Session 3

Aftermath and Media Coverage

• News article: 4 adult bodies found at fire scene, plus one child body
  • Bodies:
    • KALAMATIANO (Yelena Kalamatiano)
    • APPOLONOV (Sabina Appolonov)
    • ARSENI (Alexi Arseni)
    • INNOKENTY (Ryan Innokenty)
• News article: drugs found at burnt child home, also signs of abuse, also the child was def murdered; ties to brighton beach crime
• detective BASWELL (Keith Baswell)
• News article: it was russian gangs what did the fire and the shootin there

Strange Events 2004

• events:
  • on the same day in 2004, three people smell ROTTING FLESH: (THREES)
    • LOTTIE: at grocery store a few years later, follows a blood trail into th eback room where there's a dying bat on top of an item (ANIMALS, THREES)
    • ERASTUS: driving truck home in the dark, then hits a deer; cops find an item on the car (ANIMALS, THREES)
    • SEAMUS: waiting for daughter at sleepover; daughter gets home holding an item which she says was given by a crow (ANIMALS, THREES)
  • in all three cases, the item is a short story, very short book, titled SREDNI_BASHTAR by SAKI, pseudonym of Hector Hugh Monroe, published 1911 (ANIMALS, THREES)

The Years That Follow

• LOTTIE and SEAMUS stay buddies
• ERASTUS shoots himself in the backyard in 2005
• Everyone: read into program, occasionally do small jobs, nothing insane

2016 -- at a Wework

The Briefing Begins

• Beer tap doesn't work; Fridges are empty;
• agents enter a conference room to meet SHELF (Joe Shelf), who greets them brusquely and invites them to sit down
• Assistant US attorney PIZZA (Anthony Pizzarelli) comes up the elevator; short guy; real serious, rumpled suit, says not a word, sits at the far end of the table.
  Turns tv onto morning news.
  Water bottle has coffee in it.
• PIZZA: unmutes tv: "Breaking: 56 Bodies Found At Sight Of Maryland Youth Home"
  • 56 child bodies found at a jail complex in Zion MD which used to be a youth home.
  • details unclear; investigation ongoing.
    governor on tv.

PIZZA's Interrogation

PIZZA: "So, can anyone tell me why we're here?"

PIZZA: "7 days ago some florida shutin gets murdered; emt finds bloody piece of paper with three names on it: Charlotte Watkins, Seamus McGillicutty, Erastus Boudreau, plus the addr of Cornucopia House, now a jail" (THREES)

PIZZA: "3 days ago a MD st trooper goes to the jail and finds a woman nailed to the door of a storage garage, nailed up with screwdrivers, stigmata'd up in there." (THREES)

• florida shut-in is named KILLIAN (Crystal Killian)
• 2 days ago: our names flagged as coming up in this investigation

PIZZA: "why the fuck are your names on this? your lives are fragile right now"

• SEAMUS and LOTTIE claim they've never been to ZION

Working Group Masticate

PIZZA: "You are now under my direct command. The three of you are now WORKING GROUP: MASTICATE. Your mission is to have the following priorities: [see priorities below]"

PIZZA: "fyi: somebody's head is gonna roll for this. The FBI investigated this and didn't find 56 dead kids? if you fuck this up, you will never see the person that kills you. That's what we're working with here."

PIZZA: "this is my number one priority. call me any time. the resources of the program are behind this"

PIZZA: "we have a team of harvard specialists onsite, who understand that the program sometimes deals with unusual occurances. they are to be trusted to an extent. they are stalling for time. get down there."

• EXTEIN (Deputy Extein) is the cop in florida.
• HOUGHTON (Kerry Houghton), social worker, former inspector of CORNUCOPIA HOUSE, is the lady nailed to the shed.
  was DHS case manager in 2001, let go after occurances there.
• PIZZA hands us packets with MD drivers license, cover identity; tax records, edu history

PIZZA: "you'll be entering the crime scene as an FBI task force; complete access; credentials to do anything we need. anything is permissible if it protects the program"

PIZZA: "I expect a report at least once a day. If it gets kinetic, Joe here's got your back."

PIZZA: "One last call: are you sure you've never been to ZION?"

