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The female officer put her hand up to block the camera. “Please step back, ma’am.”
Tracy reached the microphone as close as possible to the young girl’s face. “Did you fire the gunshots that the neighbors heard?”
The girl looked up just then, and stared into the camera. Her eyes were vacant and black. “They’re all dead,” the girl said.
A second police officer hurried down the driveway to push the camera away, but the cameraman recovered in time to capture footage of the empty-eyed girl being placed in the back of the squad car. The female police officer ignored the reporter’s barrage of questions as she hurried into the driver’s seat, turned on the sirens, and drove off into the night.
McIntosh, Virginia January 15, 2013 3:20 a.m.
The detective arrived an hour after Officer Koppel placed Alexandra Quinlan in the interrogation room. Donna watched now through the one-way mirrored window as the girl sat alone in the hard wooden chair. A detective approached Donna. She knew him, but not well.
“Officer Koppel?” the detective asked.
She nodded. “Hi. Donna Koppel.”
“Romero Alvarez,” the man said with a no-nonsense tone. “You were first on the scene?”
Donna nodded again. “Yes, I responded to shots fired.”
“Give me a summary. I’ve only heard secondhand information so far. I’ve got my evidence techs at the house now, I’ll head over after this.”
“The house was quiet when I arrived. I waited for backup before we entered. I first knocked on the front door, no answer. We discovered that the front door was unlocked. Inside, we found three victims—two adults, the parents, shot in their bed. One male child shot in the hallway outside the parents’ bedroom. It was, uh, the girl’s younger brother.” Donna lifted her chin toward the interrogation room. “The girl was sitting on the floor in front of her parents’ bed.”
“All three were dead?”
“Yes. A single gunshot wound to each of them. Chest shots. The girl had a twelve-gauge shotgun on her lap. We’re running forensics now to make sure it was the gun used to kill the parents and the brother. We also took samples from the girl’s hands to confirm residue matches the gun.”
“Good work,” the detective said. “Anything else before I talk to her?”
“Yeah, we called Child Protective Services but they said it’ll be a while before they can get anybody out here. The girl’s got no other family that we can find.”
“Anything else?”
Donna paused a moment, not wanting to overstep. “We should assign her a juvenile officer advocate before you speak to her.”
The detective glanced at his watch. “I’m going to feel her out first.”
“She’s still in shock so take it easy on her.”
Detective Alvarez offered a condescending smirk. “She killed three people. The very last thing I’m going to do is handle her with kid gloves.”
“I just meant—”
“The problem with this world, Officer Koppel, is that we are not in more shock after something like this happens. It’s just become part of our culture. It’s her own family today, her school tomorrow, a movie theater the next day. And we’re supposed to have sympathy for her because she’s in shock after mowing down her entire family? Give me a break, Officer. This is an interrogation room, not a safe space.”
The detective stared at Donna, daring her to respond, before turning and heading into the interview room. Detective Alvarez sat across from the girl. Donna watched through the window.
The girl looked up at the detective.
“I’m Detective Alvarez.”
The detective’s voice was clear as it came through the speaker positioned above the window.
“I’m here to figure out what happened at your house.”
“My parents are dead,” the girl said, her eyes as empty now as when she was marched from the house and placed into the back of a police cruiser. “And my brother, too.”
“Yeah, the police officers told me about it. But let’s start with your name.”
