Opinion ID: 2590326
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Discovery of the victims' bodies

Text: Early on the morning of Monday, September 11, 1995, 13-year-old Chris Barton called Joey to see if he wanted a ride to school. Joey and Chris were friends and schoolmates; Chris's grandmother usually drove them to school every day. Joey told Chris he was not going to school that day because he was feeling sick. That was the last time Chris ever spoke to Joey, and she never saw Joey or his mother, Shirley, again. Upon returning from school that afternoon, Chris called Joey and left a message on the Jordans' answering machine. A few days later, Chris went to Joey's house and knocked on the door but no one answered. Both she and her grandmother called and left additional messages on the Jordans' answering machine, but never received a return call. Joey was absent from school on Monday, September 11, 1995, and never returned. The last day he attended school was Friday, September 8, 1995. He had been present at school every day for the two weeks prior to that date. The school attendance officer called the Jordan home each day Joey was absent, leaving messages inquiring about his absences. The calls were never returned. On Monday, September 18, 1995, Brian LaPeer, a neighbor of the Jordans, went to their apartment after his sister-in-law noticed a bad smell emanating from the unit. He found a window open two to three inches, pried off the screen, pulled the blinds apart and saw a body lying on a bed in the bedroom. LaPeer and his sister-in-law called the police. He also noticed the Jordans' lawn was dying, which was unusual because Shirley was known to frequently water it to keep it green. LaPeer testified his young son and Joey often played together, with the last time having been three days to a week before the bodies were discovered. Fire Captain Tom Pulcher and other fire personnel arrived at the Jordans' residence in response to the 911 call. They found the front door locked, with a window on the northwest side of the residence open several inches. The inside of the window screen was covered with flies, and a strong odor was emanating from within which Captain Pulcher associated with death. The front door was forced open and Captain Pulcher entered the apartment alone. Upon entering the apartment, he found it noticeably warmer inside than outside. He looked into the bedroom, saw the decomposing bodies of Shirley and Joey, secured the crime scene, and waited for law enforcement officers to arrive. Kern County Sheriff's Deputy Steven Comstock was the first officer to arrive at the scene, followed by Kern County Homicide Detectives Rosemary Wahl, John Soliz, and Sergeant Glenn Johnson. Detective Wahl noticed several advertising-type newspapers had collected on the steps at the front door. She and Detective Soliz entered the apartment and observed a backpack on the living room floor with what appeared to be its contentsa purse, a pile of coupons, a notebook, two coin purses, and Shirley Jordan's checkbook registerstrewn about the floor. A prescription bottle and a yellow pillbox that had separately marked compartments for each day of the week were found on an end table. There were pills in every compartment of the pillbox except for Sunday's. Shirley Jordan's body was found on the bedroom floor next to one of two single beds. Joey's body was spanning the two beds. Both were in an advanced state of decay. The drawers of a dresser in the bedroom were found open. The fronts of the drawers were spattered with blood; the sides of the drawers had no blood spatter on them. Hanging out of one of the open drawers was a bedsheet or nightgown with no blood spatter on it. On the north wall next to Shirley's body was a second dresser, also with its drawers open. The wall surfaces above and next to the dresser were covered with blood spatter. Blood spatter was also found on the open door that led from the living room into the bedroom, on the doorframe, and on a vacuum cleaner in the living room near that doorway. Three strands of bloody hair were found on a bedpost. A bloody shoe print or impression was found on the floor close to where Shirley's body lay. The back door to the residence, which was in the kitchen, was locked at the knob but not deadbolted. Two to three drops of blood spatter were found on the kitchen's linoleum floor. On one wall of the kitchen, four feet above the floor, was a large indentation in the drywall with two strands of hair stuck to the wall a short distance below it. There were no signs of forced entry into the house. Detective Wahl found a disposable camera on a bookcase in the living room. The exposed film was later developed, revealing the last photograph taken was of defendant in the Jordans' living room, wearing the T-shirt with distinctive markings that Roesler had lent him when he first arrived on foot in Las Vegas without belongings on September 5. The Jordans' answering machine, with the various unanswered messages left on the tape starting on Monday, September 11, was also recovered as evidence. The Jordans' apartment, unit A, was attached to unit B. Detective Wahl checked unit B, found it unoccupied, and found mail inside addressed to McWhorter.