Mary: Grisly Details

Please forgive me for earlier. You have to understand that for the most part my time is spent delivering subpoenas and investigating insurance fraud. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw in that house. Regardless of how I reacted in the moment, understand that I am on this case, and I will stay on it until the end. Having met with that poor woman, sat in her kitchen, drank her coffee... I feel repulsed, yes, but now I just feel angry. I am enraged at whomever did this to her, and I am more committed than ever to finding them.

I realize that I am making a small leap here, but I simply find it impossible to believe that whomever attacked Mrs. Howland and Mrs. Walentowicz's killer are not the same person, or are not in some way in league with one another. The police are being cautious on the issue and refuse to put the two together just yet, or at least not publicly.

The coroner and crime scene specialists are still working here at the house (Josh and I remain parked in the car outside), going over everything. I'll now describe what happened, but be warned it's not for the weak of stomach:

As Josh and I entered the kitchen, we saw that the linoleum floor was entirely covered in blood. The kitchen table had been pulled away from the wall into the center of the room, and on top of it was the body of Mrs. Walentowicz, laying on it's back. Her torso had been sliced open vertically from the sternum to just above the pelvis, creating a hole in her belly. Sitting in a pile of glistening, rope-like intestines... protruding up through the slit was Mrs. Walentowicz's blood-drenched head.

I haven't received many details from the coroner as of yet, but one thing about the body that astonished and disturbed even him was that he believes that the incision was made in her abdomen first, and somehow her head was pulled down through her own torso and heaved out from inside, propped there on her own midsection and left facing the doorway.

The worst part of it-and I'm sure it's difficult to believe that something could be worse than what I've just described-but the part that will stay with me in my nightmares was her face. The face of that horrifically tortured, innocent old woman...

It was smiling.