#I showed the sketch of little heavy and medic to J last night and all she said was 'I always forget you like the trans medic theory until

[gophergal]

Yet another AU that @cursed--alien and I talk about sometimes. Our mildly convoluted Red Oktoberfest Childhood Friends AU. Also, this is an excuse to talk about more of my HCs

The whole premise of this au is just that Misha's father and Ludwig's parents became friends at some point and, at some point, Misha's family visited the Humboldt's in Germany. Afterward, Ludwig and Misha keep in touch as penpals and only really lose touch when Misha is sent to the gulag.

Anyway, some HCs:

Mikhail's parents are named Ivan and Anna. Ivan was a novelist and a pacifist who loathed senseless violence. Anna's family were upper middle class and she fell in love with Ivan when they began writing eachother after she read one of his stories

Misha was a very shy child when he and Ludwig first met. On top of that, Ludwig was a "scary big kid" and he had "scary eyes," though he did warm up to his new friend pretty easily. Misha became a lot less skittish once he had a baby sister to watch out for.

Ludwig's parents, the Doctors Humboldt, are both scientists, of course. His mother specialized in pharmacology and his father in zoology. They met through Mr Humboldt's father, who had taken the future Mrs Humboldt under his wing working in his pharmacy. (having no names for them has made this the most confusing thing I swear)

Neither of them are particularly warm parents. In fact, Ludwig hardly had any bond to them. He was primarily raised by Johanna, the young maid/nanny his parents hired instead.

Given they were relatively old when he was born (especially his father), Ludwig lost his parents pretty early. His father passed before he went to University and his mother a few years after he fled Germany. Neither death affected him much

Hearing that Johanna survived the war and was still well even by the time he became RED's Medic, however, was a great relief for Ludwig

This AU has two branches based on what direction Ludwig goes when he flees Germany. In Path A, he goes westward and ends up in the US. He and Misha reconnect when they're hired by RED. Path B has him attempting to escape to Russia and managing to be found in Siberia by Mikhail before he freezes to death. The man does not think ahead lmao

[ohhowpeculiar]

What happened to Annie McCann?

On October 31st, 2008, 16-year-old Annie McCann left a note in her bedroom and drove away from her middle-class home in Alexandria, VA.

On November 2nd, her body was found near a dumpster in a housing project in Baltimore, MD.

What happened between the last sighting of Annie on Halloween morning and the discovery of her body remains unknown.

The disappearance

Annie was a sheltered young woman raised in a religious family. She was a good student, well-liked, and a promising artist. She called her parents after school every day if she beat them home, but that phone call didn’t come on October 31st. Annie’s mom, Mary Jane, called a neighbor and asked if Annie had been seen or if her car was in the driveway. The neighbor told her that she apparently wasn’t home.

Annie’s parents called the police.

On November 2nd, her body was found in a housing complex in Upper Fells Point, Baltimore, by a man taking out the trash. Her backpack was nearby, and police used her high school ID to identify the body as Annie McCann. Her parents were notified in person.

Annie’s car was found at a nearby gas station, and a single fingerprint taken from the car was matched in the police system to a local teenager. He told the police that he and some friends found an already-deceased Annie in the backseat of the car, removed her body and went for a joyride. An empty bottle of Bactine with the lid missing remained at the scene.

The autopsy and funeral

The official autopsy lists minor abrasions, but no obvious trauma on Annie’s body. It wasn’t until the toxicology report came back that a cause of death was determined: lidocaine poisoning.

Police and the Medical Examiner posited that Annie had committed suicide by ingesting the bottle of Bactine that was found empty with her car. The lid of the bottle was not a screw-top and would have had to be forcibly removed.

The funeral director who handled Annie’s body was unconvinced that she had committed suicide. First, she noticed that Annie had a large “goose egg” bruise on her forehead, along with other abrasions. The funeral director also reported that her fingers looked wilted and wrinkly, as if they had been submerged in water for an extended period of time. Finally, she was convinced that Annie’s corpse showed signs of sodomy.

Annie’s parents were, understandably, horrified. When they reviewed the autopsy, they were convinced that the ME had overlooked many significant marks on Annie’s body, including the large bruise on her forehead and what looked like a cigarette burn on her face. They were also concerned about a stylized “J” that appeared on Annie’s ankle, and what they believe are signs of sexual assault. Her mother’s reaction was, “Oh my god, my daughter was tortured.”

