Powder

“Could you state your name and title for the records please?” Inside a courtroom in Connecticut, a prosecutor walking from his desk to face the witness stand asked of the witness sitting on the podium.
The witness, a middle aged man wearing transition lens prescription glasses along with a dark grey pinstriped jacket and matching pants. He straightened himself in the chair prior to leaning forward and speaking into the microphone. “My name is Bob Sylva, That’s B.O.B. S.Y.L.V.A.N. I am a thirteen year employee of the Connecticut highway patrol. I currently hold the position of lieutenant.” He leaned backward in his chair as he completed his response.as he does he glances across the room at the grand jury, its twelve members sat almost motionless, staring back at the witness stand. “Thank you!” replied the prosecutor who was now leaning against the wooden rails surrounding the witness stand. “Could you describe the events of 11th August 2016?” He continued.
A confident, experienced member of the district attorneys’ office, Joe E. Dorsey had spent the better part of his last thirty years working in the courtroom of eastern Connecticut, now a staple figure on high profile cases. He was known to be almost surgical with his precise questioning and firm adherence to the law.
“Should I start at the beginning of my shift? Or just the parts that relate to this case?” returned Lieutenant Sylvan.
“Well I’m not sure the members of the jury would be interested in your choice for breakfast!” Mr. Dorsey replied sarcastically which solicited a laugh amongst the population of the courtroom.
“Please start at the point you believe is most relevant to the case.”
Taking a moment staring at the ceiling as if to recall from the air some lost bit of information,
“For the most part it was a normal”…
“I’m sorry could you speak into the microphone please.” The presiding judge commanded of the witness.
“Oh sorry about that!” the witness a bit embarrassed blushed as he adjusted his posture to take better advantage of the audio device
“As I was saying it was a normal day, I had been about halfway through my shift, my patrol took me down the I-90. I was approximately ten to fifteen miles from the perky parrot, which is a truck stop on the I-90 route. Normally I pull into the parking lots of these stops and spend some time observing the area before moving along to other stops or to do a speed check. Things like that. But that day was different! As I said I was on my way toward the perky parrot. When the call came in over the radio.
The dispatcher said there was an accident on the I-90 westbound which happened to be the exact direction I was travelling in. oh! She also mentioned that vehicles were on fire. So as one would with any call for assistance, I turn my siren on and headed as an increased travel rate towards the scene intending to provide whatever assistance I could immediately.”
Taking a sip of water from a glass sitting before him on the desk Sylvan concluded his speech.
“I take it you eventually arrived at the said scene?” Dorsey quarried.
“Yes sir I did!” replied Sylvan
“Could you describe the scene of the accident upon your arrival?” asked Dorsey
“Well that’s easy! Utter destruction” quipped Sylvan “I mean the most striking thing I saw probably the first thing I saw was a severed arm laying almost in the middle of the highway.
There was a parked semi on the side of the highway which from the front end looked quite normal except the hood was opened and stuck in the air, which was the only indication something was amiss. At the rear however a thick dark plume of smoke rose confidently into the air. Its thick black grey body hung like a low calumnious cloud.
The closer I got the more pronounced was the smell of what I at first thought was burnt barbecue. However there was a rancid, rather pungent aspect to the odor which, I guess the best way to describe it was as if a rotting animal was burnt. I had never smelled burning human flesh before and so I never considered this unusual aroma to be associated with my own specie.
There were traffic cones laid out by the fire fighters, who, were still hosing the back end of the semi. The fire engine stuck out in the night as its flashing lights created a rather dramatic display in the otherwise dull landscape. The silhouette of trees lining the landscape came alive in the lighting.
There was an ambulance whose white body stood as a stark contrast to the fire engines bright red. The EMT crew was just about to shove the wheeled stretcher into the back of their ambulance I figured there was a person recovered and strapped onto the gurney, as I could see crew members holding IV bags in the air as they worked on getting the stretcher into the ambulance. Within a minute or two they were all loaded up and on their way to seek medical attention at some hospital.
The debris field covered a fairly large section of the highway at least thirty five, forty feet in length and spanned the breadth of both lanes.
I parked my cruiser and got out, observing the semi as I moved along its length walking. I at first didn’t notice any other vehicle and thought it to be a peculiar scene. I pondered whether the semi was somehow burning due to its contents or maybe some catastrophic mechanical failure a brake caliper got stuck and overheated leading to the fire or something like that.
I at that point saw the arm up close laying alongside the yellow line separating the lanes on the highway. I must admit a cold hard shiver ran down my spine, causing me to retrieve my asthma pump and take a pull. It helps calm my nerves you know! That’s around when I noticed a mass of something underneath the rear of the semi about the area of the rear axle. It seemed to me then that the fire crew was focusing primarily on this mass.
Once I got close enough I realized that an entire vehicle was wedged under the semi. Only then did the reality of the scene hit me. A parked rig got rear ended at tremendous speed by some sedan and the arm laying in the roadway was from one of the occupants of the sedan. Around this point a pair of cruisers pulled in from the opposite direction to my arrival and after some formalities we proceeded to attempt piecing the events together.
The absence of skid marks indicated that the sedan had never attempted to brake so a loss of control at high speed was assumed to have occurred which saw the ultimate sudden braking. All indicators were pointing to maybe a sleeping driver.”
“Did you speak with the firefighters?” looking at the members of the jury as if directing his question to them Dorsey asked.
