It was late afternoon when the call came in that a man had committed suicide just outside a small town about an hour away. The client wanted the job done that night so we gathered our gear and headed out.

An ominous feeling came over both of us as we turned onto the poorly lit street and rolled down the window to look for the address. The air was stagnant; as if the movement of our truck was the first thing to disturb it since the shot rang out. Our eyes seemed to gravitate toward one house in particular that didn’t have cars in the driveway or a porch light on; we knew were at the right place. It was set far back on the lot away from the street. Looking down the dark driveway that ran up the side of the house, we saw just one light flickering from a room by the back door that the client had left open. That eerie feeling we had as we pulled up was about to get worse.

After suiting up, we slowly pushed open the door and discovered that the flickering light we had seen from the road was a old TV that had been left on with no cable signal; just white noisy fuzz on the screen. Here we are in the middle of nowhere, Texas where a man has just taken his life and we’re walking into the set of the movie Poltergeist. All that was missing was Carol Anne saying, “They’re here!” But she didn’t have to because we were both thinking it. The flickering light was just bright enough to see the gun that was lying on the floor by the closet. Was this the gun that was used? Not likely, but it certainly didn’t do anything to ease the tension in the room. Time to find the room where it happened, get it done and get out of here!

We found a light switch in the hallway and made our way toward the dining room. It wasn’t long before we came across a trail of blood spots that led us right where we needed to be. Self-inflicted gunshots are often the hardest to deal with because of how far and spread out the scene can be. In this case, however, most of the contaminated area was contained to one room. But this one room was absolutely covered with blood and tissue. Much of the blood was dried, but there was also blood that was running along the baseboards indicating that we might have contamination on the sub-flooring as well. There were also blood spots and bone fragments on some of the furniture and walls. This definately wasn’t going to be the quick job we had hoped it would be.

We worked away into the evening all the while feeling a bit on edge. Suicide is a common call for us but tonight something was different. Perhaps it was because it was at night on a quiet street far away from our comfort zone. Or maybe it was because the house was dark and cold with nothing but an old tv on. Or maybe, just maybe, the man who took his life in that house hasn’t left yet.