*

Some of the evidence technicians had appeared by the time Blankenship, Bird, and Churchill left the store.  Blankenship walked around the north side of the building, down the driveway that led to the fenced parking area in the rear.

He found the electrical junction box on the outside wall.  The lever of the master switch was down.  Blankenship told one of the technicians to photograph it.  Then he used his flashlight to push the lever up.

The lights came on inside.

*

Robert Thompson showed up twice at Curtis Dunaway's family gathering.  The first time, Thompson only checked to be sure that Dunaway was safe.  He told Dunaway that Tommy Zeigler had been shot, and asked why Dunaway had turned off the power at the junction box when he left the store that evening.

Dunaway told him that he had not turned off the master switch.

Thompson showed up again less than an hour later, to bring Dunaway to the store.  A sheriff's detective brought Dunaway into the building, with instructions to keep his head down, not to look right or left but to follow the detective's path, step for step.

He was led to the body of Mays and asked to identify it.

Yes, Dunaway said, that was Charlie.  Then he was marched out again with the same instructions.

Dunaway stood outside beside Rita Ficke until shortly after midnight, when he was brought into the store again.  Dr. Guillermo Ruiz, a medical examiner, was on the scene.  Dunaway followed Ruiz to each of the three unidentified bodies.  He knew them all.

The white man was Perry Edwards, Eunice's father.

The older woman was Virginia Edwards.

The pretty young woman in the kitchen, straight and composed, was Eunice Zeigler.

Dr. Ruiz would perform autopsies on the bodies throughout most of Christmas Day.  That night at the store, he made preliminary examinations where they were found.

He began with Virginia Edwards.  She had been shot twice.  One bullet had passed through an arm, penetrated her chest, and nearly exited the other side--Ruiz could feel it under the skin.  The other bullet had entered her brain.

Charlie Mays had been shot twice in the abdomen, once from the front and once from the back, and had been badly beaten around the face and skull.