Buffalo police and Erie County deputies had found evidence that the fugitives were in the greater Buffalo area but had fled. The manhunt ended two weeks later when one suspect died during an armed standoff with the FBI in Tennessee and the second suspect surrendered to police in Boston.
It soon emerged that the tragedy of the Rochester family was a drug deal gone wrong and the family was the wrong target.
“A doctor, an FBI agent, and their children. This world makes no sense, Claire.”
Carillo shook his head at his monitor after reading the latest out of Rochester. Then he sipped coffee and resumed work with an undercurrent of disquiet.
For now, this morning, Kozak and Carillo returned to the Griffin investigation, picking up where they’d left matters. A month had passed since Greg Griffin had reported his wife missing. The case was growing colder, and they were no closer to clearing it.
Kozak and Carillo also knew that with each day that ticked by, the chances of them finding Jennifer Griffin alive grew increasingly unlikely.
They collected files, their tablets, and phones, then moved to the empty boardroom. Settling in at the big table, Kozak recalled how in the first days of the case, the room would be crowded with investigators.
“All right.” Kozak went to her notes. “Dr. Maynart said Griffin was experiencing unusual prolonged grief, arising from surviving the fire that killed her parents, leaving her an orphan with no other family but her grandmother. Then some thirty years later, and two months before she went missing, there was some sort of triggering incident, which led her to seek therapy.”
“But we don’t know what triggered it, and we can’t tell Greg she was secretly seeing a psychologist,” Carillo said, “and not just to protect her privacy.”
“No. Greg could’ve been the reason she was seeking help.”
“So, what could this triggering incident have been?” Carillo said.
Reviewing their notes, interviews, files, and reports, the investigators analyzed the question. Barring something random or unforeseen, they started with the most likely areas of Jennifer’s life.
Nothing had emerged from her job at Crystallo View Optical, other than the fact she had arranged to secretly divert $100 cash weekly for her therapy sessions.
Her community and social work had yielded nothing of apparent consequence. At the time of her disappearance, her Parent School Support Committee was working to adjust a lunch program policy and was being challenged by a school board member, Porter Sellwin.
At home, nothing stood out in terms of contractors in the months prior to her disappearance. The windows had been washed by SparkleThru, and their cable service had been repaired by Distinctly Connex with nothing to indicate a problem on that front.
“That brings us to this.” Kozak cued up photos of the angel chime on her tablet. “This could’ve triggered something related to her prolonged grief. Look at what her son Jake said.”
Carillo read his notes from their interview with Jake, quoting what he’d told them about the chime.
“‘It came to the door. When she started it, it made her smile, then she got real sad. She cried then put it away.’”
“But our search of all invoices, all deliveries, all credit and bank card charges, failed to show delivery of a chime or ornament,” Kozak said. “She’d ordered several books. But we found nothing for the candle chime.”
“Maybe young Jake was confused about a delivery?” Carillo said. “Maybe she got it at a flea market, yard sale, something like that?”
“And our FIU pulled no other clear latents from it but hers, Greg’s, and Jake’s,” Kozak said. “So I don’t know how, or if, the chime is a triggering incident, or how it could be tied to the fire that took her parents.”
Carillo reached for a copy of the report on the fire they’d obtained from the Buffalo Fire Department. It came out of their archives and was made by a fire company that had since been disbanded as part of the department’s fiscal reorganization.
“Once again.” Carillo scanned it. “The cause was a lit cigarette smoldering between two sofa cushions. Smoke alarms were not maintained. Wait. I missed this. A neighbor reported seeing someone running nearby at the time of the fire. However, it was never determined to be a factor as arson had been ruled out. And,” Carillo said, closing the report, “there were two fatalities and one survivor.”
Kozak tapped her pen on the table.
“You know, Jennifer going to see a psychologist to deal with a past trauma may be a coincidence, unrelated to her disappearance. It could lead us down a rabbit hole. I don’t know, Ned.”
“Let’s look at all the other factors.”
They surveyed the tips—now dwindling to a trickle—that had come in. All had been pursued and nearly all had been dismissed.
Tips like: “I saw Jennifer Griffin bowling in Tonawanda, but caller named a nonexistent location.” Or: “Guy drinking at a bar said he knew what happened to Jennifer Griffin. Caller could not name the man, or recall the bar or time.” Or: “Caller said Jennifer Griffin had drowned in Lake Erie. Caller said information was ‘spiritually channeled.’”
“It brings us back to the evidence and her situation at home with Greg,” Carillo said, listing the key facts.
A book club friend, a retired nurse, had seen bruising on Jenn. Jake said his parents had argued. There was financial tension in the home, and those photos of Greg with Brooke Bollman in Depew the night he reported Jennifer missing; add to them Bollman’s offer of a business partnership with Greg and it was incriminating. Greg had bloodied hands the night his wife went missing, and a hoodie was discovered when the Griffins’ Trailside home was searched. His polygraph was inconclusive.
“The DA says it’s just not strong enough,” Kozak said. “It’s all circumstantial.”
A knock sounded on the door where Lieutenant Phil Becker was standing.
“Come to my office. I want to show you something.”
A short video was cued up on Becker’s monitor.
“This just came in. It’s from the home security system of a resident in Ripplewood Creek. He sent it to his brother, a sergeant with Buffalo PD, and an old friend of mine. He sent it to me.
“Now, the resident was on an extended vacation, but he got our flyer. That’s why we’re getting this now. And, keep in mind, the resident lives a long way down Appleleaf Road, but his cameras picked up something arising from the Korner Fast store.”
Becker played the video.
It was dark, grainy, but in the distant corner, a tiny set of headlights shine and head east on Ripple Valley Boulevard. A short time later, a second set of headlights surface and also move east along Ripple Valley Boulevard. Not enough detail existed to define the makes of the vehicles. In all, it lasted about forty seconds. Becker replayed it a few times.