DETROIT, MI – Chief Investigator William Barrelton has been on the force for the better part of three decades, but even this hardened veteran was caught off guard last Tuesday by the grisly scene at an abandoned automobile manufacturing facility in Detroit.
At an unusually candid and emotional press conference, Barrelton described the crime scene at length:
“Upon entering the room a huge array of torture devices was immediately visible…drills, hammers, saws, soldering irons – even allen wrenches. Shards of metal floating in large puddles of grease. I knew right away something was very wrong. I crossed to the upright freezer and therein found several shelves full of auto body parts: an exhaust pipe sliced into tiny chunks, gas lines that had been ripped straight out, a [mangled] headlight, and a white fluffy substance our crime lab later identified as stuffing from what is most likely to have been fine, leather upholstered seats. It was awful, the stuff of nightmares.”
The case comes as part of a month-long police effort to crack down on a ring of car-bashers. The group typically arrives at night when the cars are soundly asleep and uses bats and other blunt objects to smash windshields and headlights.
“Sometimes the cars will be screaming for help for up to half and hour in as many as five different languages – ‘BLIP BLIP BLIP BLIP, WEEEOOO WEEEOOO, ZAGAZAGAZAGA’ – you know, and no one calls in,” said Staff Sergeant Ron Hubert.
“It’s like the Chevy Genovese case all over again,” added his partner Ron Hubbert.
The victim in Tuesday’s case, thought to be a 1997 Honda Civic, is the first reported incident of a car-napping and murder. The police say they’ve ruled it out as a hate-crime due to the non-discriminatory practices of the car-smashers.
“We’ve seen a whole range of cars targeted,” said Barrelton. “Anything from Dodge to Geo to BMW. It’s not a make issue.”
The tip-off came at roughly 11:00 pm when a car (to remain anonymous due to the ongoing nature of the investigation) arrived at the police station and started flashing its lights into the station’s windows and honking its horn. Night guard Arnold Palmer ignored the car for about 5 hours before deciding to go see what “all the ruckus” was about and was shocked to find there was no driver present in the car.
Sources close to Palmer say he “got spooked pretty bad by that devil car.”
A mere 3 inches away from Palmer’s bed at the pyschiatric ward when interviewed, Palmer’s nurse Gail Pritchard confided that, “that car may be a hero, but it’s just mad freaky.”
Freaked out as he was, Palmer did manage to call Chief Investigator Barrelton who immediately told Palmer to “stop drinking and join AA, for chrissakes.” Eventually convinced that he needed to “get the hell up and go take care of that [night guard] Palmer,” Barrelton drove out to the station. When he approached the phantom car, it opened its passenger seat door and revved its engine. Barreleton ordered Palmer to come with him and the car drove them directly to the scene of the crime. It was there that Barrelton discovered the torture room and the upright freezer filled with auto body parts. There were no other humans present at the abandonded factory and the basement had not been occupied for roughly two weeks, experts say.
Barrelton offered no speculation as to why the auto body parts were preserved in the freezer, though he did voice his outrage and condemnation of the perpetrators.
“These people are sick,” he said at the press conference. “They have mental problems, they’re sick. They disgust me, they have mental problems. They’re sick.”
Though there have been no further leads or witnesses or any concrete hope of finding out more information about the crimes, police are blindly confident in their ability to “nab the little nippers any day now.” Until then, they are strongly advising car owners to make use of garages if at all possible.
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