The following story is fictional and does not depict any real person or event:
January 26, 1981
("Wheel in the Sky" by Journey)
A lone police cruiser patrolled the nearly empty streets of Philadelphia at 2:00 a.m. in the morning. Inside were veteran officer Darnell Prince and his junior partner, 21-year old Laura Stanton. Prince was a highly skilled and dedicated officer and Stanton had almost never seen him appear upset, angry, or depressed on the job. But today was an exception. Only a few hours ago before he had shown up for duty, Darnell had watched his beloved Philadelphia Eagles lose Super Bowl XV to the Oakland Raiders, 27-10.
"I can't believe it!" He wailed. "All those years of sitting through losing seasons waiting for the team to turn around, just to watch Ron Jaworski throw three interceptions in the Super Bowl...ALL TO THE SAME PLAYER! Meanwhile, their defense can't even stop someone like Kenny King from scoring an 80-yard touchdown reception!"
Laura rolled her eyes. "Oh come on Darnell, lighten up. You finally got to see your team make it to big game, you should find some consolation in that."
She turned away and smiled. Deep down she found the situation highly amusing. Here was her highly skilled senior partner who rarely ever displayed any emotion while dealing with crack heads and violent felons whining like a child because his favorite team had lost a ball game. "Besides, a 17-point loss isn't the worst Super Bowl defeat I've ever heard of."
Darnell quelled his anger. "Well this is still going to be hard to get over. I swear to god I'm not mentioning football for at least another six months."
Laura was about to respond that this was the most comforting thought she had heard all day when suddenly she was interrupted by the police radio. "Car 21, report to the Westland Jewelry store at 17403 Hastings Street. Anonymous phone caller reports suspicious individuals loitering around the store. Need you to go check it out."
Laura picked up the radio. "Copy Dispatch, Car 21 en route, e.t.a 10 minutes." After putting down the radio, she turned back to Prince. "Well there you go big guy, a nice 'suspicious persons' call. Maybe this will help take your mind off the game". Prince sighed and turned the car around, heading in the direction of Hastings Street.
We can only hope," he muttered under his breath.
Several minutes later they pulled up to the Westland Jewelry Store. Sure enough, they spotted three people, all males, hanging out near the store. Through the dim lighting of the cruiser headlights, the officers could barely make any details about them. And they never got the chance. As the Cruiser came within 20 yards of the three men, they suddenly spun around and opened fire on the car with semi-automatic rifles and handguns. Stanton screamed in horror as bullets blew out the windshield and tore through the engine block. But Prince maintained his composure.
"Hang on Laura, I'm getting us out of here!" he shouted as he threw the car in reverse.
But just moments after flooring it backwards, incoming rounds blew out a front tire, sending the cruiser spinning wildly across the road until it finally crashed into parked car in the street, rendering it immobile. Prince immediately jumped out of the cruiser, took cover, and drew his service weapon as bullets continued to stream in his direction. He saw the three suspects moving closer.
"Come on Stanton!," he shouted to his partner, "get out of your seat and over to my side of the car, I'll cover you!"
Laura groaned in pain in her passenger seat. The impact of the crash had knocked her dizzy, and she was still in shock.
"Laura, get over here! We're not dying tonight! Not like this!"
Upon finishing his sentence, he got up using the cruiser as cover and opened fire with his .38 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver. It didn't seem like much of a weapon compared to the firepower wielded by the suspects, but it was enough to pin them down and halt their advance. This time, Laura obeyed her superior, crawling through the driver's side of the battered cruiser and joining Darnell on his side of the car.
Suddenly the gunfire died down a bit as the suspects started to run low on ammo in their magazines. Darnell pointed to Laura and then made an upward motion with his left hand. Then they sprung up from behind their cover and opened fire on the suspects with everything they had. One of the three men was struck by several .38 caliber rounds in the neck and chest. His rifle fell from his grip and his collapsed next to it, dead before he hit the ground. After ducking back down as another hailstorm of bullets flew in his direction, Prince reached through the shattered cruiser window and hit the trunk release. Immediately realizing what his intention was, Laura snapped her empty revolver back into her holster, moved to the trunk, and pulled out a Remington 870 shotgun.
"Alright Laura, let em have it!" Prince shouted as soon as she had the weapon ready.
Laura emerged from her cover and opened up on the suspects with her shotgun, firing as fast as she could pump the action and pull the trigger. She didn't score any hits, but the sudden barrage of buckshot surprised the two remaining men and caused them to dive for cover. This gave Darnell the time he needed to reload his own weapon. With a few simple motions at high speed, he swiftly dumped the empty shell casings onto the street, pulled a speedloader from his belt, and snapped in a fresh cylinder load.
While Laura ducked back down to reload her Remington, clawing spare shells from the shotgun's tactical sling and stuffing them down the magazine tube, Darnell got up and waited for the suspects to show themselves. When one of them emerged from cover to return fire, Prince snapped off a single shot from his revolver. The man collapsed on the ground, dropped his weapon, and started screaming in agony. Realizing the odds were now stacked heavily against him, the third suspect dropped his gun and ran.