LOTTIE and SEAMUS: ok fine, share the events in ZION, with the excuse that it was supposed to be a secret.

PIZZA: "so you're saying the children saw your face?"

SEAMUS: "no, we had masks"

THE op (as told by PIZZA)

priorities

1. keep your names out of all news and reports, now that they are associated with the program
2. figure out what the program and yourselves have to do with the 56 dead kids
3. find out what happened there in a fire in February 2001
4. any unnatural items/people/occurances must be hidden from the state and county police and the press

ZION

Arrival at the Crime Scene

• agents pull into the place; stopped at the perimiter; we pull our credentials out of fresh manilla envelopes, read them to find our names, and present them
• TOOMEY (Olivia Toomey), BMore Sun: "say stuff", agents: "close car window"
• location: clearing dotted with yellow and white tents; cleanly-cut square holes, surveying implements, huge portable stadium lights, we hear the sound of the ground-penetrating radar searching the woods
• 800 inmates currently, not evacuated; excavation mostly not within fenced grounds but outside on the exterior prison campus (eg administrative buildings and storage)
• the warehouse (site of the death of HOUGHTON) is surrounded by a plastic bubble tent thing
• vibe is scorched; ppl openly weeping; dead stares; cigarettes
• we step out of the car, are approached by a woman in her late 30s, very tall, latina, long black shiny hair pulled into tight bun; VELASQUEZ (Det. Sgt. Velasquez), md st police

Meeting VELASQUEZ

SEAMUS: "VELASQUEZ, what have you got here?"

VELASQUEZ: "suit up: hazmat"

LOTTIE: "why is all this necesasry?"

VELASQUEZ: "you'll see. we don't want to contaminate the crime scene. Also there's a biological perspective. Lotta question marks"

VELASQUEZ sips the irish coffee made by LOTTIE

VELASQUEZ: "that's pretty good; wink"

VELASQUEZ: "56 remains so far, more on the way. bones are tough to date, but these things go back to the early 60s here. All children so far

VELASQUEZ: "prison opened in 2010; lot purchased by state in 08

VELASQUEZ: "ranges from minimal to maximal security

VELASQUEZ: "I have got a history with this place... I was a rookie on the 2001 investigation with BASWELL. BASWELL said it was a gang thing... which, lol. We're more-or-less reopening the 2001 case here.

VELASQUEZ: "Loose end: an auto theft

LOTTIE: "must have been kids I guess!"

VELASQUEZ: "tree roots in the forest have slowed down the investigation; graves are closely packed; we're gonna be diggin for months."

Inside the airlock

Meeting Dr. Grace

• airlock situation
• warehouse building enclosed in plastic bubble
• white garage-style door of warehouse has three bloody puncture holes
• high tech equipment, trucks, areas
• like 30 folks here all together, investigating
• wire-rim glasses lady, GRACE (Dr Monique Grace) from Harvard introduces herself

GRACE: "I really cannot stress enough how happy I am to see you. It's been difficult to prevent people from taking a look. Lots of specialists coming in on the, ahem, esoteric situation."

VELASQUEZ: looks confused

GRACE: "mostly bones so far, starting early 60s; we also have these specimens: 11 cots with child mummies. preserved and dessicated, but not toilet-papered. It's been hard to keep the investigators away."

• we could autopsy these
• we might want to bring them offsite

GRACE: "Velasquez, don't you have somehting you shuold be doing somewhere else?"

VELASQUEZ: "nope, happy to be here"

COSTA (Michael Costa) walks up, blonde guy with mustache;

COSTA: "you would not believe the day I am havin! Cecil county PD here. Criminal innvestigation division liason. We're up to our elbows in mysteries here".

LOTTIE makes eye-contact with v, who rolls her eyes, not a COSTA fan.

COSTA: "have you guys seen the puddin' yet? cuz it's really freaking me out!"

The Black Substance

GRACE: "we have four... findings... with an unusual... character. We think it may be dangerous. I am not sure why COSTA knows about it, I have been keeping people away."

GRACE shows four garbage bags.

GRACE: "the victims were disposed of pretty quickly, often in a garbage bag or a burlap sack.These garbage bags contain a... a viscous black fluid.

