Chad Whickman (1984-2012) was the victim in Burned to the Bone (Case #9 of Grimsborough).
Profile
Chad was a member of the street gang known as The Vipers. He had brown hair and blue eyes, and sported a tattoo of the Vipers' logo just above his chest. At the time of his death, Chad wore a black jacket above a light green V-neck T-shirt. His driver’s license also shows that his height was 5’4”.
Murder details
Chad was found dead by Officer Ramirez, who had put out a fire in the abandoned parking lot only to find his body burned to a crisp. During the autopsy, Nathan discovered that the killer used to smoke. Blue fabric was found on the body which belonged to the killer. Dandruff, which did not match the victim's DNA, was also found on the body, so it was obvious that the killer had a dandruff problem. Later, a broken camera was found, and after putting it back to a single piece, Alex found out that the killer was 6'0".
Relationship with suspects
Chad was known to have dated and have been deeply in love with Rose Cassidy, the sister of Troy Cassidy, the leader of the rival gang. While Rose said that Troy had refused to let Chad into her home due to the gang rivalry, Troy said that while disapproving of the relationship, he could not act on it as he did not want to hurt his sister. Rose also said that Chad had been wanting to leave the gang and had found a job application for the mini-market Joe Stern was managing, but Joe claimed to not have seen his application.
Meanwhile, in Chad's own gang, he was in an unknowing rivalry with Big Baby over Rose's heart (although Rose clearly expressed his disapproval of Big Baby's advances). The gang leader, Salvador Cordero, also admitted that he knew Chad wanted to leave the gang but decided to let him go through with it anyway in order to rile up Troy enough for him to kill Chad and therefore start a gang war.
Killer and motives
The killer turned out to be Joe.
Joe confessed that the Vipers would regularly come into his mini-market and cause vandalism, as a result of which he became furious when Chad, one day, asked for a job at his shop. Joe subsequently doused the gang member in gasoline before setting him on fire with his cigarette.
In court, Joe stated that his only regret was that he did not get to kill more members of the Vipers. Judge Hall hereby sentenced him to twenty to life in jail.
Trivia
- Per Chad's ID, he was born on May 1, 1984.
Case appearances
- Burned to the Bone (Case #9 of Grimsborough)
