Spirit Of The Badge Page 6

  “Oh no,” she says, “the dog says something’s there.”

  The hole is like crawling under a desk. It’s a smooth sandy area where the water washed up from the creek. It’s all clean sand. There is nothing there. I come out of there laughing. “Hey, there’s nothing here.”

  “Hmm,” she says. “Dog is tired, better go. We’ll come back tomorrow.”

  Dave and Allen go back up the bank. I start to follow, then turn around. There’s Sandra on her hands and knees, and she says, “My boot came untied . . . hey, I see a bone!”

  “What do you mean you see a bone?” I say in disbelief. Of course, everybody turns around and comes back.

  She points, “It’s right there! I can’t reach it though!” The hole is about an arm’s length away. I get on my knees and there, where there was nothing before, is a bone sticking out of the sand. I know that bone was not there ten minutes ago. Now, I really am sick. I know Sandra is planting bones at this crime scene. I don’t know who to talk to about this.

  Sandra gives me a hug and says, “You’re so good … you find all these bones!” I think to myself, Yeah because you just put it there!

  We leave and call it a night. All the other guys are saying, “This is great! We’re finding human bones! How exciting!”

  I go home thinking, How am I going to say anything when they’re all so excited? She’s a famous lady, and I don’t have proof—but I know I’m right. I ask God, “Please, make this easy for me. Please, help me figure this out.”

  The next morning before we return to the scene, Jenny and John come to me. Jenny says, “Do you think we missed anything when we originally searched that stump and found only beaver chips and stuff like that?”

  “Not unless it was something so small you couldn’t see it,” I answered.

  Jenny shook her head. “No, I’m asking do you think we missed anything like this?” She pulls out a piece of fibrous carpet material about two inches by one inch. “Do you think we missed that?”

  “NO WAY! No way,” I say.

  “Sandra went back to the stump and said we missed this.” God has answered my prayers. I am no longer alone in my suspicions.

  “Let me tell you what I think is going on,” I say. I tell them all my suspicions and end by saying, “I think she’s got to be carrying bones in the back of her pant leg, in her bunched up leg warmers. I think Sandra is actually physically planting the stuff.”

  We decide we’re not letting Sandra out of our sight. One of us will stay with her at all times—no matter what—all day long.

  Unfortunately, Sandra manages to walk off with Al and Dave. They are headed to the other coyote dens with the dog. Damn, now she’s out wandering around and none of us are with her! Sandra “finds” a piece of bone that allegedly has feces on it, which the anthropologist from Michigan State University is able to match with one of the other bones.

  Sandra now wants to return to the stream because the dog has alerted her. Jenny says, “I’m going with you.” The two of them go off together. Detective McGregor is at the creek too.

  Sandy kneels down in the water and starts feeling around. Jenny is watching. She sees Sandy’s hand go behind her leg and reach at the back of her boot.

  Sandy says, “Oh, I got the bone right here …”

  But Jenny grabs Sandy’s hand before it can touch the bottom and says, “Yeah, because you just put it there.” The two women get into a tug a war over the bone! Sandra tries to throw it back in the water. Imagine that! A bone that she just found—and she wants to throw it in the water?! Well, McGregor is trying to figure out what’s going on. He grabs the bone, and that’s when Jenny and I tell him, “She’s planting the bones.”

  I was relieved that with the help of God, Jenny and I connected that morning. Otherwise the charade would have lasted much longer.

  Eventually, it was found that the bones were from Louisiana State University’s medical department. A captain in the fire department, who was training cadaver dogs, was allowed to have the bones and he was supplying them to Sandy. Some of those bones ended up on our scene.

  The FBI charged Sandra with ten counts; she pled to five. Some people have appealed their cases based on her finding some of the evidence that convicted them, but the evidence she found was just one small piece to the puzzle in each case. She would “find” the piece that investigators thought they still needed.

  Currently, she is lodged in federal prison.

  The Tooth Fairy in Reverse

  One afternoon I was called to the scene of a pedestrian-vehicle accident at State and Main Streets in Scottville, Michigan. Seven-year-old Christina was crossing the street when she was struck by a man driving a pickup truck. The truck hit her straight-on. She was thrown off her feet before landing on her chin on the concrete.

  Luckily, Christina had young, supple bones and escaped with minor injuries. Unfortunately, she lost her front tooth. And it was a new permanent tooth. EMS arrived and took her to the hospital, while at least ten of us remained, police and rescue workers, looking for the little girl’s tooth.

  Adding to the challenge of finding Christina’s tooth on the street was that just prior to the incident, a truck had spilled corn from its dump box while rounding the corner, and thousands of kernels of corn were everywhere. I mean, THOUSANDS!

  We searched and searched for at least forty-five minutes—with no luck. Cars would drive over the corn, smashing the kernels, and turn them into all variations of yellow and white. Finally, we had to give up finding the tooth as an impossible feat.

