This exam has no right or wrong answer. Your score is based on your reasoning and application of the class materials and articles to the crime scenes. This exam is based on your critical thinking skills. Your answer must be detailed as to why you think the perpetrator(s) may have specific fetishes/paraphilias, typology, how they search for victims, etc. Make sure to discuss how the clues and evidence at the crime scenes led you to your conclusions.
Crime Scene #1
Sunday, September 11, 2022 at 4:30 pm
9900 block of Jersey Bounce Drive in Northwest Bakersfield
This neighborhood is between Calloway Drive, Norris Road, and Snow Road. It is a few blocks from Norris Junior High School.
Beatrice “Bebe” Tarleton, a 44-year-old white woman, was found dead in her home on Jersey Bounce Drive in Northwest Bakersfield. The reporting party (R.P.) was her estranged husband, James Tarleton, a 49-year-old white male. The couple had been separated for three weeks. James was dropping off his sons after they spent the weekend with him and his girlfriend, Emmy Slattery. James said he was surprised when Bebe did not answer the door because he knew she was unhappy with the custody arrangement. He said she had texted him several times on Friday night, Saturday afternoon, and early evening to see how the boys were doing. This was their first weekend with their father since the couple had split. He called her cell phone while waiting at the front door, and he could hear it ringing inside the house. He tried the door, and it was unlocked. He quickly put the boys back in the car and told them to wait until he returned. The family dog, Sonny, who had spent the weekend with the boys and their dad, bolted past James and ran into the back of the house. Seconds later, he heard Sonny barking furiously at the locked door of the closed primary bedroom. When James couldn’t open the door, he went through the family room sliding glass door to the French doors leading into the primary bedroom from the back of the house. The French doors were wide open, and he could see Bebe lying in bed on her stomach with the covers pulled past her neck. He noticed the blood splatters on the wall and pillowcase as soon as he got close to the bed and backed out of the bedroom, taking Sonny with him. He immediately called 9-1-1.
The first responders found James, Brent, Stuart, and Sonny standing on the front lawn when they arrived four minutes later. Ms. Tarleton’s body was found face down and partially naked in bed. Her pajama bottoms were found ripped on the floor by the left side of the bed. Bebe had a clean one-inch head wound that had broken the skin, and the part of the skull was exposed on the left side of her face. Ms. Tarleton’s hair had been arranged post-mortem to cover the injury. Fly eggs were found on the head wound. It appeared that her body had been moved and staged soon after her death. There were several post-mortem bites on her buttocks and her left thigh. An empty cup of hot chocolate and an opened package of Milano cookies were found on the kitchen table. James told the police that Bebe was fastidious and would never leave a dirty dish anywhere in the house. It had been one of the things that they had argued about while married. He added that she hated sweets and would never have a hot drink when it was over 80 degrees at night.
According to Bebe’s best friend and neighbor, Melanie Hamilton, the couple had been married for ten years and met at the accounting firm James’s parents owned. Bebe and James had twin sons, Brent and Stuart, who had turned six years old the month before. Bebe and James bought out his parents early in their marriage, and James became the CEO and Bebe the CFO of the firm. After their sons were born, Bebe spent less time at the firm. A new CFO had been hired two years prior so that Bebe could spend more time with Brent and Stuart. Melanie said it had been a happy marriage for eight years. That began to change after Bebe stepped down as CFO. The accounting firm was not doing as well under the new CFO that James had hired. Bebe thought his choice did not have enough experience. However, James thought Emmy Slattery had potential. Two years later, Bebe discovered James and Emmy had been having an affair, and she asked James to leave the family home, and she sought out an attorney to file for divorce. According to Melanie, James did not want to break up the family but did not want to stop seeing Emmy.
Ms. Tarleton was last seen on Saturday at 5 pm. She and several neighbors had held a garage sale on Jersey Bounce Drive starting at 7:00 am that morning. She had sold a lot of James’ tools, stereo equipment, and golf clubs after he refused to pick them up two weeks prior. After the morning rush at the garage sale, Bebe noticed that several household tools she had for sale were missing. She was sure someone had stolen a steelhead hammer, a crescent wrench, and two Phillips screwdrivers. Bebe was detail-oriented and carefully recorded all the items she had sold throughout the day. One of her neighbors remembered seeing a young, thin white male in a black sweatshirt with a hoody pulled up near the tool table. Since it was already 85 degrees by 9:00 am, a person wearing a black hoody stood out from the rest of the crowd who were wearing shorts and sundresses. Melanie had spent the day helping Bebe with the garage sale, stayed for a light dinner, and headed home around 5 pm. She had texted Bebe around 9:30 pm to check if she wanted to go to yoga in the morning. Bebe told her she wanted to sleep in instead. Melanie was concerned when she did not hear from her friend by 1:00 pm on Sunday afternoon, but knew that she was depressed by the recent separation and decided she probably needed some time alone.
