Police trying to catch the killer who nearly decapitated a grocery store clerk on a bike path through Ashland, Ore., are looking into the victim's online gaming, including one video game that contains scenes of medieval swordplay.
Police Chief Terry Holderness said Thursday that nearly two weeks into the investigation of the slaying of David Grubbs, police remain baffled, with no viable suspects, no murder weapon, and no witnesses to the crime, leading them to consider even unlikely scenarios.
"I don't feel good about the position we're in," he said. "We're well into the second week. We haven't identified a viable suspect yet. That's not a promising place to be. We have 15 detectives working this case. We had 40 people at one time.
"It's still possible that this is a total and complete random act that had nothing to do with the victim except time and place. That's extremely rare, but it is possible."
That possibility prompted some 500 people to turn out Tuesday night for a community forum on the slaying, where Holderness said he could not assure people they were safe.
Since indicating that the weapon might have been a very sharp sword or machete, Holderness said he has been surprised by the number of tips coming in from people saying they know someone who owns a sword, or has a picture on their Facebook page posing with a sword.
Holderness said police have interviewed people in surveillance videos from nearby businesses at the time of the slaying, and even tracked down a skateboard and helmet found in nearby bushes. They turned out to have been left by a boy from a nearby home for troubled boys, and were not related to the slaying.
Grubbs was an avid online gamer, and had a new copy of a game called "Assassin's Creed," which includes a decapitation scene, Holderness said. Police have his two gaming consoles and dozens of games, but there is little chance of tracking down people he played with online. Unlike computers, game consoles retain little information, Holderness said.
Police have also called in a forensic anthropologist who is an expert in what is known as sharp-force trauma to examine the victim's wounds.
Steven Symes, an associate professor of applied forensics at Mercyhurst College in Pennsylvania, said he has examined four photographs of the wounds and the slaying scene, and would arrive in Ashland late Tuesday to talk to investigators and examine the victim's body.
Symes said the marks left on skin, bone and cartilage will often allow the identification of the general characteristics of a blade, particularly if it is sharp, and sometimes can be used to make a positive identification of a specific blade.
"Whether we can narrow it down to a sword or machete, there is no guarantee of that," he said. "A particular sword, maybe. A particular machete, maybe."
As weapons go, machetes are far more common in acts of violence than swords, and when swords are used, they are rarely sharp, he said.
Striations of the blade left in the bone can show the exact angle of the blow, he added.
Copyright 2011 The Associated Press.
