Save Your Breath (Morgan Dane #6)(44)

“Because I want him to see us get married.” Lance grinned.

Morgan shook her head. “You two are ridiculous.”

Lance shrugged. “He started it.”

They left the building and crossed the parking lot to Lance’s Jeep. Morgan’s phone vibrated in her pocket as they climbed into the vehicle. She pulled it out and opened a text. “Grandpa says he found something.”

She fastened her seat belt, then called her grandfather’s cell phone. He answered on the first ring.

She raised the phone in front of her face. “You’re on speaker, Grandpa.”

“Let me go into my room.” He huffed and puffed.

Morgan worried about his heart and blood pressure and the butter and bacon he loved. She could hear the television and the kids in the background and guessed he was hauling himself out of his recliner. A door closed.

“OK, I’m here.” His voice was breathless. “So I started with Olivia’s notes on the Franklin murder trial. She made following her research easy, cross-referencing her comments with the trial transcript.” Grandpa cleared his throat. “Olivia flagged two evidentiary errors. First of all, there was a minor error in the original search warrant. The house number in the address was incorrect by one digit. Cliff Franklin’s attorney called this out during the trial and motioned to have all evidence obtained via that search suppressed. However, the judge overruled his objection. There were enough additional details describing the house to establish it was the correct location.”

Contrary to public belief, minor errors on search warrants do not automatically disallow all evidence found during that search. As a failsafe, the police add descriptive elements to search warrants. Sometimes they include directions on how to arrive at the house; a description of the residence, including details such as house color and trim; and the official tax lot description on file for the location. If a reasonable person would still know which house to search, even with the street address error, then the warrant can generally be upheld.

“The second error Olivia found was not called out during the trial, and it’s a big deal.” Grandpa paused for a breath. “One of the key pieces of evidence was the victim’s hairs that were found in Cliff Franklin’s trunk. But more hairs were submitted to the lab than were logged in by the exhibits officer. So it appears that not all the hairs went through the proper chain of custody.”

There should have been no doubt as to where every single piece of evidence was located at any time during collection, testing, or storage. Failure to maintain the chain of custody allows the defense to suggest that evidence could have been contaminated, tampered with, or even planted.

“Let me guess.” Morgan rubbed the bridge of her nose. “The hairs that matched the victim were the ones missing from the evidence log.”

“Bingo,” Grandpa said. “There was other evidence, but the majority of it was circumstantial. One of Brandi’s friends stated that Brandi thought Cliff was creepy. He’d been seen near her apartment building, and she’d texted that friend that she thought he was following her to the grocery store.”

“What about additional physical evidence?” Morgan asked.

“Her body had been washed, and the dish soap residue matched the brand found under the kitchen sink in the Franklin house. But it’s a common brand.”

“Tell me more about her death,” Morgan said.

“Her car was found on the side of Gravelly Road,” Grandpa said. “Brandi was on her way to the community college, where she was taking night classes. Her engine had seized. Someone had put sugar in the gas tank. Cliff Franklin was an auto mechanic, so he’d know how to do that, but there’s no evidence he was the person who did. The security cameras in her apartment complex’s parking lot were not working. A silver Honda Accord was caught on the surveillance camera feed of the convenience store across the street from the apartment complex. It pulled out behind Brandi as she left for class. Cliff Franklin drives a silver Honda Accord. However, the license plate was covered in mud and the vehicle had no distinguishing features. The video from the night camera was grainy.”

“He followed her.” Morgan could picture it.

“Unfortunately, there are three hundred thousand Honda Accords registered in the state of New York, and silver is one of the most popular colors.” Grandpa sighed. “So again, good supporting evidence, but not enough to get him convicted.”

“What about the rest of his house?” Morgan asked. “Where do they think he killed her and washed her body?”

“They don’t know. Cliff lived with his brother, Joe, on a small farm. The house and outbuildings were clean. No evidence was found that Brandi was killed there. However, Joe slaughters his own animals. He stocks coveralls, gloves, and tarps and rinses his floors with oxygen bleach. The drains were full of blood and animal matter and oxygen bleach. The sheer amount of biological evidence would have been overwhelming.”

Morgan took out her notepad and wrote notes. “How was she killed?”

“She was strangled with her own belt,” Grandpa said. “A neat, bloodless kill.”

“Was she raped?” Morgan lifted her pen.

“The weather had been unusually warm that autumn. The body was too badly decomposed for the ME to tell.” Papers rustled over the connection; then Grandpa said, “The state sent cadaver dogs to Joe’s property and to the area where Brandi was found. The dogs didn’t find any additional bodies.”