Bebe had long brown hair that was often pulled back in a long ponytail, and an athletic build and was much stronger than her five foot four inches tall and weighed 127 pounds would suggest. In addition to yoga, she jogged three times a week, and her twin boys kept her busy. She also walked Sonny daily while the boys were at school. The Coroner’s Office estimated that Ms. Tarleton was murdered between 10 pm and 11:30 pm. The manner of death was homicide, and the cause of death was blunt force trauma. She had been sexually assaulted post-mortem, and in addition to the head wound, she had several bruises on her upper arms and the back of her neck. The head wound was consistent with the type of injury that would be made with blunt force trauma with a steelhead hammer, and the bruising on her neck was consistent with near-fatal strangulation. The homicide investigators noted that Saturday night was a full moon.
Crime Scene #2
Saturday, June 3, 2023 at 11:45 pm
7600 block of Sleepy Lagoon Drive in Northwest Bakersfield
This neighborhood is between Calloway Drive, Norris Road, and Snow Road. It is a few blocks from Norris Junior High School.
Carren O’Hara, a 33-year-old single white woman, was found dead in her bedroom. According to the reporting party (R.P.), her cousin and roommate, Suellen O’Hara, Carren was last seen on Saturday night around 8 pm. Both Carreen and Suellen had initially planned to meet some friends at the Whiskey Barrell, a bar on Calloway Drive near Rosedale Highway. However, Carreen was too tired to go after holding a garage sale earlier that morning. Carreen dropped Suellen off at the Whiskey Barrell around 8 pm. She told Suellen she planned to go home, have a glass of wine, and go to bed early. Suellen promised to Uber home and to be quiet when she got home later that evening.
Suellen arrived home at 11:45 pm and was worried when she realized the front door was unlocked. She and Carreen were “Safety Girls” who always double-checked that doors and windows were always locked. She got out her phone and tiptoed into the house. She stopped in the kitchen, grabbed a big knife, and approached the hallway leading to Carreen’s bedroom. She thought she heard movement in the bedroom and knocked lightly on the door. There was no response, so she tried the doorknob, and the door was locked. She began to knock harder and still had no answer, so she ran outside and called 9-1-1 and asked for a welfare check at the address.
The police responded in eight minutes. They went into the house, and when they couldn’t open the bedroom door, they went into the backyard and found that the sliding glass door leading into Carreen’s bedroom was left wide open. They approached the bedroom and realized that Carreen had been brutally murdered. Her body was half on the left side of the bed and half on the floor. Her skull was caved in, and there was a lot of blood at the scene. In addition to the head would, Carreen’s right arm was hanging at a strange angle, and the elbow had been broken with a heavy object that broke the skin and crushed the bone beneath. There were several bruises around her wrists and one small bruise on her ankle. It appeared that the perpetrator had been interrupted and left right after murdering Carreen. Carreen was partially naked. Her cami was torn, and her pajama shorts were missing. The homicide investigators noted that Saturday night was a full moon.
Three weeks earlier, Carreen had been laid off from her marketing job of ten years. To save money, she asked her cousin, Suellen, to be her roommate. Suellen had moved in on Thursday morning. It was apparent to Carreen that she still needed to supplement her income, so she sold some items she had not used for at least five months. She sold her golf clubs, row machine, set of kettlebells, some furniture, and knickknacks. An old mechanic boyfriend, Frank Kennedy, had left his toolkit at her house over a year ago, so she also put the tools on sale. Some specialty items sold quickly, such as an orange three-pound Dead Blow made from thick, indestructible plastic and various mechanical tools. One item that was not purchased was the black four-pound steel sledge hammer along with the more mundane tools, such as a claw hammer, two Phillips screwdrivers, one flat screwdriver, and long-nose pliers, were not purchased. That is why she was pretty surprised when packing up the unsold items, and the four-pound steel sledgehammer, claw hammer, flat screwdriver, and pliers were missing. She double-checked with Suellen, and she had not sold those items either. Both were perplexed by how someone could steal such a large and heavy item. Carreen was irritated that someone would steal items from a garage sale when the price was already a bargain.
