“There were no signs of any struggle. Nothing looks out of place. It’s as if these two simply walked out and never came back,” Gavin said.

“Suicide note?” Dr. Maddox asked, before Val could do so.

“No,” Gavin said. “They found a laptop and took that for analysis. So we’ll see if anything was written, or deleted. Though she has a cell phone, we didn’t find it in her home, her car. Or in the church. Her cell phone carrier tried pinging it for us. They got nothing.” Val knew what Gavin was talking about. The cell phone carrier will send a signal to the phone to check its location.

“They went missing six days ago and more than likely, died sometime yesterday. They had to have been somewhere, alive, for all that time. You have to have another crime scene,” Val said.

“Staying somewhere, or kept somewhere. We don’t know that answer yet,” Gavin stressed.

Dr. Maddox came over to Val’s side. “Gwen, why don’t you take over with the photography. Get pictures of Gabrielle’s mouth next, then start the full body photos. Val, let’s start getting the duct tape off so we can get the branches out of her hands. Be careful with the tape. We’ll want to preserve it.”

Gwen took the camera as Dr. Maddox started dictating the external exam. Val picked up a pair of forceps and slowly, teased the tape open. Luckily, she was able to unwind it in one piece. The inside of the tape, the part wound around itself and not in contact with the victim, was the most important. If Gabrielle taped herself, her DNA would be all over the inside. Trace evidence also could be stuck to the inner part.

Most of the branches stayed in place. Val wasn’t surprised. With the amount of rigor in the body, Gabrielle’s hands were locked in place. With some prying of the fingers, Val managed to remove the branches. The tape and branches each went into separate evidence bags.

Next, Val pulled off the duct tape from Gabrielle’s mouth and placed that into its own evidence bag. Carefully she parted the lips. Once opened enough, she grabbed a small metal scoop and a flashlight, then pulled the seeds out, placing them in an evidence container. “I can’t tell if I got them all.” She peered back into the mouth again.

“I plan on doing a thorough dissection of the oral cavity and throat to see if anything else is in there. So, don’t worry about it,” said Dr. Maddox. “Let’s prepare for the internal exam.”