Handler’s Log – Haywood Cotton
Case File ATL2021.067a – Sara Martin Killing – Working Group “Phoenix”
The local office received a report of a possible interstate killing at approximately 0430 this morning. Our records search shows multiple other possible instances. Contact available on-call agents to bring them in for a briefing. Some agents fail to arrive.
The agents on the case are as follows. They have been designated as the working group “Phoenix.”
- Gregory Jefferson (played by Horst W.) – Agent Jefferson is an admirable profiler. He was a professional counselor before joining the Agency. He has commented about a cult worshiping an “alien god,” but it has not interfered with his work.
- Jean Oliver (played by Will H.) – Agent Oliver was a very successful television news investigator before they were abruptly shifted to “human interest” stories by their station. This was related to a story they ran about homeless people being used as “human sacrifices.” As an agent, their interpersonal skills have proved invaluable.
- Jackie Taylor (played by Puckett) – A consultant, Ms. Taylor’s knowledge of Anthropology, Bureaucracy, and Computers have proven invaluable in the past. She is a dubious asset, but I am limited on whom I can contact and need someone who might find something from the body.
The victim is Sara Martin, 20, a student at the Savannah Art and Design Institute. Her body was found this morning on the bank of the river near the estuary. Her head, right arm, both legs, and her heart, liver, and spleen had been removed. Ms. Martin had been reported missing four days ago by her roommate. She has been tentatively identified based on a tattoo on her torso.
A local television station, WSAVH, has picked up the story and has found two similar cases; one in Charleston, South Carolina, and one in Jacksonville, Florida. This makes it an interstate case, which means we need to respond. It is probably a coincidence, but we need to show that we are reactive.
A search through the records with the criteria of remains found at the edge of the water with missing limbs or organs returned over a dozen cases in the past two years. I cannot rule out the possibility of a connection between the incidents. So I have opened a case and assigned a working group to it.
The search results are attached. Our contact with the Chatham county sheriffs’ office is Deputy Harlan Issacs. I have sent the working group to interface with him.
Hugo McCarthy – Jacksonville, FL – 7/21/2019. Reported missing 4/19/2018. Cause of Death: Unknown due to condition of the body. Missing head, both legs. Identified from spinal surgery implant
Unknown male – Miami, FL – 10/5/2019. Missing left arm and left leg. Cause of Death: Drowning.
Patsy Ramirez – Miami, FL – 12/11/2019. – Reported missing 11/17/2019. Missing arms and legs. Cause of Death: Blunt force trauma. Identified from dental records
Adrian Mitchel – Jacksonville, FL – 2/17/2020. – Reported missing 2/3/2020. Cause of Death: Asphyxiation. Missing head, right arm, right leg, liver, kidneys, and spleen. Identified from a tattoo on the left arm.
Unknown male – Wilmington, NC – 3/21/2020. – Missing legs, left arm—cause of Death: Unknown due to condition of the body.
Stuart Rodriquez – Newark, NJ – 3/23/2020. – Missing arm. Cause of Death: Unknown due to condition of the body.
Unknown female – Wilmington, NC – 4/24/2020. Reported missing 4/8/2020. Cause of Death: Blood loss (?). Missing head, right arm, both legs, heart, and lungs.
Pearl Lindsey – Providence, RI – 5/17/2020. Reported missing 5/11/2020. Cause of Death: Barbiturate overdose. Missing head, both arms. Identified by DNA match
Unknown female – Wilmington, NC – 6/30/2020. Cause of Death: Blunt force trauma. Missing head, both legs, heart, liver, kidneys
Shaun Baker – Norfolk, VA – 7/11/2020. Reported missing 6/15/2020. Cause of Death: Trauma from a gunshot wound. Missing heart, liver, kidneys, spleen.
Unknown female – Savannah, GA – 10/19/2020 – Cause of Death: Unknown due to the body’s condition. Missing head, both arms, and both legs.
