No Hope For Sara By Bruce Jordan
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1988 - excerpted from the book -
"The first thing I saw was a plastic K-Mart bag in the left corner of the trunk. Maycock helped me lift the bag from the trunk. We placed it on a blanket on the parking lot pavement. I opened the bag and saw a bloodstained empty toilet paper roll and scraps of paper. There was also a wool blanket wrapped up in a bundle.
Thinking back on it, I don't know why I didn't better prepare myself before opening the blanket. I had had, in the past, the unpleasant experience of having to investigate infant deaths related to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, but none since my daughter was born.
My daughter, Ashley, was only three days from her first birthday. For the past year, I had begun every morning and ended every night holding and cradling a precious, perfectly developed baby girl. She was our first child and I had been totally consumed by the experience.
When I opened this blanket, the sight suddenly sucked all the wind out of me. It was like walking from a warm restaurant into zero degree temperature. I literally quit breathing for what seemed like several minutes.
When Ashley was born, I had followed the doctor over to a table and quickly counted fingers, toes, and ears - she was perfect. It was a euphoria I'll never forget.
When I unwrapped this blanket, for reasons I'll never understand, I instinctively counted fingers, toes, and ears. Again, this child was perfect - a fully developed baby girl with a chubby, healthy appearance. The euphoria I had experienced with Ashley a year earlier, I experienced exactly in reverse in the parking lot that day.
I kneeled there just looking for what seemed like a long time - not because I enjoyed looking at what I saw, but because I was trying to find the composure to continue with what I had to do.
Those of us present said nothing to each other. Cops on crime scenes of death usually try to block out the reality of the situation, even sometimes joking and ignoring the obvious. Not on that day. There were six or seven of us kneeling or standing around the wool blanket that lay on the black asphalt of a parking lot which held about eight cars.
Behind the Y.M.C.A. was a football field and I could hear the sound in the distance of a youth football team practicing. We all stood there quietly staring down at the infant's body which had been thrown into the blanket along with its own afterbirth.
After a long period of silence, somebody behind me choked out the word "damn!" Somebody else whispered, "really."
The crime scene pictures show me lifting and examining the body wearing protective gloves, but I don't remember doing it. I expect I was just going through the motions of doing what I knew I was supposed to do - looking for obvious signs of the cause of death."
By Bruce Jordan
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