Too Late to Say Goodbye: A True Story of Murder and Betrayal by Ann Rule Page A

although she wore only the two small square diamond earrings now. They were removed along with her other jewelry, her greenish-blue satin nightgown with the black “frog” fastenings, and her pink panties, and bagged into evidence. Someday, they might be used as evidence in a trial, or if not, they would be given to her family.
    The single, fatal bullet wound was to the right side of her head—behind her right ear. The wound path was from the right side of her head to the left, and upward. The bullet had effectively cut her brain stem in half and fractured her skull in several places.
    Death would have been instantaneous.
    The entrance wound was round and only three-sixteenths of an inch in diameter. There was soot from the gun barrel near the wound, but no stippling—the tiny burned specks that “tattoo” the skin around the hole where a bullet fired from a short distance goes in. The edges of this entrance wound were not seared or torn by the force of the heated gas in a gun barrel. A contact gunshot wound usually leaves a “stellate,” or star-shaped, wound. This was not a close-contact wound.
    After establishing the path and angle of the deadly wound, Dr. Terry carefully examined the other organs in Jenn Corbin’s body. Was it possible that she was suffering from some fatal disease—something that no one who loved her knew about? That could have been a motive for suicide. But the forensic pathologist found every indication that Jennifer Corbin had been in excellent health.
    Somehow, normal findings in an autopsy make the subject’s death more tragic. That was true in this case. All things being equal, Jennifer Corbin would have lived to be a very old lady. Her lungs, heart, arteries, liver, kidneys, and reproductive organs were all completely normal. Sometime in the past, she had had her gallbladder removed, and surgical clips remained—which was a normal procedure. She had a small bruise on the right side of her lower abdomen, but it had faded into the yellow-greenish hue of a healing contusion. It was probably not significant; mothers of small boys often have bruises from riding herd on them and usually can’t even remember when they got them.
    Jenn Corbin’s last meal had included green beans. When that information was added to her body temperature when she was found, and the degree of rigor and livor mortis now, it would help to mark the time of her death. In some instances, pinpointing the exact time a victim died isn’t important, but in others it can be vital. This would be one of those cases. Jenn’s death had probably occurred between four and five hours before her body was discovered: somewhere around 2 to 3 A.M.
    The official cause of her death was listed at the beginning of the “Summary of Findings” derived from her autopsy. It read: “Penetrating gunshot wound of head. Loose-contact range entrance wound on right side of head (posterior to right ear, in right posterior temporal/anterior occipital region).”
    The observers at the autopsy looked grim. This was definitely not a contact wound where the gun’s barrel had been placed against her head. There was no muzzle impression, no tears around the edges of the wound itself, and no stippling. The gun would have to have been fired from several inches away. While it was remotely possible that Jenn Corbin could have twisted her right hand into an awkward position that would have allowed her to place the gun barrel against the skin behind her ear, it wasn’t likely. And it was clearly impossible for her to have held the weapon inches away from the entry point behind her right ear. Her arm was simply not that long.
    Nevertheless, the first media reports in the Atlanta/ Gwinnett County area would report that autopsy results were “inconclusive,” reinforcing the impression for many viewers and readers that Jennifer Corbin had committed suicide.
    The news that Jenn Corbin’s husband had filed for divorce would have been a great shock, except,