It was my sad duty to examine the remains of your daughter, Alexandra, whose body was found along the verge of the Main Supply Route that connects the Green Zone to the Baghdad airport. Medics from the 4th Brigade combat team found her and brought her to our hospital inside the Green Zone, hoping to make an identification.
Forgive me for writing to you in a blunt fashion. Your daughter was found naked, with burns across her face and torso, as if she had received phosphorus burns from an IED. However, it troubled me that I did not see signs typically found in people who die as a result of burns; nor would an IED have burned off her clothes. While my staff submitted her fingerprints and DNA for identification, I began her autopsy.
The next day, her identity was determined, and we learned that she worked for the Tintrey Corporation. A representative from the company came to collect her body to prepare it for return to her family. I gave him a copy of my preliminary report. At that time, I was still waiting for results of various forensic tests, including analysis of semen found in her vagina, and for her blood work.
The following morning, I had a call from Colonel Cleburne, my own commanding officer, ordering me to destroy my autopsy report. No reason was given other than that Tintrey was a civilian operation and that the Army budget was stretched too thin to take on civilian autopsies. The Colonel informed me that he had also ordered the laboratory to end its tests on the various fluids we had sent over.
I deleted the report from my computer, as commanded, but I did not destroy my printed copies. After long and anguished deliberation, I have decided to send you my preliminary findings.
I regret being the transmitter of such difficult news, but I believe no good is ever served by burying the truth.
Sincerely,
Edwards Walker, MD, Captain, U.S. Army
Attached to the letter was a photocopy of the report. I skipped to the end, to the summary, which explained that Alexandra was a “healthy white female in her twenties, with burn marks over 30 percent of her body, whose body had been found in the midst of metal fragments that might have been the remains of a bomb blast. Medics thought at first that she had been killed by a bomb, but, upon postmortem analysis, we discovered she had been bound and strangled before death.”
I flipped through the detailed medical examiner’s report.
DIAGNOSES: 1. Manual strangulation. A. Petechial hemorrhages, conjunctival surfaces of eyes. B. Hyoid bone fracture.
2. Postmortem full and partial thickness burns to 30 percent of the total body surface area.
EVIDENCE OF INJURY: Distal right portion of the hyoid bone palpably & visibly fractured with prominent associated recent hemorrhage extending downward to the right thyroid cartilage.
CLINICOPATHOLOGIC CORRELATION: The lack of thermal injury to the larynx and bronchi indicates that the victim was not breathing at the time of exposure to the fire. Given the damage to the hyoid bone, and the petechiae found on the conjunctivas, the evidence is consistent with death by strangulation, with subsequent attempted disposal by burning.
On the posterior aspect of the right forearm is a linear 3- × 1-inch contusion with a 1- × ?-inch abrasion in its center. Wrists show evidence of binding ligature injuries.
The captain believed Alexandra had been sexually assaulted. He found semen in her vagina and pubic hairs of a different color than her own. However, as he had written at the end of his letter to the Guamans, the lab had been ordered to end all analyses of blood and other fluids. As a result, there was no toxicology report and no rape kit.
I lay back in the sofa bed, staring at the ceiling. There were spider-webs in the corners and a trail of web hanging from the drapes. Cleanliness is next to impossible, one of my college friends used to say, and she was right.
I pictured Cristina Guaman and her husband reading Captain Walker’s letter. Tintrey had sent Alexandra’s body home to them, telling them their daughter had died of burns from an IED, burns so bad that they advised against viewing her body. With the horror of that news still fresh in their minds, they suddenly learned that Alexandra had been raped, murdered, and then set on fire and left in a public place so that everyone would assume she had been the victim of an Iraqi assault.
Who had left her there? Who had violated her, killed her, tried to cover the murder up? Her boss, Mossbach? The programmer, Jerry? Whoever it was, Tintrey knew. They had put pressure on Colonel Cleburne to end the forensic investigation and destroy the report.