Homicide - Search Warrant

When we left our detectives, Evan and Jeff, they'd just gotten a preliminary report from the on-site forensics. I had planned to leave the scene and pursue one of the many leads floating around out there, but now I've decided to push ahead with the last bit of physical evidence here, searching the apartment of one of our suspects, Michelle Allen. We've already done the work to get a warrant for this, so in the interests of speeding the plot, I'm going to declare we've gotten it and are ready to go in, with Mike Lewis, the property manager, providing access.

If you recall, our detectives already poked around the outside of Allen's apartment, and discovered signs of a hasty departure. My feeling is there's not going to be a lot here beyond that, but one never knows. Let's see how the scene goes...

Our scene resolution check calls for an altered scene. Hmm. How do you alter the search of an empty apartment? Two possibilities come to mind. The apartment is occupied after all, or we're about to uncover another crime scene. Let's see what Mythic GM thinks. I'm going with 50/50 for these questions, as I don't have a strong feeling about the answers one way or the other.

• Q1: Is there someone in the apartment? (50/50)
• Answer: Yes.
• Q2: Is it Michelle Allen? (50/50)
• Answer: Extreme yes.
• Q3: Is she dead? (50/50)
• Answer: Yes.

Well, well, well. I guess if she's our shooter we've solved Scott Marin's murder. Now we have another potential crime to resolve. Let's find out a bit more about this crime scene. A dice roll for location rules out the common results and gives us other. Great... Hmm. About the only place left in an apartment that wasn't on our list is some sort of closet or utility area. The dice say utility area.

• Q4: Are there obvious signs of how she died? (near sure thing)
• Answer: Extreme yes
• Q5: Was she shot? (very likely)
• Answer: Yes
• Q6: Any obvious sign of other people in the apartment? (likely)
• Answer: Yes
• Q7: Does her wound appear self-inflicted? (very unlikely)
• Answer: Yes (but forensics has final say here)
• Q8: Is there a gun present? (50/50)
• Answer: No
• Q9: Has the body been moved? (50/50)
• Answer: No

Err. Hmm. Well that's a twist. Do we have a murder-suicide? If so where's the gun? There's some sign that other people were here. I'll declare that's bloody shoe prints that don't match the victim's shoe size.

• Q10: Anything else of note in the apartment? (50/50)
• Answer: Extreme yes

Now what?

• Q11: Another body? (very unlikely)
• Answer: No
• Q12: Signs of theft / something removed? (50/50)
• Answer: Yes
• Q13: Were there signs of forced entry? (50/50)
• Answer: Yes (die roll says window)

Well that's just confusing. I... really don't have a good feel for where this is headed now. We have a second body that appears to be a suicide (appearances can be deceiving so we'll leave the actual determination to the forensics team -- who are becoming more important to the story now).

As you can tell, Mythic provides quite a few twists and turns. I really wasn't expecting to find anything in the apartment beyond signs of flight, but that proved completely wrong. I was starting to build a mental case for Allen and Babbett being the shooters, perhaps as a result of some sort of scam or personal conflict, but now I'm not sure. Maybe Marin robbed Allen and got caught? Maybe Woods is more important than we thought? I... really don't know. It's obvious we have work ahead of us to resolve this. We'll have forensics process this apartment, and since that was the last bit of local investigation we had on our plate, we'll move in a different direction next time. We'll focus on clearing some of the simple threads we have open, the prints from the apartment and gun, clearing alibis, and interviewing people in custody.

Until next time!

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