Unknown male – Charleston, SC – 12/6/2020. Cause of Death: Unknown/Blood loss (?). Missing head, right arm, lungs, liver.
Agent Oliver Armstrong – Jacksonville, FL – 1/12/2021. Cause of Death: Boating accident. Missing arm.
Sara Martin – Savannah, GA – Today. Reported missing 3/2/2021. Cause of Death: Unknown/Blood loss (?). Missing head, both arms, right leg, heart, and liver. Identified by a tattoo on the torso. Cause of Death: Pending.
The group requested that an autopsy be delayed until they could arrive to assist. They then drove to Savannah.
There, they split up. Agent Oliver met with Deputy Issacs while Agent Jefferson and Jackie went to the coroner’s office.
Agent Oliver meets with Issacs. Issacs seems to feel that the case is unimportant and is probably “a drug deal gone bad.” He bases this on Ms. Martin’s ethnicity (Puerto Rican) and her status as a college student. He does not seem particularly concerned.
Ms. Martin’s car was found outside of her apartment at the Savannah Art and Design Institute (SADI). Her purse, with her phone and ID, were found within it. Agent Oliver requested and had the items turned over to her.
She also learned that Ms. Martin had been reported missing by her roommate at SADI–Carla Johansen–who lives in the Bellview Apartments near the campus. She is unable to get any more information out of Issacs.
Leaving the office, she examines the contents of Ms. Martin’s purse. She finds that her phone has been factory reset and has no information readily available on it. She is sending it by courier back to Atlanta, so our IT team can look at it.
The contents of her purse proved unremarkable. The only items of note are an access card for the Savannah Artists Co-op and a membership card for the Savannah Epicurial Society, with a membership date less than a month in the past.
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goes to visit Carla Johansen. Ms. Johansen was unaware that Ms. Martin’s body had been found and was considerably distraught when Agent Oliver revealed the news. She was able to get some information from her.
Ms. Martin had a very “active” dating life. She credited this to a trick where she pretended not to know English very well, even though she spoke it as well as Spanish. This let her hear what potential dates were saying about her without them realizing that she understood them.
Ms. Martin had a workshop at the Savannah Artists Co-op; her specialty was glass sculpture. Ms. Johansen knew a few of them. Ms. Martin dated a graphic designer from there named Calvin Diaz. She spent a lot of time with Vicky Watkins, who was another sculptor.
Ms. Martin had recently met someone there who she only ever referred to as “Ash.” The last time Ms. Johansen saw her, Ms. Martin was hopeful that “tonight will be the night.” That was the previous Friday. When Ms. Martin failed to return on Saturday morning, she didn’t think anything of it. She assumed Ms. Martin’s prediction had come true. It was only when Monday arrived and Ms. Martin failed to return to classes that she realized that something was wrong. That was when she reported her disappearance to Detective Issacs. She has heard nothing since.
Agent Oliver searches Ms. Martin’s desk and finds a flyer for the Savannah Epicurian Society, promising to “Take you on a Gastronomic Adventure.” Agent Oliver asks Ms. Johansen about it and learns that Ash was a member and was taking Ms. Martin to one of their dinners. It is an expensive society to be a part of, and she knows little else about it.
Agent Oliver consoles Ms. Johansen as well as she can, then leaves to rendezvous with the other agents.
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Meanwhile, Agent Jefferson and Specialist Taylor have gone to the morgue to meet with Ronald Cohen, the coroner. He is an older man who has been waiting for them. The body is ready, and he immediately leads them into the operating theatre.
Specialist Taylor examines the body first. She is quickly able to determine that whoever dismembered Ms. Martin was highly skilled. The cuts that removed the limbs and head were exceptionally clean; whoever removed them wasn’t hacking randomly and knew what they were doing. Specialist Taylor suspects that the limbs were removed with something like a butcher knife.
Cohen then proceeds with the autopsy. He can provide a few more pieces of information. Ms. Martin had eaten shortly before her death because there were still stomach contents. The material removed is sent for analysis.
