killer new 2

“Tell me, John, why did you kill him?”

His voice echoed across the room, and, his question turned me silent.

"You have to answer JOHN," said he in a low, but compassionate tone.

"It all started after that case," said I, after a brief pause, while staring at the desk.

                                                

                                                         ****

22nd November 2015

It was 10 p.m by the watch, and I was at Harish's residence. He had invited me over for dinner for two purposes. One to congratulate me for solving my previous case in record time and second to discuss a new case with me.

He handed me the case file and sat beside me. While I was glancing over the case history, he started sharing his insight about it. 

"Like I was saying," continued Harish, "three naked female bodies; all badly bruised were found in a month, dumped in Hebbal Lake, in 1995. The lake initially was a tourist point, but after this situation, the citizens around the area got so scared, that they gave the killer a nickname- HEBBAL LAKE KILLER. By 1998, the count of the dead raised to thirteen, while eight were still missing near that lake area."

"Any arrests or suspects at that time?" I asked.

"NONE," said Harish. "He was smart, as he cleaned all the bodies before discarding.  Till 2001, more than forty cases of dead women, in that fifty-kilometres radius, had queued up on the department's desks."

"Any evidence, lead or pattern?"

"Only one," he said while pointing towards the victims pictures in the file. I noticed that the skin around the thigh area had been peeled off for all victims.

"In 2005," he continued, "the DNA matching technique was launched in India. We felt we were more advanced in catching him, but the tests neither revealed any clue nor even a single fingerprint on the victim's bodies."

I was stunned but was fascinated with this killer's intelligence.

"Then comes the second shock in this case. All the killings stopped in 2006," said Harish.

"Why? He was doing so good, totally undetected. What made him run away?" I wondered in my mind.

"We thought he fled, as no-one reported any cases related to missing women and dead women bodies for about a year-and-a-half. But last month, four women bodies were found dumped in A.B.M.P garbage burial zone, near Yehalanka, and they seemed to like this," he said while pointing the file.

The pictures were of the decayed bodies, but all showed a similar pattern i.e. bruises as well as the peeling around the thigh.

"The wounds and peeling match, and, I feel that there is a possibility that our long-lost killer is back. So this case has been re-opened."

                                                          ****