Evidence Collection

There wasn’t really anything he could do beyond what he had already done. They had already sent agents to the scenes, gathered evidence, interviewed family, friends, even strangers who had last seen them, and then started connecting the dots.

He was getting nowhere fast. There was only one thing that stuck out to him. In all cases the victims would empty out their pockets. Phones, wallets, purses, you name it. So why then, was there a polaroid picture of one of the victims?

Her name was Kenzie, and the photo seemed out of place, almost like someone had dropped it. Greg believed it to be a bad actor who used the photo to search for this girl and kidnap her. She was 18 years old and attending a high school that had also seen a few of the seniors disappear as well. Greg knew this had been left by mistake, but the only thing that appears off was the writing at the bottom of the polaroid. It simply said “OBEY.”

“It doesn’t make any sense.” Greg mumbled to himself as he stared at the polaroid in his hand. It was eating away at him that he was coming to a dead end, and not to mention the disappearance of the last man who had this case. It had started out as just a simple missing persons case but once he disappeared, the FBI decided it was time to bring in the big gun (also known as Greg), but so many things were disturbing to him about this.

“What was that sir?” His second hand man, Tony, must’ve heard him mumbling to myself. A habit he picked up over the years, and one Greg was trying to break. It weirded out his friends and family. Greg apologized and straightened himself within his chair. Tony chuckled softly and then sighed, “No need to apologize to me. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t getting frustrated too.”

There was a brief moment of silence as they poured over the evidence for the thousandth time. “It just doesn’t make any sense, these women leave everything behind and aren’t seen again? I’ve never seen anything like it. The abruptness, the emptying of their pockets, and not to mention that half of them walk away with their fingers inside themselves! It’s all so strange and absurd. It’s like they’re being mind controlled.” Greg leaned back and sunk back down into his chair, even though he had just sat up. It was his turn to sigh now and stare at the ceiling, just letting his thoughts run wild. Minutes of silence passed, but then Tony finally spoke.

“Maybe it is,” Tony let that hang in the air. At first, I thought he was simply agreeing with me to cut the silence, but he continued, “maybe we’re seeing something control the minds of these women?” This caught Greg’s attention, Tony’s seriousness about it. He sat up (again) and he stared at Tony. He didn’t think that Tony was making a joke, and Greg didn’t believe in mind control, but it almost made sense.What gave him pause more than anything was that something about the polaroid seemed to whisper to him…

obey…

Greg pushed the thought away, “You mean like MK Ultra?” He wasn’t sure why, but he said that in a hushed tone. “Honestly, at this point, I’d believe it.” Tony half laughed at this, but they were both being serious. The actions and evidence made sense.

Greg looked back down at the polaroid in his hands. The picture of Kenzie, and looked at the big letters saying OBEY on the bottom. He thought about what an attractive young lady she was, and that was another thing bothering him. Most of the women were down right gorgeous—model level even. “Yeah, maybe this photo forces her to ‘obey’ whatever she’s told.” He said sarcastically, but a part of him wondered if maybe that was true. Then Greg did what he knew should never be done to evidence. He took a marker and drew a line through the word. Tampering with evidence? That could land him in some serious trouble, but later on he would look back at this moment and be extremely grateful. He didn’t realize it now how important this action would be, but his instincts told him to draw that line.

“Dude, what the fuck are you doing?” Tony sighed, “that’s evidence. Why are you tampering with it?”

Greg didn’t respond, he sat there looking at the photo with the line through the word. He decided to continue to ignore Tony and just went back to viewing evidence and calling other agencies to see what they found. Eventually, Tony went back to work as well. There wasn’t much to do other than keep their heads down and continue working.