According to Suellen and Carreen’s family and friends, she did not currently have a boyfriend and was not dating anyone. In the three weeks since losing her job, she started to post more on social media, had a very active Instagram page, and had recently been watching YouTube to get tips on starting her own TikTok page. One of her ideas was to focus on her long brown hair and different ways to style it. She was even considering starting Cosmetology School. Carreen was petite at five foot two and 121 pounds. Since she sold most of her exercise equipment, she focused on walking and running to help keep her in shape. She was low on funds, so she had been staying around the house and rarely ventured farther than the local grocery stores on Calloway Drive. She was partial to Save Mart but occasionally shopped at the Walmart grocery store on Olive Drive and Calloway Drive. She would walk there to buy some fruits and vegetables if the weather were not too hot. She had told Suellen that she thought a voyeur was active in their neighborhood and thought about getting a dog but didn’t think she could afford the vet bills and cost of dog food. The Nextdoor App had several reports on a “peeping Tom” in the Northwest part of Bakersfield who appeared active for over a year in the areas surrounding Norris Junior High. There had also been a rash of Ring Doorbells being stolen from homes by someone wearing a baggy sweatshirt with a hoody pulled down over the person’s face.
The Coroner’s Office estimated that Ms. O’Hara was murdered between 11:00 pm and 11:40 pm. The manner of death was homicide, and the cause of death was blunt force trauma. In addition to the head wound, her right elbow was crushed, and the bones and tissue were exposed. She had several bruises on her upper arms and defensive wounds on her hands. The head and right elbow wounds were consistent with the type of injury that would be made with blunt force trauma with a steelhead sledgehammer.
Crime Scene #3
Friday, September 29, 2023 at 10:15 pm
9800 block of Copa Cabana Court in Northwest Bakersfield
This neighborhood is between Calloway Drive, Norris Road, and Snow Road. It is a few blocks from Norris Junior High School.
John Wilkes, a 34-year-old married white male, called 9-1-1 at 10:15 pm from the home that he shared with his wife, India, and their twin boys, Beau and Wade. India, a 39-year-old white woman with chin-length blonde hair, and her twin two-year-old sons were found dead in the home. According to the reporting party (R.P.), James was in the backyard of his shop working on a 1964 Mustang that he was rebuilding. He had been working on the car since he got home around 5:30 pm that night. He started cleaning up around 9:30 pm when he heard screaming from inside the home. He rushed into the house and saw a disheveled white male with long, stringy, dirty blonde hair wearing a baggy sweatshirt with a hoody and holding a large black steel sledgehammer in one hand and a steak knife in the other. James’ wife, India, was lying bleeding from a head wound on the kitchen floor near the sink. It appeared that she had been struck from behind, and blood was seeping out the head wound, making her blonde hair turn red. James tackled the intruder, and a fight ensued. Both men slipped on the blood on the kitchen floor, and James hit his head on the marble counter before blacking out. When he came to about 40 minutes later, he realized that his hand and knee had been injured in addition to bumping his head. He said he thought that the same weapons that had killed his wife had been used on him. The knee wound included some skin breakage on the kneecap with a four to five-inch bruise covering the area around his knee and some superficial scratches. He also had a one-inch cut on his left palm. He did not recall how this cut happened. He called 9-1-1, tried to stand up, and finally managed to crawl into the living room when the police arrived at his home three minutes later. The police had to force open the front door since James was too weak to crawl to the front door and unlock it.
An ambulance arrived within five minutes, and India was declared dead on the scene. The EMTs were examining James’ injuries while the police went to check on the twin boys, who were sleeping in their bedroom near the back of the house. The police discovered that both boys were dead in their beds, and the sheets and blankets had been pulled up all the way up, covering both of their heads and faces. Beau and Wade were lying on their backs and had died from asphyxiation. Both of the boys appeared to have been dead for a few hours. The homicide investigators noted that Friday night was a full moon.
According to India’s best friend, Margaret Mitchell, she had received an unusual phone call from India at 4:06 pm. India asked Margaret what she knew about Venmo and if one could “max out” their transactions in one week. She confided that John had been furious the night before when the Detroit Lions had soundly beat the Green Bay Packers, 34 to 20 in Thursday Night Football. James had been yelling at the television during the game, and then once the game was over, he began yelling at India and the boys. She got so worried that she left and took the boys to her parent’s home on the other side of Bakersfield for the night. India told Margaret that she had decided to come home and give the marriage one more try before she started looking for a divorce attorney. Margaret said India suddenly stopped talking, whispered “goodbye,” and hung up. Margaret said she tried to call back several times, but each call went unanswered. She told the police that India hated football season because James was such an avid fan, and his behavior could become erratic if “his team” lost. India and James had met at Chewy’s, a sports bar on Rosedale Highway, six years ago. They were married a short time later after a whirlwind romance.
The Coroner’s Office estimated that India had been killed while doing the dishes. The manner of death was homicide, and the cause of death was blunt force trauma. The wound was not consistent with one made with a steel sledgehammer, but the injury and resulting damage to the brain were more consistent with a weapon similar to a Dead Blow or something else filled with sand. For Wade and Beau, the manner of death was homicide, and the cause of death was suffocation. Small pieces of cotton fibers, consistent with the material from the pillowcases from India and James’ bed, were found outside each of the boys’ mouths. All of the pillows and pillowcases were accounted for in the house.
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