⋅From Daddy’s Girl to Tragic Suicide⋅

 

While all cleanup calls demand sensitivity and diplomacy on our part toward victims’ families, the suicide cleanup sometimes requires an extra degree of tact and empathy because the public does not always view suicide victims as sympathetically as it views violent-crime victims. And this particular and very tragic suicide cleanup was one of the most challenging for our professionals in this regard, and it serves as a sober reminder that we should all reserve judgment of others.

She was a typical suicide candidate in some ways: an 18-year-old heroin addict stealing and prostituting herself to buy the drug, the mother of a two-year-old and three months pregnant with her second child, and a high-school drop-out. At the time of her death, her two-year-old had, for the second time, been removed from her by DFACS and was in foster care.

But she came from an affluent family. Her parents were both white-collar professionals who raised her in a wealthy suburb north of Atlanta. They doted on her, sent her to private schools, and were very involved in her activities as she grew up.

They were the parents at every soccer game, at every PTA meeting, at every school play.

They were the parents who vacationed with their kids at Disney World. When she died in a coastal Georgia vacation condominium owned by her parents, she drew very little public sympathy. She had it all and just threw it away, everyone whispered. She brought it on herself, everyone said.

After her violent suicide, her parents were socially embarrassed and ashamed, not to mention exponentially naive. They left the death scene untouched and quietly sold the condominium to one of their investor friends who contacted us immediately. By then, however, three weeks had passed since the victim’s death. By the time we arrived, the environment was a cesspool of bacteria and biohazardous waste.

The Scene

When we entered the nice two-bedroom condominium near Tybee Island, on the coast of Georgia and close to historic Savannah, the master bedroom looked like a slaughter house.

The bedspread, sheets, and mattress were blood-soaked where her body had lain.

A pool of blood had collected on the carpet next to the bed and had soaked through the padding and sub-flooring. A trail of blood led to the master bathroom, where we found copious amounts of vomit on the floor and in the toilet and more dried blood all over the sink and floor around the sink. Because these bodily fluids present extreme bio hazards, even more so in this case because they had been allowed to decompose over a period of several weeks, the bed linens and the mattress could not be cleaned. We had to package them with special bio-hazard materials and dispose of them in biohazard waste containers. The carpet and padding in the bedroom also had to be specially packaged and removed.

After we packaged the bio-hazardous materials, we cleaned and decontaminated the entire bedroom and bathroom with hospital-grade cleaning solutions and enzyme solvents to liquefy the dried blood and also to kill deadly pathogens that were likely present in the blood. We also used a professional no-touch cleaning system throughout the condominium and then an ozone machine and a fogger to completely deodorize the environment.

Because the scene had initially raised suspicions of foul play, black fingerprint powder was also all over the furniture, doors, and other surfaces.

Black fingerprint powder contains a number of compounds that can be carcinogenic and can present other health hazards. For that reason, it should be cleaned professionally. Advanced Bio Treatment follows all OSHA guidelines in cleaning and removing fingerprint powder and other chemicals left by crime-scene investigators, such as tear gas and luminol.

The Devastating Hidden Truth

Investigators concluded that the victim had broken into the vacation home and injected herself with a lethal dose of heroine. But first, she cut both her wrists deeply enough to bleed to death after vomiting, staggering back to the bed, and collapsing, where she died.

The death was ruled a suicide with no foul play.

From nosy, curious neighbors in the small town, who had known the family for about 20 years, we learned that this privileged princess who “had it all and just threw it away” was allegedly molested throughout her childhood and young adulthood by her father and blamed for the “indiscretion” by her mother.

The baby she was carrying, according to the autopsy report, was her father’s.

DNA tests on the two-year-old, who is in foster care, have been ordered. The last we heard, no charges have been filed against the father.

The deeper you dig, the nastier it gets sometimes. Things are never what they appear to be on the surface. That’s also true of the crime and death scenes where these twisted stories play out and end. You can’t see the deadly pathogens in blood and other body fluids, you can’t see the bacteria they spread, you can’t distinguish biohazardous waste from regular waste, and you can’t see the extent of the penetration of deadly pathogens into an environment. But we can. Advanced Bio Treatment is on call every hour of every day. We offer free quotes and consultations, around-the-clock emergency service, and assistance with insurance and other matters related to the death of a loved one.

We hope you never need us, but if you do, Advanced Bio Treatment is here for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year.