Chase // Van McCann

9. Last Moments

A week passed by before we got information on the second body. It belonged to 26-year-old Amanda Harrison who's been missing for a little over one week. She was reported missing by her flatmate when she went out for a walk and never came back. The last day she was seen alive was the day the coroner determined she died. That gave us some insight on the murderer. The murderer wasn't one to hold onto victims for days. This person worked quickly, wasting no time.

Amanda died in the same manner that Erica did. She was bludgeoned to death in the head with a baseball bat and her body cut up into small pieces before being stuffed in a duffel bag and dumped into the woods. I wondered why the killer chose the woods this time. It was probably due to his or her first failed attempt at hiding the body in the water.

Investigators collected samples from all over her body and sent it to the lab for analysis. It will take weeks before we get answers. The investigators also looked at Erica's phone and wallet but found no fingerprints and nothing out of the ordinary.

Her phone was turned off upon discovery. When investigators tried to turn it on, it wouldn't due to a dead battery. Once the phone was adequately charged, they combed through her phone, checking all her text messages, email, and socials but found nothing. They worked with her mobile phone company to determine her last location ping which was at a supermarket that was ten minutes away from Alki Beach. It wasn't much, but it was a start at piecing together the last moments of Erica's life.

They looked through her wallet and didn't find any fingerprints or anything obvious missing. Her cash, credit card, and ID were all there which meant the killer's intention had nothing to do with money. Also, it was determined that both women showed no signs of being sexually assaulted so the killer's intention was not sexual either. So what could be the reason why the killer would go out of his or her way to kill these two women?

We first had to figure out if Erica Foss and Amanda Harrison knew each other. If they did, the person responsible for their murders could be someone they both know. I had to set up a team to investigate relatives and close friends of Amanda. For Erica, I had Lily but I hoped I didn't have to question her again.

-

Bondy and I were stood outside the supermarket where Erica had last supposedly been. It was a fairly busy supermarket selling fresh produce. We walked in and asked to speak to the manager right away. The manager invited us into his office and we began questioning him immediately, wasting no time.

"Have you been watching the news lately regarding the recent murders?" I asked casually.

The manager nodded his head. "Yeah, scary stuff, isn't it?" he replied, pulling at the collar of his shirt. I could tell he was getting nervous, wondering why he was being questioned.

"We were able to recover Erica's phone at the crime scene and her last known mobile phone location was here," I went on.

"Here?" the manager repeated, his eyes wide. I could see beads of sweat forming on his forehead.

"Yes," I answered. I pulled out pictures of Erica and showed them to him. "Does she look familiar? Do you remember seeing her? I know it's been over a month since she last set foot in this store...."

"No she doesn't but to be honest, we get hundreds of customers everyday and people are wearing masks so it's hard to know for sure." I already knew he wouldn't recognize her. I mean it's very unlikely that he would.

"Do you have any security footage we can look at?" Bondy asked.

"We do have security footage but if she was last seen over a month ago, I'm afraid the footage has long since been deleted. You see—we clear the tapes every two weeks because the file takes up too much space. We have someone who looks through them before we delete them and they are to write down anything out of the ordinary that they observe—like someone stealing something but that's it. Do you want to look at the log?" the manager offered.