Page 163 of Everything She Feared

Events had unfolded with lightning speed once the forensic analysts had matched Marilyn Hamilton’s prints from Benton’s tablet with the prints on the rock used to kill Anna Shaw.

Again, they’d submitted Hamilton’s name, date of birth and social security number to NCIC, the national crime database. Hamilton had no criminal record. But after submitting Hamilton’s prints to AFIS, they found they matched the prints of convicted serial killer Magdalena Ursula Kurtz, also known as Magdalena Ursula Vryker.

Magdalena had been released seven years earlier, without conditions, as part of a plea deal, after serving twenty years in Montana Women’s Prison for a series of murders in 1994 and 1995 across Montana, Idaho and Washington.

Magdalena was living a quiet life under the alias Marilyn Hamilton.

Acker alerted the prosecuting attorney’s office. A judge moved fast to provide an arrest warrant for murder that was emailed to Pierce and Benton.

“The way this all came down.” Benton shook his head as he chewed. “We got this by the skin of our teeth.”

“That we got that snippet of video from the parking lot of the park, that we got her prints and that Jensen and her team did what they did—yeah, it’s a stunner.”

“Birdwatcher.” Benton eyed the apartment complex. “Serial killer.”

“When we sat in her apartment,” Pierce said, “I got a bad vibe about her but I couldn’t put my finger on it.”

Pierce and Benton were vaguely familiar with Kurtz/Vryker’s crimes in a case that was largely prosecuted in Montana decades ago. The murders Magdalena and her husband committed reached back nearly thirty years. There were occasional TV crime shows, social media chatter, but for Pierce and Benton, the case had no relation to Seattle or King County.

Until now.

And now it deepened the mystery about Magdalena’s role in Anna Shaw’s death.

“Why was Magdalena in the park when the Sunny Days group was there?” Benton asked while watching the apartment.

“There was only a gap of a few minutes when Katie ran for help, so she had to be watching.”

“So why was she there?” Benton asked.

“Maybe a connection to Katie?” Pierce said. “Remember, Dr. Mehta said Sara Harmon raised concerns about her family’s history of violence.”

Benton’s walkie-talkie crackled with a dispatch from the arrest team.

It was time to move.

King County and Seattle police had stopped traffic along the street. They blocked the exits and entrances to the building’s parking lot. They quietly evacuated residents from all units near Hamilton’s, then shut off the elevators and put officers in all the stairwells. The building superintendent helped with a key for Hamilton’s unit, if needed.

It was.

The heavily armed arrest unit got no response when they banged on the door.

They entered the apartment, guns drawn, and searched it room by room.

Hamilton wasn’t there.

Pierce and Benton arrived to check it before crime scene people seized her laptop and other items. As the detectives walked through the apartment, Pierce went to the bookshelf in the living room. Taking a moment, she surveyed the framed family photos, the girl on the pony, the boy at the hockey rink and others.

She froze.

The photo of a little girl in a bright yellow raincoat holding a rainbow-colored umbrella, splashing in puddles with her bright blue rubber boots.

It was identical to the paper stock photo in the frame she’d bought.

That’s it. That’s what was familiar.

Pierce then studied the other photos more closely: the wedding and graduation photos, the white-haired man fishing with a boy.

Like the little girl, they all looked like models, stock photos.

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