Page 304 - Some Dance to Remember

274 Jack Fritscher

of the single story main residence and noted the deplorable housekeeping
conditions. This condition was found to include not only the living room,
dining room, and kitchen area, but the bedrooms and baths. Animal
excrement was in evidence throughout the house, and much combustible
material was found thrown throughout the entire residence.
Sgt. Harter and P/O Chase then took us to the barn about 100 yards
from the house. Part of the barn had been remodeled into living space.
Here everything was noticeably clean in contrast to the house. The quar-
ters were dominated by weightlifting equipment of the kind found in a
gym. The walls were covered with what are called physique posters. This
is where we found the body of the deceased. The deceased, who had been
discovered by his sixteen-year-old son, Abraham, had been positively iden-
tified as one Thomas a’Beckett O’Hara, male/white, age 36. P/O Chase
advised us that the victim’s wife, Sandra, and three teenage children had
left the main residence and were currently in the mobile home of Ms.
Bonnie Holiday. This mobile home, where the estranged Mrs. O’Hara
had lived for the last two months, is located in Palm Drive Court, #11, on
South Santa Rosa Avenue near the Winners Circle Bar where both Ms.
Holiday and Mrs. O’Hara are employed as barmaids.
Inasmuch as Grace Life Squad personnel were still present at the
scene, I informed them that the Coroner’s Office would make the trans-
portation of the body to the morgue and dismissed them from the area.
Det. Darcangelo took eight black-and-white photographs using a 35
mm camera. All but two of these photographs are close-ups and show
knots that were tied in the rope, at the ceiling cross members, and toward
the rear of the victim’s neck.
The victim was found suspended from a nylon rope (white with blue
stripe) of an approximate size of 1/4 inch and having a length of approxi-
mately 12 feet. The position of the body was found to be as follows: Vic-
tim’s buttocks were approximately 3 feet from the barn floor. The legs were
extended out in front of the body at an angle of approximately 50 degrees
with both feet still resting on a black leather covered weightlifting bench.
His arms were limp on either side, and his head was pulled upward by the
body weight against the rope.
As has previously been mentioned, the rope was knotted behind the
victim’s skull, and there was a dirt mark at the back of the neck approxi-
mately 4 inches below the knot. This appeared to be consistent with the
rope being pulled up the back of the neck and onto the head.
Approximately 6 feet of rope trailed loose down the victim’s back, off
the right shoulder blade. Another 4 and 1/2 feet was observed going from

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