Post-mortem
de Jon Wells
A jogger is running near the perimeter of the African Lion Safari theme park in southern Ontario when he stumbles across a near- mummified skeleton in a field. The skeletal remains are studied at the Hamilton morgue by a forensic pathologist, a forensic anthropologist, and a forensic entomologist (known as "the bug lady". The victim is female, non-Caucasian. But who is she? Enter Hamilton homicide investigator Paul Lahaie and his team. During the investigation, a forensic detective hits upon the secret to cracking the identity of the dead woman. The hardened skin on the fingertips is rehydrated, rolled for prints. And a match is found: Yvette Budram, a woman from Guyana who emigrated to Canada and married a man named Mohan Ramkissoon. Her prints happened to be in the CPIC system because she has a criminal record for uttering death threats against her husband. Detectives search Mohan and Yvette's Mississauga house. They find a hole cut in the bedroom mattress, and blood residue around it Yvette's blood. And her blood on the TV. And in the trunk of Mohan's car. They believe he drove her body to the country field outside Hamilton and dumped her. A manhunt ensues and Mohan is taken into custody, but he denies it all and points suspicion at a man he claims Yvette had an affair with, whose nickname is "Happy". This CSI-style story is wrapped up in court with a surprising revelation from a jail cell. There was justice at last for Yvette Budram.
