Please remove me from your mailing list.

This was a strange weekend. I don't do a lot of hands-on work with bodies much any more, but I got involved in two death investigations this weekend. The guy in the car yesterday, and today was an 80 year old man who shot himself while his girlfriend was in the next room.

The place my victim and his girlfriend lived in was a clean little one-bedroom condo with a balcony. The place is newer construction, and had nice oatmeal carpeting throughout. The walls were still bright landlord white, but covered with artwork.

You get a vivid picture, sometimes, just standing in someone's home and looking around at their stuff. The guy today had served in 3 wars--WWII, Korea and Vietnam. They had bookshelves along one entire wall of the living room, full of interesting volumes, and you could tell he'd traveled. He had shadow boxes on the wall showcasing his military achievements, and had several antique pistols in another. I liked this guy, and I respected him.

He had Alzheimer's and was failing physically as well. We recovered 11 different prescription medications. Not only did he need a walker, but his equilibrium had gone to the point that someone needed to practically hold him by his belt to keep him upright while he used it. Everyone described him as being a very proud man, and he'd grown increasingly frustrated at his physical weakening and at his failing memory. According to his girlfriend, he was trying to find something and was looking through paperwork and books. As he looked for whatever it was he was looking for, and couldn't remember, he became more and more upset.

While we were there we noticed books removed from the bookshelves; some were placed on the floor in small stacks, and some were placed in a brown paper Trader Joe's bag. There were 15 or 20 envelopes, some open, of junk mail on the floor in front of the sofa. It looked like someone had been going through them and tossed them there.

The girlfriend told us that he suddenly walked into the bedroom, and then she heard the gunshot. She looked up and saw him on the floor, and she called 911. There was no doubt he was dead.

After we finished with the scene, and his body had been removed, I did one more walk-through of the condo. I hadn't noticed this before, but there it was, a note in a typewriter on a table between the living room and the kitchen. It wasn't a suicide note, but I thought that, given the scattered mail on the floor and girlfriend's account of my man's agitation, it was an indicator of just how angry and frustrated he was.

There was only one line typed near the top of this page. I can't replicate the exact typos and improper capitalization, but it read:

pLEASE Remove ME from YOUR mailing liST.