In this blog I discuss the search for a woman's body parts. If this is something you find offending to blog about, please skip this one and come back to read my next post!
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Taking a step back to last month ...

On Friday, Aug. 19 I walked into work carrying my purse, two bags of paperwork, my laptop, a travel coffee mug and two cakes. We were having a going away party for a few employees and I had baked two chocolate cakes and decorated one as a hockey puck and one as a car wheel. On my agenda for the day: write a few quick stories, proof some pages, tell the leaving-employees bye and eat cake with them before they were off on new endeavors...

Anyone in journalism knows the spontaneous level that work occurs. Things always happen when you're on deadline and least ready to cover breaking news.

Well, this was one of those days. My most memorable day as a journalist so far. I believe it's a day I'll remember clearly for my entire life.

By 10 a.m., I was out in Gibraltar behind an apartment complex watching police search a creek from behind the yellow tape. All I knew was that a suitcase was found with some body parts inside.

Reporters from local television and radio stations were showing up on scene as I was. Many of them were reporters who I had previously met. The police chief addressed all of us with little information, as police usually do before they know much.

By 11 a.m. I had called the office and was telling the online coordinator at the time everything I knew so she could put something on our website.

"About 15 people are here investigating. The Michigan State Police Crime Lab was here. Neighbors are wandering around. The skin had been removed from some of the body parts in the suitcase. The alleged victim's brother found the suitcase by the Frank and Poet Drain."

And that was all I knew. It was hot. I was crawling around in murky, muddy grass. I hadn't eaten. I hadn't had my morning dose of coffee. I was frustrated that no one knew anything for certain.

Then more firefighters and police officers came to help search. Then I was searching. I was wandering through the tall grass looking for evidence, clues, something. I knew the victim's head was missing, along with a lot of the other body parts.

Questions were flying around left and right. A freelance photographer for our paper met me at some point in the late morning to take photos of the crime scene. He and I discussed what could have happened. Neighbors told me what they knew.

A paramedic told me the best bet they had of discovering anything at that time was for the cadaver dogs to pick up on some sort of scent. That comment hit me. Really? There are body parts somewhere and no clues to any of it? It's scary. Who did this? Who had police questioned?

I called the office again.

"Still haven't found anything. They said this water is only 15 feet deep at its deepest and they've searched it up and down. There's no DNA done on the victim, but an ID card was found inside. The guy who found it said he knows for a fact the body is his sister's. She lives in the condos right here, right next to the apartment complex where I parked. She's been missing for a week now. Her name is Pamela Prpich ... yes, the spelling is correct P-R-P-I-C-H. She is ... she was 32 ... no, we can't say it's her. There are no results. Police and the family just, they just kinda know."

I stood for a second. There were engines roaring from the fire truck lifting its bucket ladder next to me. People were yelling back and forth. I watched rafts with search teams float by. I watched the dogs smell around and not react to anything. I saw the look on the police chief's face. I had never met him before, but I could tell he was distraught. What a terribly sad situation ... 

Around 2 p.m. I left and came back to work. I needed to write a full story. Deadline was quickly approaching for the Sunday paper (I'm telling you, breaking news only happens on deadlines).

This was the first full story I wrote with what I knew. I included videos and pictures from the intense, grotesque morning I had.

I knew a torso and skinned parts of legs were found inside a blue suitcase. I knew the man who found them thought they belonged to his sister. I knew police also thought so, but couldn't confirm without DNA test results. I knew neighbors saw police examine the suitcase. I also knew that after hours and hours of searching for something, nothing was found. Why did I know? Because I was there. I was part of it. It was my job to be there. To report this search play-by-play.

Coworkers and friends asked me when I was done writing what I would have done had I have found something disturbing that day. I didn't have an answer, which bothered me. Do I not have morals? Are journalists really as bad as people say we are? Of course I have morals. Of course I'm a good person. It's my job to do this.

It's a difficult concept to explain. But at that point I was busy writing and putting everything together. It wasn't until the next day that I found out I knew people who knew the woman. Once you start talking to people who know a victim of such an alleged assault ... you start to feel a little differently about coverage of the story.

There is plenty more to this story. That's what this week's blog posts will be about. Wednesday I will discuss the arrest of a suspect in this case and how everyone reacted at the press conference when the man was arrested.
Thursday, I'll discuss seeing the man who confessed to dismembering this body and what is expected to happen to him.

Catch ya' later, Internet World.

Being a reporter is as much a diagnosis as a job description.  - Anna Quindlen