A witness is found

While little is known about what Annie was doing in Baltimore between her disappearance on Halloween and her time of death, at least one witness was found by a private investigator hired by the McCanns. A server at Vacarro’s, a local Italian pastry shop, reported seeing Annie with another young woman in the restaurant. The woman was described as older than Annie, late teens to early 20s, disheveled and wearing heavy makeup. She particularly stood out because of her nail polish - it was “the color of puke,” the witness said. A police sketch artist created a portrait of this unidentified woman, but it has lead to no further information. Police were never able to confirm that this event happened.

Another woman dies

3 years after Annie died, one of the teenagers who had been joyriding in her car, Darnell Kinlaw, shot his girlfriend, Lakeisha Player, and stole her car. Lakeisha did not survive. Some point to this as potential evidence that Annie’s death was not a suicide.

Annie’s parents visited Darnell Kinlaw in prison and while they said he seemed to be genuinely upset about Annie’s death, he could provide them with no further information about how she died. They do not believe that he killed her.

Theories

Theory 1: Murder

Annie’s parents are convinced that their daughter was murdered. Here are a few of their reasons for believing this:

It remains inconclusive that a single bottle of Bactine, particularly one that had been used for some time (Annie was using it to keep her freshly-pierced ears clean), would contain enough lidocaine to kill a person. The McCann’s hired pathologist Dr. Michael Baden to review the case and he believes a single bottle would not have been sufficient. Bayer, the maker of Bactine, also says that it isn’t enough lidocaine in it to be fatal.

Dr. Baden also believes that the circumstances of Annie’s body, being found near a dumpster, are more in line with homicide than suicide.

Why can’t the police explain the lump on Annie’s forehead, or what her parents believe is a cigarette burn on her face?

Why haven’t the police released the rape kit that was done on Annie’s body?

Annie’s heart and brain were not returned to her body after the autopsy, a mistake made by the Medical Examiner’s office. If they can make a mistake that huge, what else could they have overlooked?

What about that “J” on her ankle? How did that get there?

What about the claims from the funeral director that her fingers were shriveled, and that there were signs of sexual assault?

Her “suicide” sounds an awful lot like the murder of Lakeisha Player, doesn’t it?

The internet also speculates: If Annie had committed suicide by drinking the Bactine, shouldn’t it have caused burns on her throat? Drinking Bactine would be very difficult, and only someone completely determined to commit suicide would have had the willpower to do it. Bactine, according to one intrepid internet experimenter, tastes “like butt chemicals.”

Theory 2: Suicide

This is what the police believe, and I’m inclined towards this theory myself. While the circumstances of Annie’s death are indeed unusual, I don’t believe there is enough evidence to lend itself to any other method of death.

First, Annie wrote several notes, including one that her parents found in her bedroom the day she left home. Excerpt:

This morning I was going to kill myself, but I realized I can start over instead … if you really love me, you’ll let me go.

Her parents point to this as evidence that she was not going to commit suicide, but just run away. However, the fact that she says “I was going to kill myself” leads me to think it was still very much a possibility, and indicate Annie’s state of mind the day she left.

The police also found several other notes written by Annie that mentioned suicide, a struggle with anorexia and depression, and feelings of mounting pressure. She even wrote to a friend, “My suicide has nothing to do with you.” Her parents again dismissed these notes, stating that they weren’t really suicide notes because one was found crumpled up under a bed, and another had been partly crossed out.

Sorry, but she still wrote suicide notes, whether or not she intended for them to be seen. To me, this points to the parent’s just not wanting to believe that they had a suicidal teenager.

Second, her parents and others question why she would go all the way to Baltimore to commit suicide. This isn’t all that unusual, actually. Suicidal people sometimes travel away from home to end their lives so as to spare their loved ones the trauma of discovering the body. Did Annie do just that? I don’t know. But her traveling from home itself doesn’t discredit the suicide theory.

But why Baltimore*? She had no ties to the area, had barely ever been there before according to her parents. Well, if you’re a runaway teen, a big city is a good place to disappear. And Baltimore has plenty of parties on Halloween night that might interest a teenager who has never been allowed to party.