"Stanton, go after him, I'll handle things here!" Shouted Darnell as he emerged from cover.
Darnell moved up with his revolver aimed on the downed suspect while Laura took off after the third shooter. Laura was surprised that Darnell would trust her to chase down a violent suspect alone, but she immediately obeyed. After all, it seemed that Darnell had the situation well under control at his end and the fleeing suspect was no longer armed.
Without giving his order a second thought, Laura took off after the third man. Steam puffed from her mouth in the frigid winter air, while her legs felt like lead blocks and the shotgun a virtual anchor in her hands. But it made no difference. All the horror of the initial surprise attack was completely banished from her mind. Now they had the upper hand. They were in control. Laura pushed herself onward through pure adrenaline and rage, determined to bring the whole nightmarish affair to an end on her own terms.
In her pursuit, she heard Darnell over the radio calling dispatch to report their situation and request backup. After several seconds, Laura realized she had ran a fairly long distance away from the scene of the initial shootout and her partner. She was about to give up and head back when suddenly she saw a dark figure duck into an ally up ahead of her.
"Gotcha now" she thought to herself, "the only way you are coming out of there is in cuffs or a body bag".
But when she stepped into the ally, no one was in sight. Laura immediately brought her Remington up to eye level and slowly walked down the ally looking for the man, keeping an eye out for any movement. Her feelings of fury and confidence quickly giving way to hyper-alertness and fear.
Suddenly the suspect burst out of hiding behind a dumpster next to her, catching Stanton completely by surprise. She tried to shoot him, but the man got his hands on her shotgun and pushed the barrel up, sending the blast harmlessly into the air. After that, he used his grip on the weapon to pin her against a wall and press the shotgun hard against her neck. Laura desperately tried to push the gun away from her throat but it was no use, the man was too strong and she could feel herself blacking out.
"I'm gonna choke you out bitch! Your time is up!" shouted the man, sensing victory.
But Laura wasn't about to give up. Using every ounce of strength she had left, Laura drove her knee into the suspect's groin. The man's hands instinctively let go of the shotgun and went to his groin and he stumbled backwards, groaning in pain. Stanton followed up her knee blow by striking the suspect across the face with the butt stock of her shotgun, breaking the man's jaw and spinning him around away from her. With one final move, Laura kicked the suspect in the back as hard as she could, sending him plunging head first into a row of trash cans.
Gasping heavily, Laura sank to her knees took a moment to catch her breath. But a moment was all she had. To her amazement, the suspect was attempting to get up. Enraged, Laura racked the shotgun and pointed it at his head, the sound of the live round slamming into the firing chamber causing him to stop dead in his tracks.
"Don't even think about moving you maggot! You're under arrest! Get your fucking hands behind your back!"
That did it. Whatever resiliance Laura's attacker still possessed was instantly overwhelmed by the sound of a fresh buckshot round being chambered into the 870. Now completely subdued, the man complied as best he could under his intense pain. Soon after, Laura had him handcuffed and checked him for additional weapons. Then she sat down exhausted and radioed dispatch.
"Dispatch this is officer Stanton. I've arrested one male suspect. Send backup units and paramedics to my location immediately. He's in pretty bad shape."
"Copy that Stanton, backup units are on the way," responded dispatch.
Then Laura radioed her partner, so caught up in her moment of triumph and filled with satisfaction that she completely lost all sense of professionalism and proper radio terminology.
"Prince did you hear that? I got him! We did it! How are you holding up on your end?"
Stanton waited for a response but there was no answer. "Prince, respond! Is everything alright?" Still no response. Now Stanton was starting to panic. "Dammit Prince answer me! What's going on Darnell, Darnell?" Stanton continued to scream into the radio, but there was no answer from her partner.
Back at the scene of the initial shootout, Prince lay sprawled out on the ground, dead from multiple gun shots to the chest and head, with his still-smoking revolver lying next to him. The suspect whom he had stayed behind to arrest was gone.
With a heavy heart and sadness on his mind, a detective carried a folder through the records room of the Philadelphia police station. If there was one thing he hated about his job, this was it. While he had become a detective knowing full well not all of his cases would be solved, nothing hurt more then the inability to solve the murder of one of his own. Yet after a year of countless hours poured into the case, that was the final result.
"Sorry brother," the detective though to himself as he placed the folder in it's proper spot on a shelf in the records room. "We did all we could..."
The caption on the folder read: "Prince, D. Jan 1981"
Pennsylvania State Prison, present day
"Hello detectives, welcome to my humble abode. I hope you find the accommodations to your liking." Said Mike Ballard sarcastically as detectives Scotty Valens and John Stillman entered his prison cell.
Stillman was not amused "Cut the crap Ballard. You said you had information on an unsolved murder from the 80's. Now you've got two minutes to convince us you've got something valuable or you can rot in prison for the rest of your life."
