Paint The Town Red

Chapter 2

🪦Miles Garcia

🪦Julius Carter

🪦Jacob Adams

🪦Bailey Harris

🪦Joseph Harper (Joe)

Freen's POV

I finish off my croissant while staring at the gory crime scene photos.

Blood is smeared across the walls with paintbrush, just like the other four cases we've managed to link together. It's one of the few things that remains consistent. The unsubscribe always paints a wall red with the victim's blood.

"How can you eat while seeing that?" Samantha asks while wrinkling her nose and sitting down on the edge of my desk

Ignoring her question, I ask, "What did they find out about Joseph Harper?"

"The M.E estimated that he was tortured for atlas three days. He has parts of him that have been cut off, just like the others. Including the penis." she sighs.

That has me cringing, probably just any person would. One of these images is supposed to be a dismembered penis?

"His fingers were all cut off" she goes on, pointing at one picture that was snapped ten severed fingers lying on the ground. "His chest was slowly pulled off piece by piece. The unsub stopped the bleeding each time by using barbaric method of cauterization. He wanted the victim alive for those three days specifically. His penis seems to be the last thing to have gone. Ligature marks were found again, and chains were hanging from his basement rafters. We think the unsub stayed true to his profile, leaving the victim strung up in their own home.So far, all the men have had isolated homes too far away for any neighbors to overhear or see anything."

And he's not devolving either. His strikes are controlled, well planned out, and meticulous in detail, even if we don't understand the details

"The unsub should be a female, considering the groin mutilation in all the kills," Luke says, shredding as he walks up on our conversation. "Only a woman could handle cutting off a man's junk"

"Women serial killers statistically don't torture. They're actually far more efficient and harder to track down because of that" Samantha says dismissively

"Well, he has to be impotent. Most serial killers are" John chimes in, joining us.

There's a reason he and Luke are not profilers

"I think he's more of a sexual sadist," Samantha explains. "Impotence likely plays a part, but just calling them impotent isn't a profile."

"So an impotent sexual saddist?" Luke asks, confused.

"Sexual sadist are often impotent, and they seek out their sexual release through torture. No signs of rape were found, but its likely the unsub hasn't evolved and grown the confidence to rape the men yet."

"So gay sexual sadist?" Luke goes on, still lost.

"Yes" Samantha says, nodding

"All make victims were straight, according to witnesses. If they were gay, that theory would make more sense." I add. "All five men were from the same town, yet no one can think of any man who might want to kill all five. However, I know we're missing something"

"Footprints are size twelve man's shoe made in the dirt on the way to the house. The footprint is solid from heel to toe. Our field expert says that the unsub weighs between two-tan and two-fifteen" Samantha announces.