“Ah... At first no as I joined with the other police officers to attend to the scene and we started to take photographs as well as mark the locations of any and all bits of debris we could locate, stuff like that. Also due to the restriction of the usable area on the highway we had one officer posted to direct any oncoming traffic. Which was not something the drivers enjoyed too much I can tell you that, we had to force them to use the extreme right shoulder which itself was trouble for we still could not be certain they weren’t driving over bits of evidence. But it was the best we could come up with! The other two officers and I did our best to locate as much debris and mark them so the accident reconstruction team would be able to best complete their job. There was a sort of anomaly encountered by the fire fighters which was the initiation of our dialogue with the fire crew.”
“Could you look at exhibit #1 please?” Dorsey commanded “could you explain what we are looking at?” Dorsey continued.
“That I know to be a picture of the stated anomaly.” Sylvan replied
“And did you ascertain what this anomaly was?” Dorsey asked
“Yea in my profession we call that a simply a bullet hole.”
“And where was the bullet hole located?”
“It was rather peculiar for as the car was crunched up from the impact with the rig and the bullet hole was through the top of the rear left door frame. It’s almost hard to describe, oh and it was obvious that it originated from the inside the car as the metal blew outwardly. If you will notice that the ruler is held right next to the hole so one can assume the size of the projectile by the hole it created. Also the hole was unchanged even though the car was destroyed.”
“What significance does this have?”
“Well it suggests that the bullet struck the metal either upon impact of after impact. This is the reason I considered, or it was considered by those on the scene an anomaly as the occupants of the sedan either side at the moment of collision or from the flame which ensued.”
As the witness finished speaking the prosecutor then depressed the button on his remote which changed the image displayed by the projector.
“Please look at exhibit #2, can you identify this image? “Dorsey
Continued.
“Yes I can!” Lieutenant Sylvan replied
“And what do you identify this image as?” returned Dorsey.
“That I know to be the photo of the weapons in the positions they were recovered.”
Dorsey walked over to the podium where Sylvan sat and asked
“What weapons?”
“Well during the removal of the remains of the three individuals from the sedan we encountered what was identified as there handguns though they were in a burnt state. The wooden and polymer segments had burned away leaving only the metal frames. Which were unmistakable to one who knows about such weapons. Also due to the intense heat the rounds in the magazines had discharged themselves. So if you look carefully at the photo you can see several brass jackets next to the weapons.”
Thank you, so these weapons did they initiate any action from yourself or any other member of the responding crew?”
“At first not really, it is the norm in the great United States of America that guns are in cars so no one was alarmed. Our initial assumption is that they were legal.
“You say at first, why?”
That’s because we simply bagged and tagged all items as evidence and moved on to the cleanup of the crime scene. The sooner we get done the sooner the highway can resume to its normalcy.”
“We were removing the car from the undercarriage of the semi in order to get the remains of the two front seat passengers removed. But a chop saw had to be employed to cut away some of the metallic parts of both the car and the semi in order to completely retrieve the sedan. This led to a second anomaly if you would.” Taking a sip of water Sylvan paused as if awaiting further instructions or questions.
“So would exhibit #3 be a picture of your second anomaly?” changing the slide Dorsey asked bringing up an image of the semi featuring its rear axle co-mingled with the sedan’s front end. Both charred from the inferno which recently consumed their paint and flammable segments.
“Yes sir that is a picture in which the anomaly can be seen.”
“And what is anomalous in that picture?”
“well if you notice right at the there is a cut which was made by the chop saw just about the middle where that bit of twisted metal is protruding upward into the base of the flooring on the trailer.”
“Would that be here?” Dorsey using a laser pointer mad a circular motion at the area on the picture indicated by Sylvan.
“Yes sir it is”
“Again explain what we are looking at and why this is considered to you then to be anomalous.”
“Can you see the white waxy substance along the cut made into the bumper?”
“You mean this” aging using the pointer to indicate what Sylvan is speaking of Dorsey asked.
“Yes sir, note how that area is almost like a sore thumb, everything else has a charred appearance, but once we cut into the bumper that white substance presented itself. Normally the bumpers of semis are entirely hollow tubes of metal. So finding one filled in is instantly intriguing.”
“So what steps did you take upon this discovery?”
“We than attempted to get a sample of the item in question and have some emergency checks done before proceeding. Due to potential bio hazards and things like that, better to be safe than sorry right? But really we had our own suspicions!”
“And what suspicions did you have?”
“Well! The witness let out a small chuckle “when you’ve been in this profession for as long as I have you immediately upon discovering white substances in hidden compartments are always some sort of illicit item primarily drugs.”
“Did you, or were you able to dispel or confirm those suspicions?”
“Yes as a matter of fact we were able using a drug sample testing kit we carry able to identify the substance to be fentanyl.”
“What steps were taken at the point of such confirmations?”
“We immediately called my chief to have them notify the DEA and the FBI as the discovery took things out of our control, interstate commerce is the jurisdiction of federal agencies. So after removing the sedan and having both vehicles towed to a government garage lot. I left to visit the hospital where the semi driver was taken for he would most certainly be place under arrest.”
“Do you not require a warrant to arrest him?”
“Well given the discovery the warrant would be issued in short order, but not knowing the state he was in we had to make preparations to at least detain him while we awaited the warrant”
“And I assume the arrest went as intended?”
“As a matter of fact the driver was unconscious for a number of days so his fleeing prosecution was not possible he remained under police guard until he came out of his coma at which point he was placed under arrest. But the FBI had taken over by then so I was not there when this actually transpired”
“Ok lieutenant Sylvan thank you for your time no further questions at this time.”