GRACE: "We've observed a strange phenomenon whereby the substance --- reaches out --- towards human flesh --- like a ferrofluid.

GRACE: "these bags were clustered together."

GRACE: "my colleague CAMPBELL (Tim Campbell) has been looking at this stuff, he's a biologist, the cellular structure... doesn't resemble chemistry. we're having trouble getting a positive id on this."

The Murder Scene

• GRACE walks us over to the murder site for HOUGHTON.
• three bloody holes. (THREES)
• presumably palms and heart. (THREES)
• This is where the MD state troopers found her hangin.
• Two screwdrivers and one chisel. (THREES)
• big FBI table with touch plasma screen, lotsa crime scene photos.
• FBI agents hanging around. They are very deferential to us.

VELASQUEZ: "they really spared no expense on this one. Never seen anything like it. We have security footage of the door at the murder time, and you're welcome to autopsy HOUGHTON on the slab."

Security Footage Evidence

• footage: camera is motion activated; 1fps, greyscale, low res, grainy, bad angle.
  Garage door is in the corner.
  Scene is lit by security light plus two car headlights, car offscreen.
  three perps depicted: (THREES)
  • Cast (KILLERS):
    • man 1: rail-thin white man with tatoo on inner-right forearm of open-fanged mouth filled with black.
    • woman: short black hair; her mouth has a lipring; ragged clothes, rainboots, army jacket
    • man 2: not so white, not so thin, deep scar on left hand that looks fresh
  • events:
    • man 1 drags victim into frame
    • woman enters, kneels on victim's legs; victim is wearing pajamas and no shoes
    • man 2 holds down other side of victim
    • 30 minute fast-fwd of woman removing individual teeth from victim using pliers and mattock.
      victim goes limp 20m in.
      They break victim's jaw to access molars.
      Teeth are gathered and pocketed
    • victim regains consciousness, vomits blood; jaw hanging loose
    • man 1 and man 2 hold victim as woman drives screws into hands and right above left collarbone.
      victim goes completely limp.
      3 perps leave the scene.
    • later: camera flashes back on, woman is looking directly at camera, smiling, lip ring, rotten crooked teeth, covered in sores, sunken eyes.
      Puma shoe logo on left side of neck.
      raises hand right in front of camera, presenting 2 human teeth to camera.
    • later: State Trooper SAWYER arrives and finds the body
• VELASQUEZ: note that HOUGHTON has been heavily diagnosed psychiatrically.
• GRACE shows us into refrigerated truck, where the body of HOUGHTON is on a slab
  • steam pours out of the truck.
    we're cozy in our hazmat suits.
    body on slab, jaw cut to hang loose.
    stigmata in wrists and collarbone are gross.
  • truck guy invites SEAMUS to perform autopsy, we clear the room

Autopsy Findings

• autopsy findings:
  • haughton was 40 at time of death
  • died at 3am, found at 7pm the same day
  • body is remarkably well preserved; would expect decomp but none
  • 3 puncture wounds as described (THREES)
  • all teeth removed
  • lower jaw hanging off
  • eyeballs appear to have burst from pressure from jaw
  • cause of death: shock and asphyxiation (on her own blood)
  • heavy bruising about the head and torso; more beating than we saw in the video
  • scrapes on top of feet
  • jaw severed with mattock
  • rip between 2nd and 3rd metacarpals indicating struggle against the screwdriver
  • brain has serious glial scarring; consistent with late-term dementia or cte
    • an amount of deep brain damage that looks like a linebacker or an alzheimer; astonishing that she was functional at all in life
• SHELF calls PIZZA to arrange a truck (which will come tomorrow) to remove for processing:
  • the pudding
  • the corpse
  • the video
  • the mummies

Debriefing with GRACE

• LOTTIE goes out to GRACE...

LOTTIE: "we've got some folks coming tomorrow, thank you for your work containing this, by the way, who's been giving you the most trouble?"

GRACE: "VELASQUEZ tbh. She wants to get to the bottom of this. COSTA is a useful idiot, wants his ass covered."

GRACE: "these mummies here -- no decomp whatsoever? never seen anything like it. Unnatural."

• it is revealed: the mummies are under where the COTTAGE used to be