I learned that Mallory had grown up in Fort Lauderdale, had attended Catholic schools and gone to work in her family’s boat-rental business operating out of a marina called Bahia Mar. She had apparently not attended college after high school and, like Jamie Flynn in Fort Worth, lived alone in a home owned by her father. Her mother was deceased. Several of the Facebook posts were messages of condolence directed to her father in regard to losing both his wife and daughter in the space of two years.
A message posted three weeks after Mallory’s death caught my eye and brought my casual scroll through the page to a dead stop. Someone named Ed Yeagers posted a message of sympathy that identified Mallory as his third cousin and lamented that they were just getting acquainted when she was taken away. He said, “I was just getting to know you and wish there was more time. Profoundly sad to find family and then lose family in the same month.”
That sentiment could have come from the obituary for Charlotte Taggart. Finding family in this day and age usually meant DNA. There were heredity-analytics companies that used online data to search for family connections but DNA was the shortcut. I was now convinced that both Charlotte Taggart and Mallory Yates had been searching for connections through DNA heritage analysis. And so had Christina Portrero. The coincidence extended to three of the women and might include all four.
I spent the next twenty minutes running down social-media links to relatives and friends of Mallory Yates and Charlotte Taggart. I sent every one of them the same message asking if their loved one had submitted DNA to an analytics company and, if so, which one. Even before I finished I got an email response from Ed Yeagers.
Met her through GT23. It was only 6 weeks before she died so never got the chance to meet in person. Seemed like a really good girl. What a shame.
My adrenaline hit the floodgates. I had two confirmed cases that shared a rare cause of death and submission of DNA to GT23. I quickly went back to the story about Jamie Flynn in the Fort Worth paper and got the name of her father and the family business he ran, selling boots, belts, and equestrian products like saddles and reins. I googled the business, got a phone number for the main office, and called it. A woman answered and I asked for Walter Flynn.
“Can I ask what this is regarding?” she asked.
“His daughter Jamie,” I said.
Nobody likes to cause someone more grief than they already carry. I knew that I would do that with this phone call. But I also knew that if I was right about my instincts I might eventually be able to lessen that grief with answers.
A man picked up the call after a very brief hold.
“Walt Flynn, what can I do for you?”
He had a no-nonsense Texas drawl that I guessed went back generations. In my head I pictured the Marlboro Man in a white Stetson sitting on a horse, his chiseled features set in a frown. I chose my words carefully, not wanting him to dismiss me or grow angry.
“Mr. Flynn, I’m sorry to disturb you. I’m a reporter calling from Los Angeles and I’m working on a story about the unexplained deaths of several women.”
I waited. The bait had been thrown out. He would either bite or hang up on me.
“And this is about my daughter?” he asked.
“Yes, sir, it could be,” I said.
I didn’t fill the silence that followed. I started to hear a background noise, like running water.
“I’m listening,” he said.
“Sir, I don’t want to cause you any more grief than you’re already going through,” I said. “I am so sorry about the loss of your daughter. But can I speak frankly to you?”
“I’m still on the phone.”
“And off the record?”
“Isn’t that what I say to you?”
“What I mean is, I don’t want you to turn around and share this conversation with anyone apart from your wife. Is that okay?”
“It’s fine for now.”
“Okay, well, then I’ll just lay it out for you, sir. I’m looking at—I’m sorry, do we have a bad connection? I hear this back—”
“It’s raining. I stepped outside for privacy. I’ll put it on mute while you talk.”
The line went silent.
“Uh, okay, that’s fine,” I said. “So, I’m looking at four deaths of women aged twenty-two to forty-four across the country in the last year and a half where the cause of death was determined to be atlanto-occipital dislocation—AOD, as they call it. Two of the deaths, one here and one in Florida, have been classified as homicides. One is listed as accidental but I find it suspicious. And then the fourth, which is your daughter’s case, is officially classified as suspicious.”
Flynn took it off mute and I heard the rain before he spoke.
“And you’re saying these four are somehow linked?”
I could hear the disbelief creeping into his voice. I was going to lose him pretty quickly if I didn’t change that.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I’m looking for commonalities in the cases and the women. You could help if I could ask you a few questions. That is why I’m calling.”
He didn’t respond at first. I thought I heard the low rumble of thunder providing a bass line for the rain. Flynn finally replied.
“Ask your questions.”
“Okay. Before her death, had Jamie submitted her DNA to a genetic-analytics lab, whether for hereditary or health analysis?”
Flynn had muted the call. There was only silence in reply. After a few moments I wondered if he had disconnected the call.
“Mr. Flynn?”
The rain came back.
“I’m here. The answer is she was just getting into that sort of stuff. But as far as I know, she had not gotten anything back. She said she wanted to incorporate it into her doctoral program somehow. She said that she was having everyone in one of her classes at the university do it. How does this connect to her death?”
“I don’t know yet. Do you happen to know what company your daughter submitted DNA to?”
“Some of the kids in her class, they’re scholarship kids. Money is tight. They went with the cheapest one. The one that charges twenty-three bucks for the test.”
“GT23.”
“That’s it. What does all of this mean?”
I almost didn’t hear his question. I could hear my pulse pounding in my ears. I now had a third confirmation. What were the odds that these three women who suffered the same kind of death had all sent their DNA to GT23?
“I don’t really know what it means yet, Mr. Flynn,” I said.
I had to guard against Flynn getting as excited over the connection in the cases as I was. I didn’t want him running to the Texas Rangers or the FBI with my story.
“Do the authorities know about this?” he asked.
“There is nothing to know about yet,” I said quickly. “When and if I have a solid link between the cases, I’ll go to them.”
“What about this DNA stuff you just asked about? Is that the connection?”
“I don’t know. It’s not confirmed yet. I don’t have enough to take to the authorities. It’s just one of a few things I’m looking at.”
I closed my eyes and listened to the rain. I knew it would come to this. Flynn’s daughter was dead and he had no answers, no explanations.