was hunting with a .243-caliber rifle.”
“Did you hear any gunfire?”
She shook her head. “No, I didn’t hear any shots fired in the area of my camp.” She told Armand she changed her clothes upon her return to camp as she had gotten them muddy by stepping into a bog. Turning his head, the investigator could see a pair of overalls with dried mud on the lower portion of the legs hanging from the sideview mirror of the camper.
“When did you miss your husband?” He tried to keep his voice sympathetic so she would not get more agitated.
“I decided to go looking for Bruce as 9:30 approached,” Janice said. “Bruce was very punctual and he had never been big game hunting before. I was the experienced hunter of us two.” She paused and brushed away a tear. “Today was our third month anniversary.” Without commenting, Armand, who was taking notes, wrote down that they had been married three months to the day. Janice was still speaking. She looked lost in memory. “I walked in the direction Bruce would have taken and that is when I saw him lying on the ground. His orange vest was nearby. I yelled at him ‘Why did you take your orange off?’” According to Janice, she then picked up his rifle with the intention to fire it to summon help and racked the bolt, ejecting an empty case. “There were no live rounds in the rifle,” she explained. After that she pulled his arm, trying to get him up, telling him to get up, all to no avail.
“Did you see anyone else nearby?”
She shook her head, looked off in the distance as if trying to recall the events, then added, “When I was making my drive toward Bruce earlier in the morning I saw a hunter on the ridge, a bit higher than where Bruce was supposed to be, and thinking it may have been Bruce, I waved, but the hunter did not wave back.”
Armand excused himself at that point and returned to the crime scene. He finished surveying the area, noting the exact location of the body. Then other officers helped him put the dead man into a body bag. Armand sealed the bag and turned it over to the deputy coroner. He went back up to the campsite. It was 5:25 P.M., nearly twilight; the air was rapidly cooling now and there were a number of people milling about, including Deputy sheriffs, Division of Wildlife Officers, other hunters and Forest Service personnel. Janice was with Dawn Bray, the Victim Assistance representative from the Sheriff’s Department. Armand walked over to Janice. “How are you doing?” he asked.
“Okay,” she replied in a flat voice. She asked him how Bruce was doing.
Armand replied, “I am sorry, Ma’am, but he is deceased.”
She emphatically said, “No. The paramedics just took him away!”
Armand shook his head. “That was the coroner who took Bruce away. We’ll be arranging to take you down the mountain. Can we call anyone for you?” She shook her head. “Janice, will you give me consent to look through your vehicles for any guns and to remove any guns for safekeeping and to examine as a part of my investigation? It will avoid questions that might come up later.” She said he could. Seeming frail and unable to walk she shuffled and leaned on Armand as he led her to the back of the Bronco. As the investigator was completing an inventory form for the firearms, Janice collapsed and was carried to the Sheriff’s Department Jeep. The captain in charge, Warren Smith, called the Air Life helicopter which soon arrived to take Janice to St. Mary’s Hospital in Grand Junction.
When she was safely on the helicopter, the detectives searched her vehicle. The only rifle the detectives found suitable for big game hunting in either vehicle was the .270. There was also a .22-caliber Ruger brand rifle and a .22-caliber pistol in the Bronco.
Investigator Armand listed the findings at the scene for later study.
He then collected the two rifles and the pistol from the Bronco.
Armand also made diagrams of the fence, showing the location of the gate and the bullet-holed post; a diagram of the scene with the body and various items of evidence; and another of the fence post showing the location of the bullet hole.
At this point, no one was sure how the man had been shot, so it was important that the preliminary findings on the scene be very carefully noted.
= chapter 3 =
Back on the Uncompahgre Plateau, investigators were fanning out. The Mesa County Search and Rescue Team and an Explorer Troop joined in the search for evidence at the crime scene by forming lines of searchers walking at arm’s length in straight lines, combing the area. Dan Faed, a retired Public Service lineman, had been a volunteer with the Search and Rescue team for the past ten years. He was an experienced game tracker and later worked as a hunting guide for twenty-six years. Chief of Police Rory Clark, from a small town nearby, volunteered to assist with metal detection. Chief Clark is self-taught in the use of metal detectors. A doctor once told him to do a lot of walking to help with a back problem, so he took up metal detection as a hobby. He has operated metal detectors for thousands of hours while searching for coins and other historical artifacts. He also had used them previously for law enforcement purposes. Shortly after beginning his search of the crime scene, Clark’s metal detector alerted him to the presence of a metal object in the clump of oak brush pointed out to him by Investigator Armand. Spreading apart some leaves and grass he found a shiny brass rifle casing lying on the ground. Chief Clark is originally from Texas, a quality he brandishes with great aplomb. He is well-known for coming out with a new off-color, redneck colloquialism of some sort each day and that day was no exception. “Well I’ll be dipped in shit and rolled in bran flakes.”
Dan Faed was examining the muddy boots Janice had left at the camper when he was told about the discovery of the shell casing. He immediately focused on that area. Before long, he located a boot sole impression that appeared to be consistent with Janice’s boots about forty feet from the shell casing in a direction away from Bruce’s body. Twenty feet from that impression, he found another print that was from a different, larger boot. Using a casting material called Hydrocal, a crime scene investigator with the Sheriff’s Department made casts of the two prints and collected