Annie’s parents continually point to the fact that Annie was not a partier, was not like other teens, wasn’t getting into trouble. But that doesn’t mean she didn’t want to be like other teens. Her parents were controlling, and Annie left home voluntarily. Just because she hadn’t displayed interests of normal teens while she was at home doesn’t mean that those interests didn’t exist.

But why would Annie run away, just to take her life 2 days later? A lot can happen in 2 days to a teenager away from home in an unfamiliar city. Annie reportedly left home with $1000, but what happened to this money? Was she robbed? It’s easy to speculate that Annie could have run into trouble, was left without money and decided to go ahead with the suicide that she had been thinking about.

Why Bactine? It is a highly unusual method of suicide, but suicidal people can be very resourceful. Maybe she wasn’t completely sure it’d kill her, but decided to give it a chance anyway. And it worked. While some pathologists believe there isn’t enough lidocaine in there to be fatal, others disagree. Dr. Bill Manion, a forensic pathologist hired by ABC for an episode of 20/20 had this to say:

“There is enough in a bottle of Bactine to kill someone. Even in a half bottle, there are roughly two grams, and that would be enough to cause death.”

As for those forensics questions, the McCann’s own pathology expert, Dr. Baden, doesn’t believe that there were any signs of sexual assault on Annie’s body, nor did he believe that her fingers showed any signs of being shriveled or wrinkled. And the “J” on her ankle? Could be caused by lividity. The cigarette burn? Doesn’t look like a cigarette burn to him.

As for the connection with the murder of Lakeisha Player: Annie’s own parents don’t believe that Lakeisha’s murderer had anything to do with Annie’s death. And as Baltimore PD have said, the deaths are completely different: one a stranger in the city who died from lidocaine poisoning, the other a domestic dispute that turned deadly with a gun. The only connection is Darnell Kinlaw stealing cars in both cases.

However

There are still plenty of valid questions and criticisms raised in this case.

Why weren’t Annie’s heart and brain returned to her body after the autopsy? This seems like a serious oversight that would call into question the professionalism of ME’s office and their ability to do their jobs properly.

The fact that Annie’s rape kit has never been released, despite multiple requests by her parents and Senator Charles Grassley, is suspicious. If the rape kit shows no signs of sexual assault, as the police have asserted from the start, isn’t it in their best interests to release it?

What about the egg-shaped bruise on Annie’s forehead (which you can see here)? While I don’t think it’s as simple as “This means she was murdered!” I do question why police have downplayed an obvious sign of trauma on the body, even if it isn’t anywhere near enough to be fatal or even evidence of foul play. Maybe they really just didn’t believe it was important, but by not mentioning it from the beginning, it’s given the McCann’s enough reason to be suspicious of what the police tell them.  

Would that much Bactine have been fatal? Experts are still divided. Would it cause burns on the throat? Since Bactine isn’t meant to be ingested, there simply isn’t a lot of research to indicate one way or another, it seems. So who knows?

In conclusion

I believe that Annie McCann committed suicide using an unusual and largely unknown method. I believe she ran away from home, thinking about starting her life over, found it too difficult and took her own life. Her own writings around the time of her leaving home support the fact that suicide was very much on Annie’s mind.

I think the unusual method of suicide, her parents’ denial, and the errors of the ME and police department are what have lead to this suspicious death becoming a hotly debated mystery. I do believe the ME’s office and the Baltimore Police still have questions to answer. But without more evidence of foul play, I think the most obvious answer is likely the correct one.

Sources

The Washington Post: Annie McCann’s parents keep pushing death probe

ABC News: The Mysterious Death of Annie McCann and Her Parents’ Ongoing Fight to Prove Teen Was Murdered (The 20/20 episode about Annie’s case auto-plays in a window to the right, if you want to watch that. You can also see it on Youtube.)

The Washington Post: Grassley questions feds, Baltimore police in unsolved death of Fairfax teen Annie McCann

The Washington Post: Eight years on, the mystery of Annie McCann’s ‘death by Bactine’ keeps unfolding WARNING: Here you can see autopsy images of both Annie’s forehead and the “J” on her ankle. While they aren’t particularly graphic and are cropped so as to not show Annie’s entire body, they’re still mortuary photos and maybe disturb some people.

Justice For Annie - A website maintained by the McCann Family

*As someone with loads of family in the Baltimore area, I also asked, “Yeah, why the hell would anyone voluntarily go to Baltimore?”