Okay.
Situation. A small town is involved in a heavy snow, subzero, high wind, blizzard situation that last for days in an area where that does not normally happen. A large volcanic eruption elsewhere in the world has caused the change in weather. The high winds and remarkable amount of snow is causing lines to be down and the cell towers to mess up. The cells went down first, the electricity held out until the buildup to the climax when the storm picks up and lines start going down. So far the land lines are working, but I would like to knock those out too. Roads are closed, town is shut down.
I've lived with snow and ice storms all my life. Amount of times the land lines are down from weather is countable on one hand. It just doesn't happen, other then in very isolated areas. And this is during blackouts involving over a hundred thousand households.
Two feet of snow and you put a bulldozer and plow through it. Anything less and I can often get through it with a full-size truck like a fire engine. Snow is a major obstacle, but something like a Humvee can handle a lot of snow.
The killings: supernatural
Children and women are disappearing. gone without a trace except for occasional footprints in the snow that don't go very far before the snow has covered them up again, and the county sheriff is trying to find out what's going on. Eh, lack of experience maybe, but big objects leave a lot of tracking information even in snow.
One afternoon, a woman is found dead, hanging from a sculpture on the courthouse lawn. Her insides are frozen...down there...from an icy cold rape. Law enforcement finds this peculiar. Which means what? Her hoo-haa is frozen solid and the rest of her isn't? You stick an icicle into her hoo-haa and you're good to go. If she's outside and weather is below freezing, good chance of this perversion happening. It's not unknown for rapist/murderers to leave objects in their victim, sometimes in the natural holes, sometimes making their own. It's noted to determine whether there are similar cases. An icicle, and the resulting melt, would provide a significant degradation to the scene.
But this is where a cop's head is going to go, because it's not unheard of. It's not going to go to the supernatural.
Later that night, a young man wakes up in his pickup truck with it running and nosed up against his parents' house. the inside of the windows, the outsides of the windows, and his face and hands are covered with blood. He goes inside and finds his parents murdered, and his live in girlfriend, who was staying with them, missing. Snowstorm and engine running and blocked exhaust is a real probability. Lucky the guy survived. Frozen blood is going to have a lot of degradation.
The sheriff has reason to believe that this young man did not commit the murders, but he looks pretty guilty. From what you're presenting??? I don't think so.
The young man has lost a block of time, so he is not sure himself if he committed the murders. He has no alibi, and the sheriff thinks he knows what's really going on, but he needs the young man to help him defeat the supernatural element. So, it would be really great if he could figure out whose blood is in the pickup truck, who raped the girl at the courthouse, or at least prove that the young man did not do it. Things are getting worse and there is no time to waste. Okay, frozen semen could give you blood type and that would include/exclude certain individuals. Blood typing would be within the capability of a smaller lab. Frozen blood tends to be a bit iffy. Understand this is going to give you large groups of suspects, like whether the suspect is right or left handed.
So, I have a doctor in the morgue, and he has all three bodies. Cause of death is not an issue on the bodies, but the anomoly of her frozen lower organs requires some attention. All a medical examiner can do is tell you that the hoo-haa was frozen, and the depth of the freezing. A medical examiner can't tell what caused the freezing, unless something is left behind. Cause of death will be vital at any future trial.
When she thaws, it is obvious from some serious trauma that she was sexually assaulted. It's going to be internal and involve abrasions and ripping. Otherwise, it can be seen at the scene.
Both the city and county police want answers and keep bringing in blood samples and things to this poor doctor that got stuck with all this. And the doctor would dump it on a lab tech, who can do this faster and better.
The story takes place in Texas. In Texas, except for in large cities, the Justice of the Peace serves as the coroner, and I don't believe that comes with any medical examiner training. He or she only declares someone dead, and outsources things like autopsies. And Texas has a county-wide medical examiner who actually does the autopsies. The medical examiner may do multiple counties. Coroner does not matter for forensic medicine.
