Cases are seldom wrapped up in neat bows like crime television shows that fascinate viewers and end in a formulaic hour.
SPRINGFIELD -- It was a miserable end.
Two street junkies led police to a body wrapped in a filthy blanket, dropped in a dumpster behind an apartment block near 30 High St. It is among the city's most drug-ridden pockets.
The date was Dec. 3, 2016, a Saturday, an investigator said. Detectives determined that the mystery corpse was a young woman, slightly built, with shoulder-length blonde hair badly in need of a shampooing.
She was so tiny, police may have initially believed she was an adolescent but for a pair of distinctive tattoos on her forearms that appeared too adult. One was a Kurt Cobain tribute and the other an homage to the state of Maine, according to Springfield Police Capt. Trent C. Duda, head of the Major Crimes Unit.
No obvious trauma. Her remains were shipped to the state medical examiner's office and she remained a "Jane Doe" over the weekend. A couple of slim stories ran in local media outlets -- including in The Republican -- about the body dump of an anonymous woman. Fingerprints proved unhelpful. Detectives got no hits after running them.
But, a woman from Greenfield called Duda the following Monday.
"She said, 'I saw on the news that you found a girl's body in a dumpster. I think that may be my daughter.' She just had a feeling," Duda recalled during a recent interview at police headquarters at 130 Pearl St.
Her mother's instinct was right about one thing. The body in the dumpster was 25-year-old Judith Kimball, the caller's daughter. Kimball was a Greenfield native in the grips of addiction since her late teens. She was previously a brunette. Her mother had coaxed her into rehab many times, playing tug-of-war with a force that overtook her daughter's life, then may have snuffed it out altogether.
Or, Duda said, Kimball's death may have been murder.
More than two months later investigators don't know. The autopsy report is still pending and Duda and his team of six homicide detectives ran down every lead available to them.
This included canvassing and re-canvassing potential witnesses; poring over physical evidence, even though much of it was sullied by a literal heap of trash piled on top of her body; talking to shop owners, neighbors and police-shy transients who frequent the area; collecting bank records; and searching squalid apartments where she may have stayed. They also made arrests on warrants and pursued secondary charges on actors they believed may know something about Kimball's sad end.
Police discovered she made an ATM withdrawal on Dec. 1 and made a purchase at a convenience store on High Street later the same day. After that, her movements are unclear. She had no fixed address, no job and no regular routine, Duda said. When and where and how she died, and with whom, remains a mystery. Duda believes she was not wrapped in a blanket with care, but for ease of transport.
He concedes it's about as likely her death could have been an overdose by a "hot batch," another casualty of the heroin scourge. Or she could have come to a more violent end. There is a distinct possibility they may never know.
"I honestly can't say right now," Duda said. "But I can tell you this: No matter what her lifestyle was, I'm going to do everything I can to find out what happened to her. No one's daughter deserves to end up in a dumpster. I don't care what she was into."
Looking for clues
The business of finding a killer is not an exact science. And in Kimball's case, even labeling a homicide can be complicated.
In the late afternoon glare of sun on snow in December, members of the homicide unit returned to the neighborhood where Kimball's body was found. Street dealers' antennae immediately went up, and calls of "Po-po!" echoed throughout High Street. Spotters scattered from street corners and others hung from upper-floor windows of the densely packed apartment blocks wearing knowing grins.
Dancing away from police is clearly a sport for some. But a few locals have cooperated with investigators in the probe of Kimball's death. Duda said her street name was "Snow." He doesn't know why. Many in the neighborhood seemed to like her. They were troubled by her death, he says.
This is the hardest work. Kimball's crime scene was a mess. Her recent history was a mess. And some potential witnesses are so strung out they can't recall which month it is, he added.
This is what inner-city homicide detectives deal with, most of the time. Cases are seldom wrapped up in neat bows like crime television shows that fascinate viewers and end in a formulaic hour. Even when there are a dozen shell casings scattered at a street shooting, with no reliable witnesses willing to go on record or testify in court, detectives must piece together crime scenes in other, tedious ways.
"There are very few homicides where we don't know who's involved and what the circumstances are. It's a matter of what we can prove," Duda said.
There are two phases to a murder investigation: arresting a suspect and proving it in court. Duda and his team labor to find willing and reliable witnesses. In the inner city, where residents are wary of police and fearful of the repercussions, this is rare. More often investigators encounter stubborn and reluctant witnesses, absent ones, and marginal ones who may talk a good game but risk falling apart once they get on the witness stand. The last scenario creates a particular headache.
"No one wants to be that guy: the guy who gets slapped around by a defense lawyer on the witness stand or spanked by a judge. I'd hate to see an acquittal because we made a mistake," Duda said, so he vets his witnesses and collects and logs evidence carefully.
The homicide unit logged 13 cases in 2016 and cleared seven.
There are three murder trials teed up in Hampden Superior Court between now and March, all of which will require one homicide detective or more from Duda's unit as key witnesses or lending other assists to prosecutors.
- Jean Carlos Mercado, 24, is standing trial for the 2013 fatal shooting of 33-year-old Hakeem Powell, shot in the head in a slaying characterized as an ongoing "beef" between neighbors. Hampden Assistant District Attorney Henry Rigali told jurors during opening arguments on Feb. 10 that dueling recollections from civilian and police witnesses was "sure to get messy."
