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Where We Left Off:
Gus, the Biographer, and The Grumpy Old Man had another breath-taking encounter with a black bear. It seemed afraid of humans and for good reasons.
**FAIR WARNING** There are photos showing the dead mouse. For the most part, it looks like a peaceful body except for knowing it’s deceased.
The Unknown Man:
On August 16, 2024, Gus and I went on patrol. I usually start at Oliver’s patio while Gus waits for me on a path (when he’s mischievous he leaves without me). We had a thorough adventure walking around to leave snacks for critters all over. Gus even spent some time inside the hangar, workshop, and loft to look for squatters. That day we were out early enough to do some bat watching too.
Oliver had decided to stay home and help The Cook in the kitchen. He sat on one of the chairs in front of a laptop while she started making the day’s meals. While things on the stove simmered, Ollie connected to me online to get an update.
There was a lot to discuss. You’ll have to ignore my happy smiles on the webcam image. What Gus and I needed to review with Oliver was anything but pleasant.
On the edge of Gnome Grove, we discovered another dead body! Gus took much more interest in this one than the previous one.
“This one is fresh.” Gus sniffed the dead mouse and picked up the corpse in his mouth. He only moved it a couple feet away. Nonetheless, he had tampered with the crime scene. Fortunately, I had already taken some of the photos required before he did that.
“Can you tell when the time of death was, Gus?” I took the mouse victim’s body and put it back in the spot where it had been discovered. I took measurements while Gus told me what he knew.
“It’s over an hour since first breakfast right now. I estimate this body has been here between two to three hours,” he said. “Let’s split the difference and say two-and-a-half hours.”
For the sake of the record, I translated that into actual clock time. It was 06:30 – 06:45 AM when we were examining the crime scene. That meant Gus estimated the murder occurred sometime around 03:30 – 04:30 AM.
Victimology
This breakdown is uncannily similar to our previous case! At the time of finding this mouse’s body, here’s all we knew:
- some kind of mouse (more details below); suspected to be a type of Deer Mouse which are known to carry hantaviruses, Lyme disease carrier agents, and bot flies;
- a dark undercoat gradient to tan for the top fur while the gradient became black to white on the belly;
- the subject had pink hands and feet;
- the mouse is approximately one-inch wide (25.4 mm);
- the condition of the fur had little disturbance;
- the body was only slightly wet in one spot with saliva and blood; and
- the blood was not obvious on the body, but rather on the gloves used by the investigator.
What Does This Mean?
One Theory:
It could mean we have a Preferential Serial Killer in our midst because the general description is the same as victim as the one found on July 7, 2024.
I’m not an expert on mice. I had to look up some references on the internet to properly identify our victim in this case. I truly wish I could un-see those things. It wasn’t even the rodent genitals that were the most disturbing photos. Scientists do some F***ed up stuff to mice!
Is Theory #1 Already Busted?
Eventually, I came to a quote that explains how to determine the sex identification of mice:
Sex identification is through assessment of the anogenital distance, which is about twice as long in males as in females.
GENERAL NOTE: Here’s a catchy way to remember how to use anogenital distance to identify sex in animals – “If there’s a gap, it’s a chap.” —Univ. of Minnesota, Veterinary Preventive Medicine
I can’t be certain, and honestly, I’ve stared at these photos long enough. I think this victim was a male. Comparing the photos, I also think that the top fur appeared to be lighter in color than the July victim’s fur which had a ruddy shading to it. The article that explains the difference in White-footed Mice (Peromyscus leucopus) and Eastern Deer Mice (Peromyscus maniculatus) is blocked behind an academic pay wall. While I hate quoting Wikipedia as a source, here’s what it says:
The deer mouse is a small rodent that lives in eastern North America and is closely related to the white-footed mouse, Peromyscus leucopus.[7] Because the two species are extremely similar in appearance, they are best distinguished through red blood cell agglutination tests or karyotype techniques. The deer mouse can also be distinguished physically by its long and multicolored tail.[8]
I guess the Winchester-Nabu Detective Agency is in need of a DNA lab. If you have around $30,000 USD you’d like to donate, *wink, wink* let me know!
- If these two victims happen to look very similar, but are in fact categorically different Peromyscus species, does that negate our theory of a Preferential Serial Killer?
- Our last killer was Bud, a roaming cat that looks exactly like Detective Gus. Would he know or care if the victims were not the same sex?
- Would it be the equivalent of comparing humans who are both Caucasian, brown-haired, brown-eyed, similar in size, but one is a female from New Mexico and the other a male from Maine?
The FBI’s Behavior Analysis Unit uses three top tier ways to categorize serial killers: organized, disorganized, a blend/mix between the two. According to Dr. Ann Wolbert Burgess, the killers who are labeled as mixed-organization are usually ones who are organized (planned, methodical), but then something goes terribly wrong in their process making them think on their feet which can lead to unpredicted actions.
