Continuing from yesterday's blog: Reporting as a diagnosis; the search for a woman's dismembered body parts

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That Friday was exhausting. I went home around 5:30 p.m. to go to the Tiger's game and honestly, the whole night I couldn't get this story off of my mind. My friends could tell it was driving me crazy. I wanted so badly to know what happened to that woman's body.

The following Saturday morning I was at Borders buying some clearance-rack books when I got a call from someone I used to work with with interesting information.

Police and the family of Pamela Prpich were convinced it was her body parts inside the suitcase. That was made clear Friday. Even without the DNA test results, that's what it looked like. The person who called me said Prpich went to the same high school as me. Although she was older than I, she graduated the year before several of my very good friends. I was with one of those friends at Borders.

I got off the phone and turned to my friend and asked if he knew the name. He said "yes, she was a very smart girl. I think she had a brother who went there, too."

I called another friend of mine who seems to always know everyone. She knew Pamela Prpich and both of her brothers. They all went to the same high school as me. It was a strange feeling. I didn't know her, I had never met her even. But, there was still this small, ironic connection. It was a little eerie. I talked to people all weekend about what could have possibly happened. Talking to people who know someone who has just fallen victim to a tragedy isn't anything you ever want to do.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday passed. I was bugging the Gibraltar police beyond belief asking if there were ANY updates. Before the end of Wednesday, I spoke on the phone to Prpich's brother, Michael. Michael was the one who found the suitcase and discovered his sister's body parts inside.

He was distraught but calm. I was the most careful I've even been when interviewing. I kept quiet and let him talk. I couldn't imagine being in his place. Discovering that sort of thing. It's almost too terrible to be true.When he was just about finished talking I sent my condolences and thanked him for speaking to me. He told me he just hopes that they find who did this to his sister and get them arrested. That was three hours before police took someone into custody.

Thursday morning I woke up to emails that someone had been arrested! The press conference was in Gibraltar at 9 a.m. I was out the door.

The police chief explained that they had arrested a 52-year-old man who lived in the apartment complex next to the condos where Prpich lived. I realized that I parked in front of his apartment the day we were out there searching. Holy crap! That's creepy.

I also learned police had interviewed this man and he lied to them, telling them he had talked to Prpich but hadn't seen her before she went missing. So, he was one of the many neighbors outside that day we were all out there? Another "holy crap!" moment.

I will never forget the descriptions of the arrest.

Police took James Thomas Bommer in for questioning. Within 30 seconds he confessed to dismembering her body. He said she overdosed when they were doing drugs together and he panicked. So he chopped her up. Police had searched his apartment and didn't find any of her body parts. He told them they were in there in a concealed container. Anything not in the container, he said, was put in the large trash bin outside the complex over a week ago.

He wasn't lying. They found more of her dismembered body parts inside. All of us (the journalists and cameramen) gasped. There were really more body parts that had been sitting in his apartment this whole time. Police said his apartment was so clean it was almost creepy. 

The part that got me - even in my most journalistic state, I was how shocked at how shocked the detectives said they were. A few quotes were:

“What are the chances of finding half a body in a suitcase and (during an interrogation) finding out the other body parts are in the (suspect’s) closet?”
“I didn’t see that coming. I had to stop for a minute.”
"This is the most bizarre crime I've ever seen."

Those are police detectives, some with over 20 years in the field, saying those things. I still get the shivers when I recall how stunned police were at this guy's clean crime.

Nothing gave the shiver-factor more, though, than seeing him walk into the courtroom. I'll describe that in detail tomorrow. The way he looked around. The way the family looked at him. How fragile his voice sounded.

Come back tomorrow for that...

Catch 'ya later, Internet World.

"It's no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense." - Mark Twain