He also determines that, due to a lack of subdermal bleeding, the body had been drained of blood before dismemberment. And that she had died before that. Specialist Taylor realizes that draining blood before cutting is commonly done by butchers as the blood would otherwise spoil the meat. She is disturbed by the implication.
There was no water in her lungs, so she had not drowned. She was dead before being dumped in the water.
The agents ask about one of the previous cases, the unknown female from October. Cohen doesn’t remember anything about it and pulls up the files on the computer. It says that the unidentified woman was suspected of being a stowaway on a commercial ship entering the Port of Savannah (a major commercial shipping port). It is believed that she jumped overboard and attempted to swim to shore but was hit by a ship and injured by the propellor.
The agents ask for contact information on the coroner who performed the autopsy on the unknown woman’s body and are told that he was Scott Golden.
Golden, at first, does not want to talk to them and only repeats what was in the report. Finally, after a threat that the FBI would reopen the case, he agrees to meet with the Agents at his home.
They find him chain-smoking in his front yard. He readily admits that he didn’t like the “official” report but was forced into it. Mike Whitehead, a member of the Chatham county council, had asked him to come up with an innocuous explanation for the case.
Savannah had remained “open,” even as Covid had shut down most of the state. The city and county derived too much of their income from tourists. Plus, as a major commercial port and as near a major Naval submarine base, they had a lot of people in town. Whitehead didn’t want any reports to get out that might scare people away, so he wanted the incident covered up.
He says he felt he had no choice. Many of his colleagues had been let go, using the Covid pandemic as an excuse. He didn’t want to jeopardize his livelihood to disagree.
He disagrees with the official report. A propeller didn’t cause her injuries; they were done with surgical precision. Plus, her stomach contents weren’t something that a stowaway would have had access to. She had eaten a seafood meal only an hour or so before her death. Mostly shrimp.
Then agents thanked Golden for his help and promise to leave his input out of their report. He also says that Cohen was the coroner before him and only stays around because he likes it. Cohen has said that he feels more at home with the dead bodies than other people. He is officially retired but is still running the weekend shift. He will probably put whatever his superiors want in his report, as long as he can keep working.
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The agents decide to meet up and share information. One of them expresses an interest in chicken-and-waffles, and they wind up at a restaurant called the Partridge Barn. When Agent Oliver arrives and they enter, they note a “Savannah Epicurial Society Choice, 2020” sticker in the window.
After getting informed about what the others had found, the Agents look up the Savannah Epicurial Society (SES). They find out that it is a dinner club dedicated to “Taking your Taste Buds to Unknown Dimensions.” The website’s contacts are Lynne Ruse, the president, and Faye Sparks, their head “chef.” Spark is a graduate of the “American Culinary Institue.”
The agents ask their server about the society and learn that it rented out the entire restaurant back in October. One of them realizes that October was about the time that the unidentified missing person had died. They press for more details.
The server tells them that the society had booked the entire restaurant for that night, so everyone there had been part of the society. She adds, somewhat disparagingly, that all of them were “really rich.” She got propositioned a few times for money, but she turned them down. She likes the tips, but she has a nine-year-old at home.
The agents ask if any of the servers did go home with members of the society, and she says that she thinks that “Allison” did.
They find Allison and try to talk to her. She at first denies anything, then says she will speak with them outside on her smoke break.
Outside, she confesses that she left with a guy named “Steve.” She doesn’t know anything about him, except that he tipped her $100 that night. She wound up frustrated because he drove her to the marina, where someone started screaming at him for bringing someone with him without permission. He immediately called an Uber and sent her home. She is embarrassed about the whole thing.
The Agents ask her where she went, and she says that they were at the dock for a nice yacht named the Rodin’s Thought She only recognized the name because her art history class had been reviewing Rodin that week.
The agents thank her, “tip” her even though she wasn’t their waitress, then returned to their hotel to decide their next action.