it was a Saturday night, about 9:30pm. I had been working for a couple of hours, Curtis was getting off in an hour and Carl had just shown up to start his shift at 10pm. Now, Carl was about 6'6" and 270lbs, always smoked cheap cigars (Grenadiers) and slathered on Old Spice cologne. He carried a Smith & Wesson .45 Long Colt Model 25-2 (I think that is the correct model number) with a 6" barrel. He was feared by all of the kids in town, and by all of the black people. He never did anything in public to show any partiality and was not prejudiced in public. (In private was a different story) He was just a big man with a huge head. But, he was a damn good police officer and that city was fortunate to have him. Back to the story, we got a call about 9:30pm. It was Cynthia. She said, "I need somebody to come up here, Carl is sick, he is real sick". Our dispatcher, Charles Coleman gave us the call. Curtis said he would take it and off he went. About 10 minutes later Curtis calls on the radio, breathless and excited, requesting assistance and we could hear screaming in the background. He also requested paramedics to the scene. Soooooo, off me and Carl went to Carl and Cynthia's house.
When we got to the house, Cynthia was running around screaming incoherently. Carl's brother was in the house along with some other people. And Carl, he was laying on the floor with a big ass black policeman (Curtis) giving him chest compressions. They had him hooked up to a machine to measure heartbeat. He had a hole slightly off center in his chest. Every time that Curtis would compress his chest, blood would arc right up into Curtis' face and you could tell the only thing making the machine register a heartbeat was Curtis compressing his chest. This continued on until Carl bled out. His blood was all over the floor. Now, I had knelt down to assist Curtis but had on new shoes. I did not want to get blood on my new shoes and looked like an idiot trying to keep my feet out of the blood, but still assist Curtis. The paramedics were laughing their asses off at me. We called the coroner and had to stay with the body until he got there. While waiting, roaches started walking through the blood and there were hundreds feasting on it by time the coroner got there. Curtis, covered in blood was a hilarious sight. He was so excited as he had never seen a dead body before. This was before we protected ourselves from AIDS so the blood did not bother him (we really did not know what AIDS was).
The coroner (Jay Glass) got there and made arrangements to transport the body. We started questioning Cynthia as to what happened. This is her story. "I was peeling taters and Carl went to the frigidaire to get him some wine. There wudn't any so he blamed me and came back and started whupping my ass. I was tired of it so I poked him in the chest with my knife". The knife she had was a serrated edge steak knife. It made a very small wound, but she stabbed him right in the heart with it. It always amazed me that when we started to transport the body, the blood on the floor was almost gone. I don't know if the roaches had eaten all of it or if the wood floor had soaked it up. A mystery to this day. Anyway, we had to photograph the body at the hospital and arrest Cynthia. We charged her with murder, but aside from that first night, she spent no jail time. Seems as if no one cared enough about Carl to pursue her and make sure she went to prison. I think she got off with just probation.
I'll get better at this....but there you go. The first installment
I have to tell you a little about Graysville. It was a mining community in the beginning, then the mines started getting shut down and played out. People went from making $100k a year to $0 in a short time. But, they were just country people trying to eke out a living. One thing about it is that it had to be the most segregated community I have ever seen. Black people lived in Alden and Redwine communities and white people live in the downtown area and in the Portercrest area. The people never ventured into the other area's.
I was 23 years old and thought that I could make a difference. I quickly learned that police work really isn't about making a big difference. It is about making small differences everyday. It can go from dead boredom to sheer terror in a split second. I carried at the time, a Colt Gold Cup National Match SA .45 ACP. It was my pride and joy. It had been throated, polished and accurized to fire the "flying ashtray", a 200 grain CCI-Speer Hollowpoint that flew at an honest 1000 fps. And I practiced with it constantly. (At the time I shot in IPSC type pistol competitions and was deadly with that gun).
Because of the segregation of Graysville, our Chief Of Police decided that we needed to hire a black officer as Graysville had never had one. So, he hired a pretty good guy, Curtis Carter from Bessemer, AL. Now, Curtis had just gotten out of the academy and was full of piss and vinegar and quite excited to be hired.
I worked a 7pm-3:30am split shift on the weekends. Curtis worked 2pm-10:30pm and then the night guy, Carl Butler worked 10pm-6:30am. I kinda overlapped both of their shifts so that on a busy day we could have two officers on duty. All other nights, it was just one on duty. But, again, small town and hardly any crime that one could not handle. If we got into trouble, we called our neighbor city, Adamsville, which was bigger and bordered us.
