Aftermath, Inc.

Largely uneventful day. Sure was cold and windy today. But at least the sun was out, so it wasn’t too bad.

The stigma of the murder at my apartment complex on Thursday still hasn’t gone away. I think people here in the complex and indeed all around the southern part of town are still blown away by what happened. I think it was just the sheer unusualness of a crime like that to take place here has left a lot of us dumbfounded.

Last night, Yoshi and I walked over to #62 where Dennis Thrower was murdered. It took a bit of time to find his apartment; we walked one way, got lost, then walked back another to eventually find it. About five other people were there, talking our manager, Robert, who was giving his own ideas on why Thrower was murdered.

It looked at first the police were still there, because two guys in plastic suits under a bright light were cleaning off the blood that was splattered everywhere along the balcony and the stairway that led to his apartment. But Yoshi pointed out that they weren’t police, but rather some company called Aftermath, Inc. that specializes in these kind of operations. Basically once a crime scene has been investigated by the police, and there’s no more evidence to gather from it, people like Aftermath come in and do a clean up of blood and other things left behind. As their truck says, they: Specialize in Homicides, Suicides, and Unintended Deaths.

How about that a company slogan?

I brought my camera with me. I wasn’t trying to be morbid or anything, but rather just have a record of what happened. This event was quite extraordinary.

We walked around the crime to see blood splattered all over the balcony, and a trail of large red dots that led from the murder scene to Cowell Boulevard.

“It’s like CSI,” Yoshi said.

It definitely looked liked whoever shot Thrower was also shot himself, just by looking at the trail of blood that led down the stairs was even splattered on the doors of rooms downstairs from the scene, like this door.   I later found out today from the newspaper that two guns were found near Thrower’s body. It seems to suggest that there victim was also armed, and had fought back.

So now the police are inquiring with hospitals around the region to see if anyone’s come in with gunshot wounds, driving either an early ’90s Chevy white van or a white Pontiac Grand Prix.

The whole scene there was so odd and disturbing. It’s not everyday you walk near floors and doors sprayed with someone’s blood, while a company is busy cleaning it up to make it look like nothing ever happened there.

Later KOVR 13, a CBS affiliate showed up to interview one of the cleaning people. I stopped and chatted with one of the KOVR sound technicians about the murder, talking about what I heard and how I thought it was so unusual for it to take place here. Then after all was said and done, we left the place to Aftermath and CBS.

Comments

[Philip Neustrom]

Wow, this is amazing -- especially that you got it on camera. Would you consider moving/writing about this on Davis Wiki? I knew little outside of the enterprise article, and seeing your pictures and story really sheds new light on the thing.