Black Out Part Two

Not to mention that the person who had killed her had virtually painted the walls with the blood. Some of it looked to be spatter patterns. Some of it was smudged hand prints from a very violent struggle. The more she thought about it the more she thought that she should just skip a trial and ask them to put her down as soon as possible.

To her the death penalty coming as quickly as it could come would be better than rotting in jail for years to come. She knew that she should call her family and tell them. Or at least her parents. When ever she tried to think about how she would tell them it just sounded so ridiculous. Mom, Dad, I have something to tell you. Apparently I've blacked out twice in the last two days and killed at least one person, that they can prove any way.

The first time I just woke up in a bed covered in blood that wasn't mine. They can't prove anything with that one. This second one, well it’s a dozy. See I blacked out again and when I woke up there was a dead lady cop in my bath tub. Did I mention that she was one of the cops that had talked to me the first time? So how are you guys doing? Other than the dead cop in my bath tub I'm doing fine.

That just wouldn't go over well with her well to do parents. They were pillars in the community and had actually completely disowned her older brother for being a gay musician. The fact that he was a tree hugging vegetarian was a big enough embarrassment to her parents. His views on politics appalled them and his long hair was more than they could handle. Add the fact that he played guitar in a band with a bunch of dread locked hippies that always smelled of tea tree oil and patchouli had been the breaking point.

So you can imagine how they reacted when he came home with some golden beach boy and told them that he was gay. She wondered in the back of her head if they might not take this a little better. She was still their perfect daughter with the alcohol addiction and a deviated septum from snorting her allowance up her nose for five years straight. The only difference is now she apparently had killed a person or two.

Her thoughts were cut short when she saw her lawyer coming down the hall towards her. Even in the face of this great tragedy and emergency he was still perfectly composed and his hair was still coiffed with not a hair out of place. And why shouldn't it be? It was her neck on the chopping block, not his. He would still get paid either way. Then again, losing her to the electric chair would soil his perfect record.

He really was her only shot at figuring this out. They talked for a long time outside his car. He didn't have to say it but he was afraid that she would smear the blood on her hands all over his perfect interior of his Bentley. That just wouldn't be acceptable. Together they stood in the rain discussing what happened from every angle. Of course Samantha kept her bloody hands stuffed in her pockets. After twenty minutes of scouring her brain they accomplished nothing. Finally they decided to do the only thing that they could do. Samantha had to turn herself in. There was nothing more that could be done for the situation.

He made some calls and a deal was made. Samantha would turn herself in the following morning. He told them that she needed to tie up some loose ends before she made a plea bargain. He told them that she’d cut a deal as long as the whole deal was kept out of the papers to spare her parents the embarrassment.

They knew who her parents were and quickly agreed. That would be the best thing for all involved, except Samantha. She was going to go down for a murder that she didn’t remember committing. The writing was on the wall. Technically it was blood on the wall but this was no time to argue semantics. He checked her out of the hotel and moved her to another one. She was instructed not to drink and not to leave the hotel room.

Samantha was intent on drinking but she had a plan. She would not be leaving that room any time after she started drinking and she promised him that she would make sure of it. So they went to the store. Against her better judgment and perhaps his, they purchased a bottle of vodka. The next stop before they went back to her hotel was a sleazy sex store a few doors down from the hotel where she'd be spending her last night of freedom.

There Samantha bought a pair of handcuffs. When they arrived at her hotel she had him handcuff one of her hands to the head board, leaving the other one free so she could get the bottle to and from her mouth. He also left an empty trash can in case she had to pee in the middle of the night. Once she was all set he took the keys with him and he left. Samantha felt confident that nothing could go wrong tonight. No more beds full of blood and no more dead lady cops in her hotel bathroom.

With a heavy heart Samantha started to drown out all that had been for the last few days in a sea of cheap vodka. It didn't matter that she felt ill every time she took a gulp. It didn't matter that it smelled like rubbing alcohol and that it didn't taste much better. She tried instead to think about any good times that she'd had in her life. Of anything good at all really that she could cling too before she was put to death. There was no way to escape the fate that lie before her.

In the morning Samantha awoke once again feeling sick in every way possible. She leaned over the bed and threw up into the trash can. Then she lay in bed wondering what time it was. Her lawyer was supposed to come over at ten am. to deliver her to the cops. Figuring that there was no reason to rush to her death Samantha rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. It wasn't going to happen. There was something poking her in the side that wasn't painful, just uncomfortable enough that she couldn't seem to wrap her arms around blissful sleep. Maneuvering one hand down Samantha was surprised to feel something that felt like a pair of keys. What the hell?

Cautiously Samantha brought the object before her eyes. There in her hand were the keys for the handcuffs. Her mind slammed around her brain as she uncuffed herself from the bed. Fear branched out into her system and she was dreading getting off the bed. Closing her eyes she got off the bed and felt her way to the bathroom. When she arrived she was relieved to see that there was no dead body in the tub. There was no blood on the bed and everything seemed in place. Confused she started to walk back to the bed. On her way there she encountered a wet spot in the dark carpet.

Samantha froze. It was coming from the closet. The carpet was too dark for her to tell what it was, but she already knew. Lowering her head and taking a deep breath she slowly opened the door. The bloody and disemboweled body of her lawyer slumped to the floor toppling on top of Samantha's feet. After all she'd been through Samantha couldn't even feel horror any more. She couldn't feel shock. She didn't really feel anything at all. Dead bodies seemed to just have become a normal part of her life.

Walking to the bed she sat down to think. Every so often she'd look at the body and back at her hands. They didn't seem like they should be capable of this sort of thing. Samantha had always had a bit of a nasty temper. She'd been in a bar fight or two and a dozen more screaming matches that came close to blows. She'd never been violent and never had killed anyone that she was aware of.

