| REPORTING OFFICER'S NARRATIVE(Brief narrative of the facts surrounding the offense and the arrest.)
At 8:08 p.m., Dispatch received a 911 call reporting a dead body in a residence at 797 Muirfield Drive. The caller identified himself as Russell Moran (Person 2), husband of the deceased.
Yoknapatawpha County Sheriff's Unit 209 (Officer P. Winston) and an EMT unit were dispatched to the location.
Reporting Officer (R/O) Winston arrived at the scene at 8:14 p.m. After confirming the presence of the body, R/O secured the scene and contacted Dispatch to request backup.
Reporting Investigators (R/Is) Detectives T. Armstrong and S. Murphy were assigned and proceeded directly to the scene. At R/Is' request, Coroner's Inspector L. Johnson and a CSU team were notified to respond to the scene.
R/Is arrived at the scene at 8:38 p.m. Environmental conditions at the scene upon arrival were as follows: Weather: Fair; Exterior Ambient Temperature: 88°F / 31°C; Relative Humidity: 72%; Interior Ambient Temperature: 70°F / 21°C; Relative Humidity: 43%.
R/O Winston made the following verbal report, which is stated in summary and not verbatim.
R/O was met at the front door of the residence by an adult male who identified himself as Russell Moran (Person 2).
Moran led R/O to the living room at the rear of the residence, where R/O observed the body of an apparently deceased adult female, identified by Moran as his wife, Kelly Moran (Person 1).
R/O then secured the scene, called for backup and medical assistance, and escorted Russell Moran to the exterior of the residence.
R/O asked Moran about the dog that could be heard barking in the residence, and Moran indicated that the dog was confined in the basement of the residence.
Yoknapatawpha County Sheriff's Unit 221 (Officer M. Richards) arrived at the scene at 8:19 p.m.
R/O Winston left Russell Moran in R/O Richards' custody and cleared the scene, finding no other persons present in the residence.
YCFD EMTs R. Peterson and J. Bilkey arrived at approximately 8:25 p.m. and, after confirming the victim was deceased, withdrew from the crime scene.
R/O Winston further stated that, to the best of his knowledge, the following personnel had occasion to enter the crime scene area and must be documented by CSU personnel: Russell Moran, EMT Bilkey, EMT Peterson, and himself.
After receiving the verbal report from R/O Winston, R/Is conducted a preliminary inspection of the scene.
In the living room of the residence, R/Is observed a lifeless human body, a female apparently in her 40s. Visual inspection indicated the victim was wearing a white cardigan sweater over a black shirt, black pants, and black shoes.
The victim was supine and partially upright on the sofa in the middle of the room with the left arm partially extended in a southerly direction and the right arm alongside the body. The victim’s head was pointing north. The left leg was bent at the knee and resting on the sofa, and the right leg was bent at the knee with the right foot resting on the floor in front of the sofa.
A brown extension cord was wrapped twice around the victim's neck with the male end resting on the north arm of the sofa and the female end resting on the victim's right shoulder area.
R/Is delayed further inspection of the body until the arrival of the Coroner's Inspector.
R/Is observed signs of a disturbance in the living room including pillows and sofa cushions displaced on both sofas and on the floor. On an end table along the north wall, R/Is further observed an overturned lamp with the lampshade askew. The lamp was still lit and appeared undamaged.
In the bedroom in the southwest corner of the residence, R/Is observed an exterior door leading to the patio at the rear of the residence on the south wall. R/Is noted a broken pane of glass adjacent to the door handle and broken glass on the floor of the bedroom in front of the door.
R/Is observed no other signs of disturbance or forced entry in the residence.
Coroner's Inspector Luwinda Johnson arrived at the scene at approximately 9:11 p.m. and joined R/Is at the body's location. Inspector Johnson pronounced the victim deceased at 9:17 p.m. by visual observation that the victim was not breathing and by tactile observation that the victim did not have a palpable carotid pulse or any other signs of heartbeat or respiration.
Inspector Johnson visually examined the body and observed faint ligature marks on the victim's neck. Inspector Johnson noted no other obvious wounds at the scene and indicated that further details would be available in the official autopsy report.
Inspector Johnson noted that the body was still warm to the touch and that rigor mortis and livor mortis were not yet evident. While she withheld an official estimate pending an autopsy, Inspector Johnson speculated the victim had been dead for approximately 1 to 2 hours.
After Inspector Johnson completed her initial inspection of the body, she stayed with the CSU team to ensure the integrity of the body while the team photographed the scene and performed preliminary analyses, until the body could be removed from the scene without affecting other evidence.
CSU arrived at the scene at approximately 9:10 p.m. R/Is instructed CSU to closely examine the interior and exterior of the door in the southwest bedroom and process the entire scene according to standard procedure.
The body of the deceased was remanded into the custody of Coroner's Inspector Luwinda Johnson and was removed from the scene at 11:44 p.m. and transported to the coroner's office for autopsy.
R/Is left the scene at 12:38 a.m. Before leaving, R/I Murphy instructed CSU to seal the scene upon completion or end-of-day suspension of processing. CSU to notify R/Is of progress by the end of this date. As of this filing, CSU is still actively processing at the scene.
Evidence was remanded into the custody of Forensics Officer T. R. Douglas for transport to the State Crime Lab for routine analysis. CSU is expected to submit an inventory of items taken into evidence within fourteen days of this report, with detailed report(s) of their findings to follow at a later date.
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