Richard Montanari: Play dead

Not in this time of MySpace and Abercrombie amp; Fitch catalogs and rainbow parties. Not in this day and age when a girl could buy a bag of Doritos and a Coke, board a bus in Lancaster County, and ninety minutes later emerge in a city that would swallow her whole; a trusting soul who never had a chance.

The estimated time of Caitlin's death was between midnight and 7 AM on May 2, although the medical examiner could not be more precise, given that by the time Caitlin O'Riordan's body had been discovered she had been dead at least forty-eight hours. There were no external wounds on the victim, no lacerations or abrasions, no ligature marks to indicate she may have been restrained, no defensive wounds that would suggest she struggled with an assailant. There had been no skin or any other kind of organic matter beneath her fingernails.

At the time she was discovered, Caitlin had been fully clothed, dressed in frayed blue jeans, Reeboks, black denim jacket, and a white T-shirt. She also wore a lilac nylon backpack. Around her neck had been a sterling silver Claddagh, and although it was not particularly valuable, the fact that she wore it in death did not support any theory that she had been the victim of a robbery gone bad. Nor did the cause of the death.

Caitlin O'Riordan had drowned.

Homicide victims in North Philadelphia were generally not drowned. Shot, stabbed, bludgeoned, sliced and diced with a machete, pummeled with an ax handle, yes. Popped by a rebar, run over with a Hummer, stuck with an ice pick, doused with gasoline and lit ablaze- yeah, all the time. Jessica had once investigated a North Philly homicide committed with a lawn edger. A rusty lawn edger.

But drowned? Even if the vic was found floating in the Delaware River, the cause of death was usually one of the above.

Jessica looked at the lab report. The water in Caitlin's lungs had been carefully analyzed. It contained fluoride, chlorine, zinc orthophos- phate, ammonia. It also contained trace levels of haloacetic acid. The report contained two pages of graphs and charts. It all went way over Jessica's head, but she had no problem at all understanding the report's conclusion. According to the forensics lab and the medical examiner's office, Caitlin O'Riordan did not drown in the Delaware or Schuylkill River. She did not drown in Wissahickon Creek, nor in any of the fountains for which the City of Brotherly Love was rightly known. She did not drown in a swimming pool, public or private.

Caitlin drowned in ordinary Philadelphia tap water.

The original investigators had contacted the Philadelphia Water Department and were told that, according to the EPA, the water found in Caitlin's lungs was indeed specific to Philadelphia. The three treatment plants at Baxter, Belmont, and Queen Lane had all made specific adjustments to their drinking water processes in March, due to an oil- tanker spill.

There was no running water in this building. There were no bathtubs, plastic tubs, buckets, aquariums, or cans-not a single vessel that could hold enough water to drown a human being.

There was some quiet debate at the Roundhouse, the police administration building at Eighth and Race, about whether or not this was a bona fide homicide. Both Jessica and Byrne believed it was, yet conceded the possibility that Caitlin had accidentally drowned, perhaps in a bathtub, and that her body had been moved to the crime scene after the fact. This would bring about charges of abuse of a corpse, not homicide.

One thing was not in doubt: Caitlin O'Riordan did not arrive here under her own power.

There had been no ID on the victim, no purse or wallet at the scene. Caitlin had been identified by the photograph that circulated via the FBI website. There was no evidence of sexual assault.

Caitlin O'riordan was the daughter of Robert and Marilyn O'Riordan of Millersville, Pennsylvania, a town of about 8000, five miles southwest of Lancaster. She had one sister, Lisa, who was two years younger.

Robert O'Riordan owned and operated a small, home-style restaurant on George Street in downtown Millersville. Marilyn was a home- maker, a former Miss Bart Township. Both were active in the church. Although far from wealthy, they maintained a comfortable home on a quiet rural lane.

Caitlin O'Riordan had been a runaway.

On April 1, Robert O'Riordan found a note from his daughter. It was written in red felt tip marker, on stationery that had Scotties along the border. The O'Riordans had two Scottish terriers as pets. The note was taped to the mirror in the girl's bedroom.

Dear Mom and Dad (and Lisa too, sorry Lisey ©)

I'm sorry, but I have to do this.

I'll be okay. I'll be back. I promise.

I'll send a card.

On April 2, two patrol officers from the Millersville Police Department were sent to the O'Riordan house. When they arrived, Caitlin had been missing for nineteen hours. The two patrolmen found no evidence of kidnapping or violence, no evidence of any foul play. They took statements from the family and the immediate neighbors-which, in that area, were about a quarter mile away on either side-wrote up the report. The case went through the expected channels. In seventy- two hours it was handed off to the Philadelphia field office of the FBI.

Despite a more than modest reward, and the fact that the young woman's photograph was published in local papers and on various websites, two weeks after her disappearance there were no leads regarding the whereabouts or fate of Caitlin O'Riordan. To the world, she had simply vanished.

As April passed, the case grew colder, and authorities suspected that Caitlin O'Riordan might have fallen victim to a violent act.

On May 2, their darkest suspicions were confirmed.

The original lead investigator in the Caitlin O'Riordan case, a man named Rocco Pistone, had retired two months ago. That same month his partner, Freddy Roarke, died of a massive stroke while watching a horse race at Philadelphia Park. Dropped right at the rail, just a few feet from the finish line. The 25-to-1 filly on which Freddy had put twenty dollars-poetically named Heaven's Eternity-won by three lengths. Freddy Roarke never collected.

Pistone and Roarke had visited Millersville, had interviewed Caitlin's schoolmates and friends, her teachers, neighbors, fellow churchgoers. No one recalled Caitlin mentioning a friend or Internet acquaintance or boyfriend in Philadelphia. The detectives also interviewed a seventeen-year-old Millersville boy named Jason Scott. Scott said that when Caitlin went missing, they were casually dating, stressing the word "casually." He said Caitlin had been a lot more serious about the relationship than he was. He also told them that, at the time of Caitlin's murder, he was in Arkansas, visiting his father. Detectives confirmed this, and the case went cold.

As of August 2008 there were no suspects, no leads, and no new evidence. Jessica turned the last page of the file, thinking for the hundredth time in the past two days, Why had Caitlin O'Riordan come to Philadelphia? Was it simply the allure of the big city? And, more importantly, where had she been for those thirty days?

At just after 11:00 AM, Jessica's phone rang. It was their boss, Sgt. Dwight Buchanan. Byrne had finished his sketches of the basement and was catching some air on the sidewalk. He came back inside. Jessica put her cell phone on speaker.

"What's up, Sarge?"

"We have a confession," Buchanan said.

"For our job?"

"Yes."

"What are you talking about? How? Who?"

"We got a call on the Tip Line. The caller told the CIU officer he killed Caitlin O'Riordan, and he was ready to turn himself in."

The Tip Line was a relatively new initiative of the Criminal Intelligence Unit, a community response program that was part of a Philadelphia Police Department project called Join the Resistance. Its purpose was to provide citizens of Philadelphia with the opportunity to covertly partner with the police without fear of being exposed to the criminal element. Sometimes it was used as a confessional.