The Book of Murder: A Prosecutor's Journey Through Love and Death

by Matt Murphy

One more detail I will never forget: propped up all over the interior of the townhome, a series of Polaroid photos depicting an erect penis in various stages of arousal. Dead guy, two guns, one knife, and a house full of Polaroid boners. Super weird, for sure, but also strangely comforting. Having just spent four years in the Sexual Assault Unit, no crime felt complete without some sort of weird sexual element. After those dark and twisted days of my previous assignment, I could certainly handle weird, especially in the context of a sexually motivated crime. Strange as it may sound, in that moment, I felt an odd sense of belonging. But, as I stood there, trying to absorb everything going on around me, I was struck by something else: the realization that while horribly gruesome, that poor, bullet-riddled man at my feet was perhaps the most fascinating thing I had ever seen. Someone had killed him, brutally, and it was our job to figure out exactly how, who, and why. The how was pretty obvious, and the rest was about to get even more interesting.