A Knife in the Heart. Michael Benson

were underneath the vehicle. A witness, who the police officer later learned was Javier Laboy, had removed his orange T-shirt, which was used to apply pressure to Sarah’s upper left chest.

      Sarah had a very shallow pulse and was experiencing labored breathing. Her eyes were slightly open and her stare was straightforward. Kneeling beside the victim, Officer Ku called out a request for an “officer survival trauma kit” for a puncture wound.

      Officer John Coleman, who had answered several of the Rachel Wade runaway complaints, went to his patrol car, grabbed the kit, and returned to the victim.

      The kit contained a long sterile dressing. When it arrived, the orange shirt could be removed. He would later say he thought the girl’s wound was the biggest puncture wound he’d ever seen.

      At one point, she stopped breathing and a bubbly fluid came from her mouth. As Ku applied pressure with one hand, he used the other to reposition Sarah’s head to open up her airway.

      Officer Coleman tried taking Sarah’s pulse along her carotid artery. There was a pulse, but it was very weak.

      Next to arrive was Officer G. D. Weaver. Ku looked up from the victim for an instant and shouted that the “subject”—that is, the suspect—was inside the residence. Officer Weaver went back to his car to get his ballistic shield from his trunk, but after seeing the subject (Rachel Wade), he realized that he would not need it. Weaver noticed that a crowd was gathering; he went to assist with crowd control.

      Corporal Vernard “Rick” Wagner, 2003 PPPD Officer of the Year, was in charge of securing the crime scene with police tape. On the north end of the scene, he attached one end of the tape to a neighbor’s fence, the other end to another neighbor’s outside waterspout.

      The ambulance arrived, and was followed quickly by Officer William Peterson, who parked his car across the road to prevent anyone from fleeing the scene by car. With two EMTs and three paramedics now on the scene, Ku and Coleman left the victim. Ku retrieved his camera from his car. He took eighteen digital photographs of the crime scene, including several of Rachel Wade.

      Rachel had not gone in the house, as Javier had told her to do. She sat on a bench in front of Javier’s house and watched the surreal chaos she had caused. Javier recalled that she had a blank look on her face. Javier said it didn’t look like she “was there with us.”

      Rachel’s phone rang. It was Joshua. Sarah said she had gotten hurt. What was up?

      Rachel said she was at Javier’s house. She’d just had a fight with Sarah and she thought Sarah might be hurt. Joshua hung up, ran to Sarah’s house, two blocks away, and told Sarah’s parents that Sarah had been in a fight and was hurt.

      Together Charlie and Joshua went to Javier’s house and arrived in time for them to see Sarah still lying in the street, with the paramedics frantically working on her.

      Sergeant William Lowe, who was working crowd control, recalled one young man who ran down the street to the scene, screaming. He hurled threats, saying he was the victim’s brother and would see his revenge. (Of course, Sarah Ludemann was an only child.) Lowe told the unidentified man he had to stay outside the police tape, but the guy kept mouthing off, using words that could only inflame the situation: “Someone get stabbed, someone gonna get stabbed.” Other police at the scene identified the troublesome bystander as Joshua Camacho.

      Officer M. Turner and the search dog Dax reported to the crime scene, the same human/canine team that was once sent to the Wade household to search for a runaway Rachel. The team had just arrived as Joshua went berserk at the crime scene. Dax was positioned between Joshua and EMS activity. The dog remained in that position until Joshua retreated to the end of the street.

      Charlie Ludemann couldn’t move quickly, but he could move relentlessly. He pushed past police tape and toward his daughter, until Sergeant Tina Trehy intercepted him and talked him away from the van. But not before the father got a good look. Charlie said he was going back home to get his wife.

      Charlie’s memories came in the form of horrible snapshots and sound bites. Lights everywhere. Flashing. Areas taped off. Rachel sitting there as if nothing had happened, smoking a cigarette. Charlie yelling his daughter’s name. Sarah not responding. Sarah as a little girl singing. A police officer in his face, asking him who he was.

      “That’s my daughter lying on the ground,” he said. Sarah lying in a pool of blood.

      Charlie trying to get her to respond to him, but she couldn’t even lift her head. Charlie knowing she was dead, and there was nothing anyone could do.

      Rachel sitting on a bench, like nothing had happened. Rachel smoking a cigarette. Charlie screaming that Rachel was a “stupid bitch.” Why did she need a knife? Why couldn’t she fight with her hands?

      Detective Kenneth Blessing asked Janet Camacho what had happened. Janet said that she, the victim, and their friend Jilica Smith were on their way to McDonald’s when Rachel threatened to stab Sarah. They met in the street.

      Rachel had been the complete aggressor, Janet said. She murdered Sarah.

      “What happened to the knife?” Detective Blessing asked.

      “I think she snuck it to one of her boyfriends,” Janet said, meaning Javier and his friend Dustin Grimes.

      Detective Joe Doswell interviewed Jilica Smith, who also said that Rachel had threatened to stab Sarah, but she claimed that the victim had shown her a text to that effect. She’d seen a red car driving by when she was outside Janet’s house, with a couple of girls in it.

      Later, when they got to this scene, Sarah had barely made it out of the minivan before Rachel charged her and the fight started. Jilica said she got a good look at the knife. It looked like a kitchen knife to her, and she would never forget the way Rachel smiled as she held it.

      When Blessing finished with Janet, and Doswell concluded his interview with Jilica, both women began walking home. But they didn’t make it far. They were intercepted, put into a patrol car, and were parked in it so that they could see the front of Javier’s house.

      Did either of them see the person who stabbed their friend Sarah? Sure, they said. It was Rachel Wade, sitting right there on that bench.

      Officer William Peterson separated Javier Laboy and his friend Dustin Grimes; then he took their written statements. Peterson later characterized those statements as “evasive.”

      Javier and Dustin told identical stories. All three women got out of the van simultaneously. They charged at Rachel, yelling. Sarah, in particular, was yelling as she aggressively approached Rachel. At first, Sarah and Rachel went at it; then there was a moment when Sarah and Janet were beating Rachel at the same time, two on one. Officer Peterson thought both witnesses needed to be interviewed again and said so when he turned them over to Detective Blessing.

      Sergeant Tina Trehy was in charge of keeping an eye on Rachel Wade. Police would wait for a less hectic moment to interrogate her. They wanted to get this right.

      As Trehy observed, Rachel kept moving her tongue to her bottom lip and bottom teeth. She complained that she thought she had cut the inside of her mouth during the fight.

      Paramedics lifted Sarah Ludemann onto a gurney and put her in the ambulance.

      Officer John Coleman escorted the ambulance to the hospital, which arrived at 1:21 A.M. Doctors and nurses worked over her for one hour and eight minutes.

PART TWO