  After the last rescue unit pulled away, I drove to my office to finish writing the accident report. As I was sitting at my desk the hospital phoned. I talked to a doctor and he pleaded, “Would you just look one more time for the tooth?”

  Although another thirty minutes had gone by, I obediently complied with his request. I truly imagined the tooth was stuck in someone’s tire by now, but for some reason, I still saw possibility.

  Looking for a tooth among thousands of kernels of corn was more frustrating than looking for a needle in a haystack. I finally said to myself, “Okay … enough of this … the tooth is still here, it has to be. But, where did it go?” All of a sudden the answer comes to me clearly: Backtrack the incident again!

  All right, she was hit right here, which caused her to be knocked forward about here . . . I carefully pace out the area. I guess where Christina landed and hit her chin. Then, I see something in the corn that doesn’t look quite right. The color blends in perfectly, but something about it catches my eye. I bend down and look at it closely. Could it be? Yes! It isn’t corn. It’s her tooth!

  I was so excited for Christina I hopped into my patrol car and drove to a Shell Mini Mart, grabbed a pint of milk out of the cooler, and dropped the tooth into the milk. My wife, who is a dental assistant, said that is the first thing you do to save a tooth. I yelled to the cashier as I ran out the door, “I’ll be back to pay for this later!” Fortunately, she knew me. I raced to the hospital with lights flashing and siren blaring, and ran into the emergency room with the tooth.

  The doctor implanted the tooth—and it survived! All I could think of was what a blessing to find it! I swear, it was like looking for one bean in a silo of beans—it seemed impossible. Several of us had already looked at that spot several times and couldn’t see it. But, when I stopped, tuned in, and didn’t try so hard, the tooth was suddenly there— in full view.

  Christina visits each year, to show me her tooth and her smile. She thanks me every time she sees me. And, yes, I did go back and pay for the mil
k.

  Dream Work

  Most of my premonitions and intuitive information manifests while I’m sleeping, although sometimes I receive unusual thoughts consciously.

  When I was nineteen years old and living at home, my best friend, Larry, joined the Marine Corps and was sent to Vietnam. Even though he was a couple of years older than me he was a lifetime friend and like a brother to me.

  One night, around 2:00 A.M., I thought I heard a loud knock on the door and suddenly woke up from a very sound sleep. I immediately sat up in bed and said aloud, “Larry is dead.” This was unusual behavior for me. I might toss and turn or lift myself on my elbow, but never sit up in bed like that. I thought to myself, What a stupid idea. I know Larry is okay. Then I lay back down and went to sleep.

  The following afternoon, two Marines visited Larry’s parent’s home and delivered a death message. Larry had been killed in action by a mortar.

  * ** *

  I was working as a trooper at the Flint Post. One day as I drove to work, I thought how amazing it was that with such a large population living in the city, none of the police officers had ever hit any pedestrians. At the speeds we sometimes traveled during the course of our duties, it seemed remarkable. Within two hours after the start of my shift, I was involved in a pedestrian accident. Fortunately the person was not seriously hurt.

  * ** *

  Many years ago, I was investigating the death of a twenty-two-year-old male. The victim lived with his parents, though he was home alone when the accident occurred. His mother returned home to find her son dead in the dining room, with a .22 caliber rifle near his body.

  While conducting my investigation, I eliminated homicide as the cause of death. However, I didn’t think it was a suicide either. Not having much confidence in our Detective Bureau at the time, I did not request a detective right away. I felt the detective would write it off as a suicide. Yet, I could not figure out how his death had happened.

  This case bothered me. It kept me awake. I lay in bed thinking about it. I could not let this nice family believe their son had deliberately killed himself if he had not. Finally, one night, I fell into a restless sleep. In my dreams, I reviewed my interview notes and revisited the scene. I analyzed and assessed the information I had over and over again in my mind—even though I was in a dream-like state. Suddenly I awakened. I knew what had happened.

  When I went to work the next day, my shift sergeant suggested I talk to a detective, just to protect myself from legal responsibility. I chose the detective I had the most confidence in and told him what I believed happened. After I told him my theory, I went to the autopsy while he went back to the scene to check it out.

  I believed that the victim, while his mother was gone, started cleaning his .22 caliber rifle. One of his brothers told me the weapon occasionally jammed, and a round could be left in the gun. The dining room had a wooden circular chandelier. I believe the victim held the weapon up to the light from the chandelier to check the barrel for cleanliness. He probably held the feeder latch open with his thumb. Then, he accidentally struck the chandelier with the butt of the rifle, his finger slipped off the latch, and the latch fell shut. With a jammed round left in the weapon, the weapon went off and struck the victim in the heart.

  The detective confirmed this theory by locating an indentation in the wooden chandelier. It matched the edge of the butt of the gun. There was also some varnish on the butt of the gun from the wood of the chandelier. As confirmed in the autopsy, the angle of the wound through the heart was the exact angle that proved my theory. I solved the mystery while I was asleep.

