Free The Blooding by Joseph Wambaugh Page A

identical DNA maps would be identical twins.
    And it didn't take them very long to see that the technology could have important uses in forensic analysis. A name for the technology had to be chosen. The bold and logical choice was "genetic fingerprinting."
    On November 19th the Mercury printed a column headlined: STORIES TO JOG YOUR MEMORY.
    The newspaper article offered a news summary from Monday, November 21, 1983, the day of Lynda Mann's death. There was a story about multimillionaire Soraya Khashoggi, nee Sandra Daley of Leicester, who'd made a bid in court to have her ex-husband jailed. That was one locals would remember. Another old story dealt with the Leicester rugby hero who'd skippered his team, the Tigers, to a victory over Twickenham.
    And for several days the paper ran a series of articles summarizing the massive work done on the inquiry, ending once again with an appeal for help. The police admitted to "relying very heavily" on the local press.
    The Leicestershire Constabulary had initiated a new poster campaign and set up a mobile inquiry unit to receive any fresh leads. The police asked people to "search their consciences to remember what members of their families and friends were doing on Monday night, November 21, 1983."
    Another Lynda Mann poster was displayed throughout the villages. The poster heading said, "Let's not forget Lynda Mann, murdered a year ago in Narborough." The poster showed a photo of Lynda's face superimposed over a model posed in a donkey jacket. The poster asked the public to help with the inquiries and ended with the promise that all information would be treated "in the strictest of confidence."
    Derek Pearce reported to journalists that the renewed campaign had resulted in thirty telephone calls, but he belatedly added: "Some lines of enquiry are not new."
    On a dreary autumn day, one year after the murder of Lynda Mann, Kath and Eddie Eastwood visited a second seer. This one was a woman they'd heard about from friends in Leicester. The Eastwoods were not trying primarily to find comfort in otherworld contact, but rather looking for murder clues, to alleviate rage and despair.
    The woman was very vague and offered little solace. She reported a vision involving the initial "T." and the name "Gerard." She could see a pretty dark-haired girl, as though in a mist. But the Eastwoods realized that she could well have read about the murder and could have seen photographs of Lynda. The medium also warned that if the killer was not caught very soon he'd kill again, but the police told them that anyone with a rudimentary understanding of such crimes might have made a similar prediction.
    The "T." meant nothing to Kath and Eddie. The "Gerard" they thought could refer to the notice for Gerard Motors over the railway bridge on Narborough Road. They wondered if perhaps the murderer lived near that bridge. The police, however, were not enthusiastic about seers and mediums.
    Sgt. Mick Mason still kept in touch, and they received some calls from Inspector Mick Thomas, the other young DI who had worked with Pearce on the Lynda Mann inquiry. Thomas would ring them from time to time offering reassurance that the police would never give up, that they were working on every new lead and reworking old ones.
    He'd even call when one of the new leads didn't pan out. The calls that admitted failure went a long way in convincing them they still might hope for retribution. If he'd just called with optimistic information, they'd have chalked it up to public relations, and felt more hopeless than ever.
    They got a bit of comfort when they learned that a published report claiming Lynda had been seen in a disco on the night of her death had been investigated thoroughly and discounted. She'd been to a disco in Croft with her friend Karen on November 18th, but that was the extent of it. They thought it had to have been a villager who'd murdered her, not some stranger from a disco.
    During that month, reporters