An APB was sent out for Garth Hammerling. North Las Vegas police also composed flyers and faxed them not only to Las Vegas Metro, but to most of the police departments in the state of Nevada, with emphasis on Reno and the Silver State’s side of Lake Tahoe. NLV police also faxed flyers to the poker clubs in Southern California and the casinos in Atlantic City. Everyone knew they were merely scratching the surface because there were thousands of Indian casinos and offshore gambling establishments throughout the nation. How to approach the situation was as confusing as it was dire. After discussing the matter, the consensus was that Garth wasn’t much of a gambler. What he liked was what went along with gambling: loose women whom he could pick up, seduce, and then murder.

The house in the desert made headlines. The search for Garth Hammerling widened into a nationwide manhunt for a serial killer. Hopefully, he’d be caught before his compulsion to kill again became overwhelming.

By Monday afternoon, exactly one week after from the gruesome discovery of Adrianna Blanc’s body, Mandy started talking, albeit unsteadily. There were so many queries that needed to be asked by so many detectives, it would take days if not weeks before the full story would come out.

Four days after Mandy was pulled out of her medically induced coma, Decker was on an evening Southwest flight headed back into Burbank. At the same time, Marge and Oliver were on I-15, on their way home. The three of them had come away with a story told from Mandy’s perspective. Decker had cobbled together an unbelievable tale: a four-day odyssey of murder and destruction. There were gaps and some things didn’t make sense, but there was a narrative that could be followed from beginning to end. He wrote down the following summary as he flew back home.

TEN DAYS AGO, at around eight-thirty in the morning, Mandy saw Adrianna slam down the phone at one of the nurses’ stations, and bury her face in her hands. Since she seemed so very upset, Mandy went over to ask her what was wrong. Adrianna began to cry.

Mandy was surprised to see Adrianna still at the hospital because her shift had ended at eight. But she was there, and Mandy, being a good friend, sensed she needed some help. She told Adrianna to wait for her in the hospital cafeteria. She signed out on break, showing up at the cafeteria ten minutes later to talk to her friend.