The Murder of Janessa Hennley Read Online Free Page A

history. He checked the police reports online, something most agencies wouldn’t have approved of if they’d known the FBI could do it, and then forwarded the email to an assistant at the lab with a note that he had verified it as an actual case.
    The final email came with the subject heading NEED HELP PLEASE.
    He opened it and began reading:
     
    Dear FBI Behavioral Science Unit,
     
    My name is Sheriff Suzan Clay, and I’m the sheriff in Kodiak Basin, Alaska. A week ago I dealt with the most horrific murders I’ve ever seen, and I have no suspects and no leads. No witnesses, nothing. I could use your help and resources on this. We asked the Sheriff’s Office in Anchorage for help, but they said they were busy enough and turned us down. Budgets are getting cut everywhere. The detective I spoke with there said it was probably a drug killing, revenge or something, and we do have a lot of drugs up here. But I know that’s not it.
    I would appreciate if you could call me.
     
    Thanks.
     
    P.S. The victims are forty-one, thirty-two, sixteen, ten and nine.
     
    Mickey read the email twice before leaning back. The last line stuck out to him like a thorn: The victims are forty-one, thirty-two, sixteen, ten and nine. Despite the email’s informal tone, the sheriff pulled an interesting trick to tug at the heartstrings of whoever read the email. But he also noticed that the ages meant Mrs. Hennley was pregnant at sixteen with their first child, and Mr. Hennley would have been twenty-five. She was under the age of consent. Their relationship had begun with a sex crime.
    He picked up the phone and dialed.
    “This is Suzan.”
    Mickey noted that she didn’t answer with Sheriff . “Sheriff Clay?”
    “Yeah, you got her .”
    “This is Mickey Parsons. I’m a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
    “Oh! Oh, hey. How are you?”
    “I’m fine, thank you for asking.”
    “Is this about the email? ’Cause I sent that a few days ago, and I didn’t hear back so I didn’t think you were interested.”
    “It takes a while for things to run through the Bureau. So who are the victims , exactly?”
    “ The Hennley family. Ben and his wife Candice, and their children Janessa, Timothy and Ezra. They were stabbed, all of them except Janessa. She was… well, you’d have to see it, I guess.”
    Mickey recognized the hesitation in her voice, the reluctance to discuss the details openly. “You knew them personally?”
    “I did. We’re a city of five thousand. Everyone knows everyone here.”
    “Why don’t you send the murder book up , and I’ll take a look at it.”
    “The what?”
    “The murder book. All the evidence and reports you have.”
    “Oh. Okay, well, I can send you the police reports we have and the autopsy and toxicology report s they did down in Anchorage.”
    “Yeah, just PDF it and email it to me.”
    “Okay, and to that same email?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Thanks a lot for this. I really do appreciate it.”
    “You’re welcome.”
    Mickey closed his browser and stretched his arms and neck. He was about to get a cup of coffee when his desktop dinged with a new email. It was from the sheriff.
     

7
     
     
     
     
     
    The police reports on the Hennleys consisted of four pages of narrative with an autopsy report and a toxicology analysis. Nothing more. The entire murder book was less than a dozen pages, but Mickey was used to over thirty. On a family, it should have been near seventy.
    He skimmed it quickly. Ben had been found in the basement, dead from blood loss and severe organ trauma. The murder weapon, a long Philips-head screwdriver, lay next to the body. His wife’s throat was slit with a kitchen knife while she was still in bed. The two boys, nine and ten, had been found upstairs. One was stabbed through the heart while still under his covers. The other in the hallway with a knife wound to the back of his neck. He had tried to run.
    But they weren’t the ones he had come for.