style="font-size:15px;"> Although the investigators were still awaiting proof that the blood they had taken from the apartment was human, they asked Leisha, “Would be willing to stay somewhere else for a day or two, so that Esparza and an expert from the DPS can conduct Lumalight and Luminol testing on the bloodstains in the apartment?” She agreed. They also told her they wanted her to come back to the Police Department the next day, Saturday, and give a formal statement about what she knew.
Once again, she agreed, saying she could find another place to stay that night. “Can someone take me back to the apartment and let me get clothes and makeup?” White and English took her home; Sergeant Esparza followed them. After Leisha had gotten what she needed and left, the three investigators walked around the outside of the apartment, noting a chain link fence around the tiny back yard, which only consisted of a small patio.
Esparza shook his head. “Anyone, especially if it’s in the wee hours of the morning, dark of night, when there’s nobody else around, could walk out the front door of that apartment lugging a body, walk past this small fenced section and not be seen.”
English nodded. “And the parking area is so close. Someone could have had a car parked here and it wouldn’t be one yard from the front door.”
“Yeah,” White grunted. English glanced at his partner. Whatever was on White’s mind, he wasn’t talking. English said nothing more. He now felt there was a good chance that Scott Dunn had been brutally attacked in this apartment.
Tal English dreaded going to work Saturday morning. He would have to call Jim Dunn and bring him up to date. He hated to tell the worried father that bloodstains had been found in his son’s apartment. Perhaps he could wait until the test results came back from the DPS lab showing whether the stains were human blood. If they were, he would have to tell Dunn that he was probably right to be concerned about the safety of his son.
That morning English was barely settled at his desk when Sergeant Esparza buttonholed him. Esparza had already talked to the DPS chemist, Jim Thomas. The chemist had ascertained that the samples were human blood type O. Esparza was going to conduct Lumalight and Luminol tests at Leisha’s apartment to determine the amount of blood that had been splashed around and find out if any efforts had been made to wash it away.
Even if blood has been wiped off an area such as a wall or has been cleaned from a piece of carpet, baseboard or ceiling, Luminol is so sensitive that it will show if blood has ever been present. Reputedly, Luminol is sensitive to blood up to one part in five million. Therefore, diluted traces that may still be present will be revealed by Luminol. In fact Luminol responds best to older blood stains.
Thomas had agreed to help Esparza with the test. They were going to meet later that day to photograph the room where the blood had been found.
When Esparza left his office, English sat for a few moments thinking about the case. Then he reminded himself to make the telephone call he had been so filled with anxiety about. He had to find out if Scott Dunn’s blood type was O and the only way to do that was to call Jim Dunn.
Barbara Dunn answered the telephone and told English that Jim had gone into Philadelphia for a breakfast meeting, but would be at home a little later. Without thinking, English blurted out the news that blood had been found in Leisha’s apartment and the lab tests that showed it to be human blood.
In shock, Barbara could barely speak. She told English that she would have Jim call as soon as he got home. English berated himself for being so insensitive. He shouldn’t have told her about the blood. He could simply have asked her to have Jim call when he got home. He could have waited so that he himself could have broken the bad news to Jim Dunn. But there was a sense of urgency now, he consoled himself.
Because of it, English and White set out to discover everything they could about Scott Dunn’s disappearance. They decided they would go back to the Regency Apartments and canvass the neighbors.
Since they began during business hours, they received no answer to their knocking at most of the apartments. The few people at home said they hadn’t heard or seen anything unusual around 4B recently. White and English decided to resume the canvass later.
The two investigators wanted to know everything they could about Leisha Hamilton, so they next went to the restaurant where she was employed. The manager obligingly showed them Leisha’s work record, which confirmed Leisha’s statement that she was at work from 6:00 AM until 2:00 PM, on Thursday, May 16, the day she said Scott Dunn disappeared.
English and White returned to the police department to keep their appointment with Hamilton, who had agreed to come in that morning and sign a formal statement. A short time later, Leisha arrived, accompanied by a lanky, dark-haired young man whom she introduced as a friend, Burt Todd, a cook at the restaurant where she worked.
Again, English, George White and Leisha gathered in English’s office and once again, English read her Miranda rights and asked if she understood them. Leisha said she did.
“My full name is Leisha Gwen Hamilton and I am twenty-eight years old.” She gave them the name of her current employer and stated that her nearest relative was her father.
“I have known Scott Dunn since June 1990. We had been living at 5818 - 24th, Apartment B4, since March 4, 1991.”
The remainder of her statement essentially repeated the story she had first told Jim Dunn and later Tal English. She mentioned that Scott had stayed all night at Max Gianoli’s house Monday night and all day Tuesday, May 14, because he was sick. Tuesday was her day off. “I cleaned house and am sure the carpet under the couch had not been disturbed at that time.”
Leisha went into great detail about that Tuesday evening. She said Scott had called her from Max’s house and said he needed her to come and get him, because he was still sick. He also asked her to get him some medicine. “I went to the store and got the medicine; then I went to Max’s to get Scott. When I got there, I had to dress Scott, then when we got home, I had to undress him. We stayed home the rest of the night. Scott had a high fever and could hardly walk or talk. I asked him why he had waited so long to call me. He told me he was too sick to make it to the phone. He was so hot, he asked me to turn the air conditioning on. Then I did some ironing. He got hungry and wanted to eat. He didn’t want anything we had, so I went to the store and got him something.”
Leisha said she remembered exactly how much money she took from Scott’s wallet to get food—seven dollars—and he had eight dollars left in the wallet. “I brought home a dollar and some change and left it on the counter. Then I cooked a meal for him.”
She said she also had gotten a thermometer at the store and when she got home she took Scott’s temperature. It was 102.6 degrees.
“Then I went to bed in my room and Scott slept in the living room on the couch because he didn’t want me to catch what he had.”
Her capacity for detail continued in her account of the following day, May 15. “I went to work. Scott stayed home and did not leave the house as far as I know. When I got home after work, he was lying on the couch, complaining of a sore throat. I fixed him