- Benjamin Rivera is standing trial for the 2013 shooting of rival street racer Angel Llorens. The victim, 22, was a member of "Team Built" while the alleged shooter, 24, was a member of "Team Backyard Built," according to court records. The dispute that led to the shooting was triggered by a stolen club sticker, according to investigators. It was a "prank war" that spun out of control, a prosecutor has told jurors.
- Nickolas Lacrosse, 20, will go on trial next month for the fatal stabbing of ex-girlfriend Kathryn Mauke, a 17-year-old senior at Sabis International High School destined to go on to American International College on a full scholarship she won through a debate team tournament. Lacrosse is accused by investigators of stabbing Mauke to death in her home after she broke up with him in 2015.
Managing their typical workloads while murder trials are ongoing can be challenging, Duda said. Last week, he and his detectives spent full days at court minding witnesses and conducting interviews. On one night they had to hustle back to the police station to put together a search warrant application for an entirely different case. They wrapped up at 1 o'clock that morning.
Teamwork
A 20-year veteran of the force, Duda's lifelong ambition was to be a cop. Coupled with a longstanding fascination with science and forensics, that ambition led him toward homicide investigation. He has been at the helm of the unit since 2015 but worked as a sergeant and lieutenant in homicide before he was promoted to captain.
Duda has a master's degree in forensics from the University of New Haven and has studied under Henry Chang-Yu Lee, one of the world's leading forensic scientists whose profile was forever raised by the O.J. Simpson murder trial, the JonBenet Ramsey case and the revisiting of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
His neatly kept office includes shelves lined with textbooks and manuals on forensics, evidence and police work. He rarely reads works of fiction.
His team is tight-knit and relies on one another for certain niches and collective expertise. Duda says: Detectives Tim Kenney and Kevin Lee, two of the veterans, can craft crystalline affidavits for search warrants. Detective Jimmy Crogan is an encyclopedia of local gang intelligence and ongoing street rivalries.
"(Detectives) Jose Canini, Eric Podgurski and Joe Brodeur are very good at talking to witnesses. They're our on-the-ground guys. They do the footwork on the streets and are the guys we send out to canvass and re-canvass," Duda said, adding that the entire team does street canvassing in the aftermath of a killing.
Sgt. Jeff Martucci is Duda's closest partner in working homicides. He plays dual roles as both administrator and an investigator carrying his own caseload.
Duda is the gatekeeper, tracking and organizing leads and forging a path in the early days of an investigation. Cases don't solve themselves. Angst-filled confessions elicited by a psychologically savvy investigator are largely fiction. Most people lawyer up. It's a rarity that suspects waive their Miranda rights and fall on the sword -- or the gun, as it were.
When asked to weigh in on his temperament as a leader within one of the grittiest pockets of police work, Duda doesn't have a whole lot to say.
"I hate shoddy work. I can't f---ing stand it," he responds.
Hampden County District Attorney Anthony Gulluni had a bit more to say, lauding the team's toughness and dedication.
"I know firsthand the dedication and skill that Captain Duda and his team bring to the most serious, complicated cases in Springfield. Their work often calls them to duty in the middle of the night to the toughest places," Gulluni said.
"However, they approach every investigation with compassion for the victims and their families and with the spirit of justice in mind. The Major Crimes Unit includes many of the finest detectives in the region," the county's top prosecutor added.
The overall unit includes dozens of detectives who cover all manner of crimes against people in addition to murder: rape, robbery, felony assault, motor vehicle theft, burglary and larceny. In 2015, the Major Crimes Unit investigated 8,297 alleged crimes in total. These included 18 homicides, 76 rapes, 518 robberies, 1,400 burglaries, 640 car thefts, 4,601 larcenies and 1,044 felony assaults, according to statistics provided by the Springfield Police Department.
In 2016, the unit investigated 7,220 alleged crimes. These included 13 homicides, 81 rapes, 529 robberies, 1,538 burglaries, 628 car thefts, 3,432 larcenies and 999 felony assault, department statistics show.
Duda and his team seldom get a entire week's worth of solid sleep. They are typically rousted in the middle of the night several times a month by calls on the city's latest fatal shooting or stabbing or for suspicious deaths, which include suicides and other brutal endings.
In addition to gang shootings, they encounter baby deaths, suicides by hanging and other means, freak industrial accidents, horrific car crashes and the occasional oddity -- like when they encounter a decomposing body partially eaten by pets. Duda, an animal lover, shrugs off the last.
"People have dogs. Dogs get hungry," he said mildly.
Weighing every angle
As for Judith Kimball, a family member told Duda she was a free spirit who began dabbling in drugs in high school, and later moved to Maine to become a glass-blowing artist. She had a daughter two years ago. Health problems brought her to a Springfield hospital over the summer. Duda believes this is when she became entrenched in the High Street drug culture.
Duda says the area has been in decline and is a hotspot for violence and death -- mostly drug-driven, as opposed to the gang gunplay of Eastern Avenue, for instance.
"This entire street, it used to be overwhelmed by crack, and controlled by Latin Kings. But now it's a free-for-all and crack is secondary. Heroin is the thing. And heroin takes over people's lives entirely," Duda said.
After personally investigating dozens of homicides and suspicious deaths, it is not the gore and haunting images that keep him awake nights. It's the possibility he may miss an angle.
The potential for burnout for homicide detectives is high, but Duda says he is nowhere near it. He encourages his team to watch for the telltale signs, however. With other career trajectories at his disposal, Duda is asked why he stays in the trenches of homicide. He responds with a quizzical stare and a momentary silence.
"Why? Because I don't think anyone should walk around and get away with murder," he said.
