Meter Maid Gives Ticket; Finds Body

LOCAL-- When parking and bylaw officer Simon Wayne first spotted a car sitting alone in the parking lot behind the old Steel Mill, his first thought was to reach for his ticket book. That all changed the moment he approached the car though, when he saw something he never imagined.

"The guy was lying on his face with his pants off," said Wayne. "He looked like he'd been dead a couple days."

Wayne took a moment to compose himself and then immediately called the cops. Homicide detectives quickly cordoned off the scene and Wayne was detained for questioning. Detective Conrad Lione was in charge of the scene.

"At this point it certainly looks to us like a trick gone bad," said Lione, noting the problems with violence and drug use often associated with prostitution as a major cause of crime in the city.

According to Police, the victim is a heavyset man in his forties with black hair and blue eyes. The cause of death was likely a single bullet wound to the head from close range. Just how close, police weren't sure.

"It certainly looks at the moment like the barrel of the gun was jammed into his face," said an officer at the scene who wished to remain anonymous. The powder burns on his cheek are consistent with that kind of contact. It kind of cooks the flesh a little because of the heat, and we're seeing that here."

An autopsy is scheduled for early next week, and investigators are confident they will have an identity of the victim and some important leads as to who might have killed this man by then. In the mean time, they are asking for the public's help in finding a thin, blond woman in her early twenties who may have been involved in the death. Several witnesses have come forward saying they saw a woman matching that description in wandering the streets nearby, and that she was in shock and covered in blood.

"At this point we'd just like to ask her what happened," Conrad Lione said. "Nobody is accusing anybody of anything."

As for bylaw officer Simon Wayne, he says he's quitting his job to find something less violent.

"What if they come looking for me or something?" Wayne asked. "They don't pay us enough to deal with these kinds of things."