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CHAPTER 3

Raleigh, North Carolina Tuesday, July 2, 2024

SLOAN GRABBED HER MAIL FROM A ROW OF BOXES BEFORE SHE WALKED up the steps of her apartment—a one-bedroom in Trinity Circle. Inside, she popped open a Diet Dr. Pepper, her beverage of choice and the secret weapon, along with her obsession with CrossFit, that had helped her survive both medical school and residency. At the kitchen table she flipped open her laptop. She’d spent the previous day reading through the information contained in the giant three-ring binder Dr. Cutty had given her, making notes, and outlining the approach she would take to researching, dissecting, and somehow advancing the field of forensic and investigative genealogy.

The first thing she’d have to do is find a case that had been solved using DNA profiles stored on databases of online ancestry sites. She knew better than to consider the Golden State Killer case. It was too well known, too mainstream, and completely unoriginal. She made a list of people she needed to get in touch with. It included homicide detectives, genealogists, and maybe a reporter or two who had covered true crime and could tip her off to a less well-known case involving forensic genealogy.

She took a sip of Dr. Pepper and got busy on her laptop, deciding that contacting a genealogist would be the easiest of the three. A quick search brought up a website for the Association of Professional Genealogists. Sloan paged through scores of profiles until she found a genealogist named James Clayton located in North Carolina. The profile included an email address, so she ripped off a quick message to him.

Dear James,

I’m a fellow in forensic pathology at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in North Carolina. I’m researching forensic ge nealogy and looking for a genealogist to give me a “Genealogy 101” lesson. I located your name from the Association of Professional Genealogists online. I’m in Raleigh, just like you. Please let me know if you’d be willing to answer a few of my questions.

—Sloan Hastings

She included her phone number and logged out of her email. She spent the rest of the morning researching homicides that had been recently solved using online genealogy databases. She made a list of the ten that looked promising and spent three hours after lunch reading and printing articles on each of them. It was midafternoon when her phone buzzed with a text message. She didn’t recognize the number but saw when she opened the message that it was James the genealogist.

Hi Sloan, thanks for reaching out. I’d love to talk. Yes, I’m also in Raleigh and can meet anytime.

Sloan typed her response.

SLOAN: Anytime? Is tonight too soon?

JAMES: Not at all. Meet you at The Daily Drip at 9PM?

SLOAN: See you there!

Procrastination is the devil’s way of stealing your time. She didn’t plan to waste a minute. Just two days into her fellowship and Sloan was already out of the gate and running. Where she was headed would be the greatest shock of her life.