Mike smiled, "Ah straight to business I see. Fine. Yeah I got something you want. It's about Darnell Prince, a cop shot dead in 1981. I figure you two have heard of the event. He was killed while breaking up a burglary attempt at a jewelry store by three armed men. Occurred just hours after the Super Bowl if I remember correctly."
That got John's attention. Scotty noticed the surprise on his face. But he didn't appear completely convinced. "I'm familiar with that case. Back then they called it the Super Bowl shootout. But what could you possibly know about it? You're 34. By my math that makes you only 8 years old when he was killed."
"Because in the 1990's I shared a cell with a man involved in the shootout and arrested that night, Eddie Ransen. Ransen always bragged about how he never told the cops a damn thing about what happened, and how they would never know what the truth. But after several years as his cellmate, I managed to get on good terms with him. And he told me something that I think you would find very interesting."
"You found out this information back in the 1990's and you're just now offering it to us? I suppose this has something to do with you being eligible for parole in a few months." Scotty pointed out.
"You got it detective," Ballard responded. "I'll tell you what you want if you agree to recommend my parole at the upcoming hearing, and you make sure the DA's office doesn't oppose it. You also gotta promise you won't talk to Ransen about this. The man's a stone cold killer and he's made a lot of connections in here. If he finds out I spilled his big secret, I'll never live to see the parole board."
If there was one thing Scotty hated about his job, this was it. Having to make deals with scum like Mike Ballard. Nearly all of the leads the Cold Case squad had received from jail house snitches turned out to be false and there was no reason to believe this was any different.
"You're a career criminal with a rap sheet of felonies a mile long," He pointed out. "Why on earth should we even consider helping you out of the joint?"
"Simple. Because I didn't kill anybody. Your job is to catch killers if I'm not mistaken. And there is no way you're getting the guy who killed Prince without my help. He's already spent the last 26 years on the streets. You want him to get a free pass for the rest of his life?"
John finally cut in. "Alright Ballard. You got a deal as long as we determine your information is valid. And don't worry about us talking to Ransen. He's no more willing to cooperate with us today then he was 26 years ago. Now who killed officer Prince?"
"I don't know"
Stillman got up as if he was about to leave. "Mike, this trip took up several minutes of my life I'm never going to get back."
After that remark, Stillman noticed a look of fear in Ballard's face. "Hey look man, you gotta understand, this was Eddie's big secret. I couldn't just straight up ask him for the truth. He would know what I was planning and have me taken out. I had to built a rapport with him and squeeze the info out of him over the course of several months".
Stillman sat back down. "Okay, so did you find out anything useful?"
Ballard smiled and continued. "You bet. One day we were talking about the events that got us put away, and I taunted him by pointing out he was put away by a rookie female cop barely old enough to drink. Then out of nowhere he counters that while that might be true, the cops never found out the truth about what the gun battle that night was really all about."
"We already know that. It was a botched burglary," Scotty pointed out.
"No it wasn't. That was his big secret all this time. Eddie told me the job that night wasn't a burglary. It was a professional hit. Some guy paid him and the other men to whack the cop. He said they were told to wait at the Jewelry store for police car to show and then take out the occupants. The guy who hired them never said who the cop was or why he wanted him dead, just to do the job and make it look like a burglary. Obviously things didn't go as planned. They didn't know there was going to be two cops in the car, and they put up a much better fight then expected."
"So who was the suspect that escaped that night? And who was the man who hired Eddie's crew?" Stillman asked.
"I couldn't get that out of him. I could tell Ransen was getting suspicious. If I had kept asking him questions about it, he would have been on to me."
"That's it?" Scotty responded. "That's all you have for us? Why the hell should we believe...
Stillman cut him off. "Alright Mike, you got a deal. If your tip pans out, we'll recommend you for parole and make sure the DA doesn't oppose it. Come on detective Valens, we're leaving."
And with that, the two detectives left the prison before Scotty had a chance to continue.
On the trip back to the station, Scotty was visibly upset. "Lt, you really think Ballard's information is valid? The man's looking for a way out of the joint. He'd tell us Prince was killed by space aliens if he thought it was what we wanted to hear."
"Well that may be, but there's a chance he's telling the truth. After all, if he was lying, why just tell us the aspects of the crime? Why not give us something better?" Stillman pointed out. "Look this is a cop killing we're talking about. If there is even the slightest chance we can find the killer as a result of this lead, it's worth letting that low-life out of prison. I've already called the other members of the squad and they'll be meeting us at the station to start the re-opening of the case immediately."
"Okay okay." Said Scotty, realizing there was no point in arguing. "Man, first Darnell suffered through the Eagles losing the Super Bowl and then he gets offed a few hours later. What a lousy night." He commented.
"It was a lousy night for the entire city." Said Stillman. "But someone got what they wanted out of the whole thing. One very dead cop and a police force that never knew the real story."
Roll Cold Case intro song