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Rebecca no sooner walked into Homicide than a call came in that sent her and Sutter to the home of Harlan Stegall. Since she and Sutter were the on-call team, every case that came in landed on their laps.
They found Mr. Stegall, age 32, lying dead at the bottom of a flight of stairs, atop a mosaic tile floor. The paramedics thought he must have fallen headfirst down the stairs and landed with such force his spinal cord snapped, resulting in nearly instantaneous death.
Rebecca was dubious. The movies that showed someone sneaking up from behind and giving a person’s head and neck one hard twist, causing the victim to immediately drop dead, were just that—movies. Tearing a spinal cord in a young, healthy male took a tremendous force.
“It looks like an accident to me,” Sutter said.
“Le
