Chapter 6: A Chard of Black Velvet

January 1999

I could hardly believe what I had just heard. Lou’s suspect was dead, possibly the only source of information regarding this cult and how they operate. The whole idea of suicide terrified me, as it was so un-Christian. Then I remembered, Cordero had said on the videotaped interview that they (whoever they were) would be coming for him.

“How could this happen, Lou?” I asked. “Why wasn’t this creep under suicide watch? You saw the look on that guy’s face in the video! It said “I am going to die, yes, that is all she wrote! I’m going to die and nothing I can do is going to stop it! “ He was our only lead.”

Lou stood up from his desk very abruptly, and just short of yelling, said “Of course I had people watching him! That guy had suicide written all over his face in the video! Somebody screwed up! That’s the only possible explanation!” Lou came around from behind his desk, motioned for me to follow him. “Come on Malcolm! I think we have a murder on our hands now. I don’t believe that was a real suicide!”

We arrived at the detention center of the Miami-Dade Metro Police Department in record time. On the way, Lou reminded me that I was still a subject matter expert only, not a journalist. I still did not have clearance to air the story.

Story? What story? I, like Lou, had many more questions than I had answers or facts to present. I made that clear to Lou on the way over in the car. Lou was able to obtain clearance for me to follow him right on into the jail to the area detaining Cordero.

Already on the scene was a detective from Lou’s division and CSI. He told Lou that apparently Cordero had cut his own throat, (or at least something had made an ugly but surgically precise cut across the throat) causing him to bleed out all over the floor. CSI of Miami estimated that Cordero probably died in less than two minutes. However, there was something even stranger about all this. Why would you choose to blindfold yourself just before you committed suicide? The guards found Cordero with a torn piece of black velvet tied around his face, over his eyes. The surveillance cameras did not show unauthorized personnel in the area. Only a brief second of static snow on the screen and then Cordero standing up, shirtless, with his arms outstretched, hands opened wide and empty. Following another brief second of snowy static showed Cordero falling to his knees, in an explosive shower of his own blood. I had never seen, nor heard anything like this before. I had just witnessed a supernatural event complete with visible proof.

The detectives from the homicide division along with CSI peered, picked and scraped over the entire crime scene for evidence. They could not find a weapon for either murder or suicide. I knew it was a crime scene, as did Lou. Everyone else was short sighted enough to discount it as a grandstand suicide that Cordero had planned as a contingency if apprehended. The other detectives kept claiming that it had to be a suicide and nothing else. The expressions on Cordero’s face and his dialogue were evidence that he had planned on dying and his defiant answers to the charges told us that he felt nothing but contempt for us. He was not going to give us anything to go on. He wanted to check out without saying goodbye, screw you all, or I am sorry but ... Lou was desperate to find a clue that would explain Cordero”s demise. I watched in horror the death portrayed on the monitor. I felt the need to speak. “Lou, if you let these detectives handle this, you’ll never find out what happened here. I wouldn’t let this video out of my sight, because you know what happens to evidence. It’s happened to you before. I advise you and your most trusted detective get hold of someone who can make copies, more than one, and get copies of photos. Store them in a safe place like a safe deposit box. Never have that key with either of you. Hide that key, with only you, knowing of where it is, just you. I saw the video. That was something freaky! If Cordero were alive, I could say that was a rather good trick. But he’s dead. Stone cold dead! He had no weapon, his arms were not even close to his throat, and the next thing you know it’s a snowstorm of static on the screen, then an explosion of blood from the jugular area. How’s that possible? Nobody here really believes this was a suicide. Not even these jokers here, because of their quickness to dismiss this as another prisoner suicide; they are my first suspects regarding evidence tampering. I know you may have worked with these guys for a while, shared coffee and donuts and all that, but the reality is this: this is no suicide, no way.”