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Reno, Nevada

Tuesday, June 27, 1995 7 Days Prior . . .

IT WAS JUST PAST MIDNIGHT WHEN THE WINDOWLESS VAN PULLED DOWN the alley and stopped outside the back door to the Washoe County morgue in Reno. Two men climbed from the van. They wore dark windbreakers that would hide their builds, and ball caps pulled low on their foreheads so that surveillance cameras would have no clear image of their faces. Although they had a master key set if needed, when the first man reached for the handle of the morgue door, it opened with a simple twist. They had an inside man who promised the morgue would be unlocked, and so far he was true to his word.

The men slipped inside, pulled out flashlights, and headed down the hall. They took the stairs to the underground level, their soft-soled tennis shoes making little noise. They found the autopsy suite and headed to a row of coolers on the back wall. They found the third door and opened it, the only one that was unlocked. They pulled the gurney and the body it held from the freezer as cold air billowed into the suite. One of the men pulled on the sheet to reveal the dead man’s feet, found the tag hanging from his toe, and confirmed the name.

Baker Jauncey

To be sure, they pulled the sheet down to expose the man’s face and checked it against a picture they had. Confirmed, they wheeled the body out of the suite and down the hall, this time opting for the elevator rather than the stairs. Back on the first level, they guided the body through the halls, to the unlocked door, and into the night. They opened the back doors of the van and slid Baker Jauncey’s body in. A few minutes later they were on the highway and headed north.

An hour and a half later they arrived in Cedar Creek, where they pulled up to the back door of the town’s morgue. Inside, they pushed the gurney containing Baker Jauncey’s body through the dark hallways until they reached the autopsy suite, where they deposited the body in the cooler. They swapped the Washoe morgue tag that was attached to Baker’s right big toe.

Just before 2 a.m., Baker Jauncey became the property of the Harrison County Medical Examiner’s Office in Cedar Creek, Nevada. The ME promised his boss he would perform the autopsy first thing in the morning.