  The Children

  I was temporarily living in a rental home I owned on Detroit’s Eastside. I was in my mid-twenties, a police officer and also a Naval Reservist. One evening I fell asleep and had a dream:

  I heard noises coming from the basement. I walked down the basement stairs and, as I entered the laundry room, observed a boy and a girl, both about eight years old. They were each dressed in beautiful clothing, as if going to church. However, they were transparent. I knew they had passed on. They, however, did not know they were ghosts.

  As I entered the room, they looked at me and smiled. One child asked me, “Do you know where my daddy went? He was a Marine.” At that moment, I observed a bright light at the top of the stairs, unlike any light I had ever seen before. It was brilliant.

  I told the children, “I know where your daddy went. He went into the light. You have to go there, too.” I held out my hands and the children reached for me, but their hands passed through mine. They smiled and we began walking up the stairs toward the light. As I approached, I couldn’t enter any farther into the light; but I watched as the children passed by me and entered into the beautiful light.

  Then I woke up. I couldn’t believe how real the dream seemed. I told my roommate about it.

  A few days later we were working in the basement, installing a 220-volt power outlet for a new high-powered air conditioner. The cable for the outlet had to be fed into the wall and ran from the upstairs living room to the basement—to the laundry room where I saw the children in my dream.

  I cut a hole in the wall in the laundry room. As I reached into the wall to feed in the new cable, I felt something embedded in the wall. I pulled out a bayonet from a WWII rifle, still in its leather sheath! It was stamped U.S. 1941.

  The bayonet had been sealed into the wall, right where I dreamed seeing the children. I considered it a gift from the children and their father for helping them get home. I still have it today.

  Note: Although this officer was off duty when the events occurred, his story is included because it is an amazing one.

  A Clairvoyant Dream

  On September 11, 2001, I woke up and went for a walk with my sister in the early morning hours. We both wanted to get in better shape, so we power walked around the Civic Center track. I was tired and straggled behind her. “I’m so sorry,” I said, “but I had this awful dream last night. When I woke up, I was just exhausted!” Since we always told our dreams to each other, I proceeded to tell her about mine.

  “I was in the middle of a revolution. I was in a war. I think a bomb was dropped on us. I was with all these people I didn’t know. We were running, and then we stopped. We just huddled together in this building. It was so dark. Parts of the building were falling all around us. There was smoke and fire everywhere, and I couldn’t breathe. I was gasping for air. We ran down the stairs but were suddenly stopped. We were trapped, with no way out. It was horrible. I knew I was going to die—and I gave up! I’ve never had a dream like this before.”

  My sister listened attentively, and as we finished up our walk we tried to interpret the dream. Neither of us could imagine what it meant. We both thought maybe I had remembered an event from another lifetime.

  When I arrived at work at eight, I wrote an e-mail to a friend downstate. I told him about my dream. I just couldn’t let go of it. It was so unsettling.

  I had no sooner sent the e-mail when my partner came into my office. He was agitated and said, “An airplane has just crashed into one of the Twin Towers!” I thought little of it. It was probably a student pilot that went off course and somehow hit the building.

  About twenty minutes later, my partner ran into my office again, this time distraught. He gasped, “Another plane just crashed into the other building! They are airliners! I think we’re being attacked!”

  My heart fell to the floor and my stomach turned over as I remembered my dream from last night. I hurried to the conference room where everyone was watching the TV, and saw the smoke and the fire spewing out of the buildings.

  The room was silent. No one uttered a word. I started shaking my head, nearly crying, and blurted, “The buildings are both going to fall down. There are thousands of people still inside them!” We were all sick to our stomachs.
We stood there, watching as the buildings came down. It was awful.

  I believe there is a connection between all policemen. We have the same mission—to help others. We are a family. We feel the excitement and the pain of our brothers. I think, somehow, I tuned into my police family when I had that dream. I felt their distress and I lived some of the chaos with them before it happened. What disturbed me most was meeting death and accepting its inevitability.

  That day, hundreds of policemen and rescue workers died. Ultimately it affected the country and the whole world. The profound importance to our national and global life must have been a factor that triggered my vision.

  I wonder how a person can move out of the confines of time and live a few moments in the future. I don’t have the answers—but I know I was there.

  Dream Warning

  Police work seems to attract young men who have big egos and want to be macho. In Recruit School the cadets think they know everything. They show off their genitalia, belch, burp, and fart in the classroom (only when the instructor leaves the room, of course). I was certainly one of these guys. I thought I was so smart. And, since I’d shot rifles and shotguns ever since I was a kid, I thought I knew all about handguns, too.

  After one particularly stressful ten-hour day of lectures and classes on defensive tactics and lifesaving techniques, running, and shooting on the range—I was tired. It seems when I’m tired, I dream a lot.

  The dream I had that night concerned my pistol, which I had received just two days before.

  I have returned to my elementary school and am in the classroom of one of my favorite teachers. I tell the teacher, “I’m here, policing at the school now. I’m here to guard the kids.”