The air was thick with a putrid smell.
The sun had just crossed the horizon, but struggled to share its rays thats to the houses in the way.
Other than the sheer stench of death, life moved on as normal for those who weren't unfortunate enough to be involved.
Cars traveling down the street would slow as they saw Metro Police units sitting in the driveway, a coroner van just barely visible to the street as it was parked at the corner of the house.
Blue lights flashing don't go unnoticed though....
Forensic officers were busy stretching caution tap across the second story porch with its rusty black metal and diamond plated surface. The garland left on the railings from several years prior during the original couples' Christmas decorating, hangs covered in sawdust.
The house was a brick two story house.
It had been built back in the 1940's.
The top floor had been converted from an attic into a Mother in law suite.
Later, the daughter of the homeowner used it as a sort of apartment.
This old brick house threatened with each passing day to grow closer and closer to collapsing. But the homeowner, Johnathan, a respectible man with preying hair and about 200 pounds of weight never could bring himself to leave. He loved it....at least until now....
Officers and the forensic team moved into the second floor through the back entrance...the only actual entrance anyway. There was another door but that lead to a whitened roof "balcony" with no railings, no stairs. No real way to get in...unless you straddled the roof.
Johnathan stood in the back yard, subjected to probably the most uncalled for interview of his life. He himself had never seen such a horrific atrocity happen in his life. The last thing he had expected was for it to be his daughter's boyfriend... in his house, in the wealthy division of Nashville called Green Hills.
Upstairs, the officers found something they had never before encountered during their time in the Nashville Police force.
An absolutely appalling scene.
There, in the kitchen with its flickering leds that the girl had asked her previous ex to put up, was a man tied and duct taped into a chair, still dripping blood from his chin. His head was lulled to the side, motionless and stiff. Rigor Mortis had set in. His long curly brown hair partially gone....with the skin in some spots, was soaked in the viscous thick fluid. Some of it was dry and encrusted.
His jaw had been wrenched open past the point of it's actual capability of opening. Like someone set a clamp in and widened it to the max.
Deep lacerations adorned his entire body.
A large drill bit stuck out from the center of his forehead.
"Jesus fucking Christ...," said one of the officers as he attempted to fight off the urge to vomit.
"Scuse me," he said turning to walk back out and down the metal steps shaking his head and gagging.
The forensic officer who wore a mask and carried a camera, watched him leave before turning back to the scene in front of her and snapped several pictures.
Each one was a different angle. But she had to move around the body, desperately trying not to step into the pool of blood that had been flowing toward the fridge. It was clear the flooring wasn't level.
There was a second chair also with bounds and tape only...this one was vacant. The tape was sliced off. Not a trickle of blood.
Whoever had been forced to sit here was freed at some point but their whereabouts were unknown....
That vacant person turned out to be the daughter. Missing report had been submitted and teams stretched all through the city trying to find her.
Her name was resolved based on what her father had told them.
Emily....
The forensic officer found a black wallet on the round dining table in the corner of this second room and opened it.
The ID read 'Noel Atkins'.
He was 22 years old....and he had succumbed to probably one of the most brutal cases of murder Nashville Tennessee had seen in a very long time.
Cold blooded.
But the worst part was.
There was no lead as to who the killer could have been.
"This is absolutely absurd...." the woman said in her mask as she thought about everything in front of her. Her heart sank as she thought over it all.
This would be one of the longest most ugliest cases in her career.
Her camera snaps again....