Chapter 172 Section 21

Liz was not in the bedroom, nor in the bathroom.Barbara pushed open the door to the two children's rooms, which were still awake.Barbara was surprised again, because Margaret always woke up early and just liked to lie in bed and wait for Barbara to dress her. Barbara went back to Liz's bedroom, where she knew there was a phone on the nightstand.However, the phone was disconnected and the line was cut. Barbara turned and went downstairs.This time, she recognized that the person in the pool of blood was Lishi. Barbara later explained in court that she didn't see it at first because the man was wearing a red sweater.Barbara knew that Liz didn't have a red sweater.It was later discovered that the fleece was originally beige, but was stained red by blood.

Barbara stopped and looked around, she had never seen so much blood, on the wall and on the ground, several places were higher than human heads.Barbara didn't dare to stay long, she rushed out the door.Thank goodness the taxi hadn't left yet. Barbara asked the driver, Salvatore Maranino, to call an ambulance and returned to Liz by herself.Barbara touched Liz, feeling that her body was still warm, thinking that she could still be saved, so she ran all the way to Peterson's house not far away. Paddysia, Mrs. Peterson, answered the door.She's freshened up, she's just not dressed yet.Barbara just said a few words to her when she saw Mike coming down the stairs in a T-shirt and shorts.The Petersons put on their coats indiscriminately, and the three of them went straight to Ratley's house.

"I touched her and she was still hot," Barbara said. Mike said, "She's not hot, Barbara. She's not hot—she's dead. The heat you feel is floor heating." Barbara ran up and down, carried the two children to Peterson's house, and called more neighbors along the way: the pilot Bruce Ballon and his wife Aimee Beth, as well as the base psychiatrist Tom Sumacher with himself and his wife Cheryl and more. Mike Peterson told Aimeebeth that Liz suffered from a "brain aneurysm" and suffered dizziness so often that she fell down the stairs.But Amebeth didn't believe it. She pointed to the third staircase and asked, "Whose footprints are those?"

"Mine," Barbara admitted. "I left it when I went up to pick up the kids." "This is a crime scene," insisted Aimeebeth. "No one should go upstairs until the police arrive." "That's right, with so much blood, it must be a crime scene." Barbara agreed with Aimeebeth. "Indeed," Bruce Burnen agreed, "it doesn't look as simple as falling down the stairs." Bruce went out and walked around the house to see if there were any signs of outsiders entering, no.He tried the outside doors of the Ratley house, and they were all locked from the inside.

At around 8 o'clock, German first responders and police personnel arrived one after another, and they routinely checked the body and the scene.The medical examiner used a syringe to withdraw a large tube of spinal cord and said they wanted to find out if Liz was dead before she fell down the stairs.Ambeth remembers Liz's hair was covered in blood, and when the body was turned over, she saw a gash above her left eye.Xue Luoer remembered that a German policeman muttered something, to the effect that if he fell down the stairs, why wasn't there blood dripping down the stairs. Mike Peterson was busy calling various departments of the U.S. military (no one knew when the call was connected), but Padisia sat alone in the kitchen in a daze, indifferent to everything that happened around her.Near noon, the base command sent a special commissioner, Steven Leon, who said that his task was only to assist the German investigation and report the results to the US military command.

But Germany is very dissatisfied with this attitude of the US military.The police said they were only here on duty because the body was on German soil.Since the deceased was a staff member of the U.S. Department of Defense, and Steven Leon was an official representative of the U.S., they could just go through the procedures for handing over the body. In the afternoon, after the U.S. military command agreed to move the body, the neighbors began to clean up the scene.The various possible causes of death were discussed as they worked.Mike Peterson added: "She had a blood clot in the brain, so she fell down the stairs. She died before she fell down the stairs."

Barbara said immediately, "I don't believe it." The other neighbors didn't believe it either.They were all good friends of Liz Ratley, and none of them had ever heard of Liz having a "brain aneurysm" or a "cerebral blood clot."Yes, Liz suffers from Van Willebrand's disease, a common blood disease with an incidence rate of about 25% in the normal population. Its basic symptoms are excessive bleeding or spontaneous bleeding, such as gum bleeding or Epistaxis, etc., as well as prone to and persistent cyanosis, in women are often manifested as excessive menstrual bleeding and prolonged menstruation.But that's nothing like dizziness or a "brain aneurysm" or a "brain thrombosis."

Xueluoer Sumaqie remembered that they worked for a whole day, and they barely wiped off the bloodstains until the big men were tired.Xue Luo'er still remembered that the bloodstains on the wall were located extremely high, and she was nearly 17 meters tall, so she had to stretch her hands to reach them. Mike Peterson has also remained on the scene, although he did not participate in the cleaning, he has been on the phone.He called Margaret Blair, Liz Ratley's sister, at 5 p.m. that same day in Rhode Island, U.S., at 11 a.m.Mike tells Margaret that something happened to Liz and she fell down the stairs and died.Margaret was shocked at the moment, and quickly asked: "Did she die terribly? How does the body look like?" Mike said lightly in one sentence: "Fortunately, there is only a little blood behind her ear." .”

Margaret Blair said she would never forget that day, November 25, 1985, because exactly 10 years earlier, on the same day, November 25, 1975, their father, Mr Harold Mork died. The next day, Cheryl and Tom Sumacher took Margaret and Martha to their home and let the girls spend the Thanksgiving holiday with them, because Barbara Ohora hadn't Recovering from shock, unable to care for children.