Oliver sat up from covering some toys beneath his girth. He raised a front paw to get attention. “I think our unsub’s preferences could be broader. Maybe their only interested in the general category of small rodents, but don’t care about the details.”
Human serial killers (HSK) in history have victimized all genders. Plus, the behavioral scientists seem to agree that it’s common for a HSK to begin by harming animals.
“This guy better not be trying to frame me again! I haven’t caught a mouse since April. And I let Mike Murdock live in order to get information out of him. Or have both of you forgotten?” Gus angrily reached a paw up to his test tube shaped puzzle and gave the vials a hearty spin.
“It might not be Bud,” I said hoping that my words would bring some assurances to Gus. “Let’s get to the suspect list soon, okay?”
The cats agreed and we pressed on. We had a couple more details about the victim to review before moving on with the suspects. We didn’t know the names of either of these mice. We didn’t know much about them at all, in fact.
Post-Mortem Determinations
The manner of death for this mouse was homicide. The wounds present were not accidental nor self-inflicted. They were not ruptures from any natural cause nor explosive organ effects of poisoning. The wound was most likely caused by a sharp tooth. There was very little blood evidence.
I held a funeral for this Mouse Victim just like the previous one:
Further Identification Details
Once we were back in the Winchester-Nabu Detective Agency offices, I uploaded the photos to iNaturalist to confirm whether the species (Genus Peromyscus). I received confirmation that the victim was a North American Deer Mouse.
We got lucky again when a few of our fae employees said they were present on the night of August 15th to make preparations for their upcoming Full Moon ritual on the 19th. Ida Ogg, Rosalu, and Fiona Brightwing shared what they knew.
Scientist and academic among the fae folk is Fiona Brightwing. “I knew the mouse’s great-great-grandfather. He was called Neo as a nickname for Neotominae, their taxonomy subfamily. This child was called “Manny” or “Mann” from what I heard.”
[back to Victimology]The Suspect Pool
The Grumpy Old Man has been deleting the security videos before I have the chance to download them. He doesn’t think they’re important. Yet, cats have been seen on Oliver’s patio which is kind of close to Gnome Grove, the crime scene location.
We had the same suspects as before:
- July’s killer was Bud (aka DoppelGus).
- We’ve also seen videos of a skinny black cat crossing through the patio near Gnome Grove and in other areas of the property.
- The Grumpy Old Man claims to have seen a grey cat with a fluffy tail. He wasn’t confident if there were stripes.
- Surveillance videos for August have not shown the striped tabby who was a suspect in the July murder.
The fairies lent more assistance.
Rosalu was the most talkative and social of the bunch. “We can confirm that you’re looking for a feline.”
Fiona Brightwing said, “A bird would have taken it for food.”
Ida Ogg was smarter than she let on. She had the air of a super model with the mindset of a Goodwill Ambassador. “It wasn’t the cat you call Bud either.”
Updated Suspects:
July’s killer was Bud (aka DoppelGus).- We’ve also seen videos of a skinny black cat crossing through the patio near Gnome Grove and in other areas of the property.
- The Grumpy Old Man claims to have seen a grey cat with a fluffy tail.
Surveillance videos for August have not shown the striped tabby who was a suspect in the July murder.
Ollie, Gus, and I had one more thing to try since we had already studied surveillance images and talked to the only residents of Gnome Grove who saw anything. We had to see if any of our Confidential Informants (CIs) would provide us with the missing key to close the case.
Squirla Moon hasn’t been interested in talking since the loss of her mate. She’s staying healthy and has a good appetite, but she only talks when the other red squirrel in Gnome Grove bothers her. That other squirrel is a male named Ruddy Youngblood. He’s not one who trusts humans easily. He doesn’t mean any harm towards Squirla at all. The tall tree stump where both of them like to eat is not big enough for both of them.
The only reason Ruddy was willing to talk to us was because we offered him a bonus payment of seeds. The Butler was sent out to get more bags of seeds and peanuts weeks before he expected us to run out.
We went out to the roof one evening as the darkness fell over the yard. Ruddy climbed up a mulberry bush in order to talk to us and stay a comfortable distance away.
“It’s not a black one,” Ruddy said without much preamble. He wasn’t interested in having a conversation with us. Just the facts, ma’am. “So who’s left on your list?”
“The tabby!” We said in unison.
Case Findings:
This was a tough case to crack. we used forensics, behavioral analysis, and several interviews to get to the conclusion: The Husky Tabby Cat is the killer!
Case Status: Closed
See the video for additional evidence proving a pattern of behavior:
Resources:
Tessier, Nathalie; Sarah Noel & Francois Lapointe (2004). “A new method to discriminate the deer mouse (Peromyscus maniculatus) from the white-footed mouse (Peromyscus leucopus) using species-specific primers in multiplex PCR”. Canadian Journal of Zoology.
Burgess, Ann Wolbert, and Steven Matthew Constantine. A Killer by Design: Murderers, Mindhunters, and My Quest to Decipher the Criminal Mind. Hachette Books, 2021.