One week we kept getting calls from a woman, Cynthia Dowdell. She lived in the Redwine community with her boyfriend, Carl Tartt. It never failed, every night they would get drunk, Carl would beat the shit out of her, and Cynthia would call us afterwards. This was before it was mandatory to arrest in domestic violence cases. Cynthia would always decline to press charges against Carl. We would leave and they would be okay for a day or two.
Let me describe Cynthia a little for you. This may sound racist, but I assure you this is what she looked like. She was cross-eyed and talked really "ghetto". She sounded just like a modernized version of the way that black people were portrayed in the movies long ago. She had a hairstyle that, I swear to God, looked like "Buckwheat" could have styled it. They were dirty and filthy and lived in a "shotgun" house. (A shotgun house, for those that don't know is a house that you could shoot a shotgun through the front door and hit someone in every room of the house)
Carl was your basic, sterotypical black, country drunk with bloodshot eyes, nappy hair (uncombed) and he talked worse than Cynthia. Sometimes Curtis would have to translate, and even he had a hard time understanding, especially if they were drunk. Both smelled like day old piss and beer. Their house was over run with roaches. Really, a sad situation, but that was what they had to deal with.
Anyway, it was a Saturday night, about 9:30pm. I had been working for a couple of hours, Curtis was getting off in an hour and Carl had just shown up to start his shift at 10pm. Now, Carl was about 6'6" and 270lbs, always smoked cheap cigars (Grenadiers) and slathered on Old Spice cologne. He carried a Smith & Wesson .45 Long Colt Model 25-2 (I think that is the correct model number) with a 6" barrel. He was feared by all of the kids in town, and by all of the black people. He never did anything in public to show any partiality and was not prejudiced in public. (In private was a different story) He was just a big man with a huge head. But, he was a damn good police officer and that city was fortunate to have him. Back to the story, we got a call about 9:30pm. It was Cynthia. She said, "I need somebody to come up here, Carl is sick, he is real sick". Our dispatcher, Charles Coleman gave us the call. Curtis said he would take it and off he went. About 10 minutes later Curtis calls on the radio, breathless and excited, requesting assistance and we could hear screaming in the background. He also requested paramedics to the scene. Soooooo, off me and Carl went to Carl and Cynthia's house.
When we got to the house, Cynthia was running around screaming incoherently. Carl's brother was in the house along with some other people. And Carl, he was laying on the floor with a big ass black policeman (Curtis) giving him chest compressions. They had him hooked up to a machine to measure heartbeat. He had a hole slightly off center in his chest. Every time that Curtis would compress his chest, blood would arc right up into Curtis' face and you could tell the only thing making the machine register a heartbeat was Curtis compressing his chest. This continued on until Carl bled out. His blood was all over the floor. Now, I had knelt down to assist Curtis but had on new shoes. I did not want to get blood on my new shoes and looked like an idiot trying to keep my feet out of the blood, but still assist Curtis. The paramedics were laughing their asses off at me. We called the coroner and had to stay with the body until he got there. While waiting, roaches started walking through the blood and there were hundreds feasting on it by time the coroner got there. Curtis, covered in blood was a hilarious sight. He was so excited as he had never seen a dead body before. This was before we protected ourselves from AIDS so the blood did not bother him (we really did not know what AIDS was).
The coroner (Jay Glass) got there and made arrangements to transport the body. We started questioning Cynthia as to what happened. This is her story. "I was peeling taters and Carl went to the frigidaire to get him some wine. There wudn't any so he blamed me and came back and started whupping my ass. I was tired of it so I poked him in the chest with my knife". The knife she had was a serrated edge steak knife. It made a very small wound, but she stabbed him right in the heart with it. It always amazed me that when we started to transport the body, the blood on the floor was almost gone. I don't know if the roaches had eaten all of it or if the wood floor had soaked it up. A mystery to this day. Anyway, we had to photograph the body at the hospital and arrest Cynthia. We charged her with murder, but aside from that first night, she spent no jail time. Seems as if no one cared enough about Carl to pursue her and make sure she went to prison. I think she got off with just probation.
I'll get better at this....but there you go. The first installment
__________________
"Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave, safely in a well preserved body, but rather to slide in sideways, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, wasted beyond redemption, with a shot of Stranahans in one hand and a joint in the other screaming "HOLY SHIT, what a ride!"
Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you,
Jesus Christ and the American GI. One died for your soul, the other for your freedom.
"Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave, safely in a well preserved body, but rather to slide in sideways, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, wasted beyond redemption, with a shot of Stranahans in one hand and a joint in the other screaming "HOLY SHIT, what a ride!"
Only two defining forces have ever offered to die for you,
Jesus Christ and the American GI. One died for your soul, the other for your freedom.
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