Chapter 365

Thursday was another slow day a KCC. It was not slow with the EIT team. Robert had another folder on the KRAA - small bits and pieces were deciphered today. Individually they did not say much but when connected with what we already knew, it added another pixel to the picture.

I still did not think I had enough concrete evidence to go to Victor and present a convincing story. I was going to give it a few more days and see what developed.

Burt, on the other hand, brought disappointing information about Alica. Burt had finally hacked the Ohio child services that had taken custody of Alica and then put her in the foster home/kid warehouse.

The Martinez couple that ran the foster home had been busted for running a prostitution ring after Alica had run away. Before the trial they were additionally charged with human trafficking with connections to Mexico and South America, Minnesota and then things went down hill from there.

Alex Martinez died in a mysterious prison gym accident while awaiting trial. His throat had been crushed in a bar bell accident. Bail had been denied; he had been in lockup for just two weeks. His wife Sofia died of a drug overdose although there was no previous evidence of drug use just four weeks earlier.

Her autopsy was sealed for reasons unknown. Most likely it was to leave the detectives bargaining room if they ever found suspects to ply them for real information, or else someone in the department was covering their ass. Burt was able to back-door a copy of it from the coroner’s files.

Sofia’s arms and legs showed signs of being restrained before her death and she had struggled in those restraints. The pain pressure points on her hands, shoulders, and neck had been used so much they were severely bruised. There were signs of aggressive sexual abuse. She was torn and bloody, both vaginally and rectal. There was no DNA found on her body.

She had died of an overdose of opiate drugs: there was no prescription, empty bottles, left over pills, no suicide note. The room had been cleaned; scrubbed was the term in the report.

It read to me like interrogation with torture and murder by a professional with a mission.

Burt did not stop digging even after he found that information. When Alica ran away from the foster home there were five other kids left; three girls and two boys.

Within a month after Alica left both boys were dead. A drug dealer stabbed one of them and a week later the other was found beat to death beside the interstate. The police reports speculated that they were involved in the drug dealings and tried to short change the dealers.

Two of the girls were arrested in a Craigslist sting and charged with prostitution again. The first offense was the reason that they were under child services care and at the foster home. That second offense was the key to the couple being charged with running a prostitution ring; the girls agreed to testify against Martinez.

The two girls were kept in juvenile correction with the third girl moved to a different foster home. Over the next two months the two girls at juvenile were both dead. One supposedly hanged herself and the other died from a fall down a stairs resulting in a broken neck.