Dismemberment. Murder.

  Court. Judge. Charges. 

These are the five most used words in my vocabulary at work this week. And they will continue to be for at least a week.


Dismemberment

Tomorrow I'll be back in court for the competency hearing of James Bommer, the man accused of dismembering 32-year-old Pamela Prpich in August.

Some of Prpich's body parts were found in a suitcase Aug. 18. I spent the next morning with search crews all day looking for the slightest bit of evidence. They eventually made an arrest and found the other body parts.

James Bommer at the prelim exam

Bommer is charged with dismembering and mutilating her body, but not murdering her. It's a grotesque case.

The quotes from the detectives on the case always get me.

One said, "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."

It's flat out eerie to think about how shocking it would be for someone to tell you he had a woman's body parts in the closet in his apartment. His clean apartment. Police said there were no signs of anything suspicious. No decomposing smell or anything.

I did a full blog on this in September after the preliminary hearing was adjourned.

At this point, I could write this story with my eyes closed. I have studied it and the quotes, the scene and the emotions are burned into my brain. You can trust that I'll give you every detail I found out as it unfolds. This has been the most bizarre thing I've covered, ever.

I'll be live-tweeting in court #NHBommer. Follow me @EricaPerdue. I'll also update my Facebook.

Murder

I received a phone call a few weeks ago about two arrests that had been made. Two men, James Shepher and Christopher Henderson, were taken into custody for murdering a man in Nov. 2010.

Christopher Henderson

James Shepherd

I wasn't working at The News-Herald then, so I knew nothing about this case. As I researched, I became intrigued. One of the men had been arrested in Tennessee in Dec. 2010. The U.S. Secret Service assisted with the investigation.

So many facts that just don't fit.

I attended the preliminary exam a few weeks ago, which was adjourned because a witness deemed necessary by the prosecution refused to come to court.

Both men were resistant in court, refusing to respond to any questions the judge asked. At that point only one defendant wanted an attorney.

The preliminary exam for both men will now begin Monday, Nov. 28. People were crying in the courtroom the first day, so I'm sure it will be emotional and full of rage.

Keep checking back

All around the Thanksgiving holiday, I'll be updating both of these stories. A full story and time-line about the dismemberment story is online and in the Wednesday, Nov. 23 newspaper. Online this weekend and in the Sunday, Nov. 27 newspaper will be a full story about the dismemberment trial tomorrow and also a background story of the murder trials and what happened in the year since Jesus Cabrera was murdered in Flat Rock.

So, keep checking back!

"We journalists make it a point to know very little about an extremely wide variety of topics; this is how we stay objective." - Dave Barry