Then again there was a lot going on in her life lately that she wasn’t aware of. At this point she had two choices. She could sit there and say that she hadn’t killed her lawyer and Detective Anti-freeze, or she could embrace the fact and move on with the business of living. Without warning an onslaught of news reports and articles came flooding into her brain.

For the last five years there had been rashes of random murders. Each one was bloodier than the last. The cops were baffled and had only recently started linking them to the same person. It was driving law enforcement crazy. For awhile people were terrified. There was never any real connection between the victims. Robbery, greed, or revenge never really seemed to be part of the equation. When Samantha took pause really thought about it all the murders seemed to coincide with times when she went out drinking to the point of black out. Every time there was a lull in the murders it was around a time when either Samantha was drying out, or simply not drinking.

With this knowledge Samantha formed a plan. If the cops weren't onto her yet then there was no reason that she shouldn't just run. There was the matter of the dead lady cop. Samantha really felt bad about that one. The detective was already dead and she couldn't do anything about it. Samantha walked back to the closet and gently rolled the body over. Digging through his pockets she dug out his keys. The clock on the wall read 6 am. It would be a few hours before they started to wonder where Samantha was. By then she'd be in the wind. With her parents money Samantha could run for years. If she could just stop drinking maybe it wouldn't happen again.

A year later Samantha was doing well. She'd relocated to a small town in Indiana. Bluffton, what a peaceful place to live. It was small, calm and beautiful beyond words with its never ending stretches of corn fields which swayed gently in the summer winds. She hadn't had a drink since the night before she'd found the great and undefeated Thomas F. Geraldi in her hotel room. Life was good. She loved her job and had made a few friends.

One fateful night Samantha was hanging out with a new friend that she'd made at work. They had a nice dinner and Tina suggested that they move to the couch and have a few drinks. Samantha's heart hitched. It sounded so good but she knew it was so bad.

"I'm sorry Tina, I don't drink anymore."

Tina nodded her head understandably. She didn't want to pry or ask why. So she got up and started to put her bottle and the glasses away. Guilt settled into Samantha's heart. Her problems shouldn't become Tina's.

"Hey just because I can't doesn't mean you can't. I want to but you wouldn't believe the things that I've done. When I wake up in the morning its always a bloody mess."

Tina smiled and poured herself another drink. An hour went by and Samantha couldn't resist it. It looked good, smelled good and probably would taste a million times better. The bottle was calling to her. Premium vodka that was ice cold and reaching out to her.

Grabbing for Tina's glass she smiled and said in a smooth voice, "Well I guess one drink wouldn't kill me".





The Press Democrat
Petaluma, California
Mysterious Killer Strikes Small Indiana Town
By: Theresa Hall


Today police discovered the badly mutilated body of Tina Mitchells in her house when a concerned co-worker called the police after Mitchells failed to show up at work this morning. Robbery didn’t appear to be a motive and the people who knew her best were stunned. Neighbors and friends couldn’t see anyone wanting to hurt the gentle woman who always had a smile and a helping hand for anyone in need.

Tina Mitchells was popular in the small town community and didn't have any enemies, according to her family. More shocking was the fact that the murder took place in the sleepy agricultural town of Bluffton, Indiana. It was only after entering the details of the murder into a national database that it was connected to a string of murders that had been plaguing California off and on for a five year stretch.

Police believe that the suspect had been in hiding. They aren't sure what triggered the assailant to start up again after a one year break. But according to Police chief Denise Rogers that was part of the pattern. There would be as much as a year and as little time as a day between the brutal murders.

They are not sure if the killer will continue to terrorize the folks here in Bluffton or move onto another town. Since the murders have moved from California to Indiana the case will be passed onto the FBI. Roseanne Burton from the FBI field office in Fort Wayne assured the public in a press conference held earlier today that the FBI would be putting all available agents on the case. She also promised that the FBI would be working with authorities here in Indiana and back in California where the rash of bizarre murders began.

"Rest assured that we will find this person and they will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Burton said during her statement.

Today marks the beginning of what is shaping up as the biggest manhunt since Ted Bundy or the Zodiac Killer.

Officials had hinted at the possibility that they were looking at a suspect from two murders in California last year. They wouldn’t say outright that she was a suspect but it was heavily hinted at it more than once during the press conference.

Unofficially they are looking at Samantha Williams from Petaluma, California as their number one suspect. As stated earlier she had already been suspected in the deaths of one Detective Cynthia Nichols and of her own lawyer. They also danced around the possibility that she was responsible for as many as fifty other murders.

She was supposed to be turning herself in the following morning after she discovered the body of detective Cynthia Nichols in the hotel bathroom of Ms Williams last year. Even stranger is the fact that she’d checked herself into the hotel after waking up in her bed which was soaked in blood. Police still haven’t solved the mystery of just who the blood belonged to. She was never charged with anything on that case.

When she didn’t turn herself in at the appointed time authorities went to her hotel room to find the body of her lawyer Thomas F. Geraldi, laying halfway out of the closet. They immediately launched a massive manhunt for her but these details of the case where only made public today.

Police suspect that her parents, Paul and Nina Williams might be aiding her financially, but they’ve been unable to prove it. At a time like this one must wonder why her name was kept out of the news in connections to the murders until today. Even now they are being careful not to come right out and point a finger at Williams. Some sources have speculated that her parents wealth and prominent positions in the community might have played a part in keeping it quiet.

Anyone who might know the whereabouts of Samantha Williams are encouraged to immediately contact the FBI.