Gail Harding was the victim in Innocence Lost (Case #19 of Grimsborough).
Profile
Gail Harding was a personal intern of Rachel Priest. She sported dark green eyes, and shoulder length brunette hair which had a pink flower headband on it. At the time of her death, she wore a pair of red glasses, wore green eyeshadow and red lipstick, and donned a light yellow top underneath a red dress with white trimming. It is known that Gail weighed 180 lbs.
Murder details
Gail's body in solid concrete.
Gail was found encased in solid concrete in a construction site. Before beginning the autopsy, Nathan had to use a hammer and chisel to get Gail's body out of the concrete. Later, after the autopsy was completed, Nathan told Jones and the player that Gail had to be partying before her death, since there were high amounts of cocaine, alcohol, etc, found in her stomach, which was enough to make the victim fall unconscious from overdose. However, Gail actually died because of being poured in concrete while she was still unconscious. When asked what clues he discovered from the killer, Nathan said that he found nothing, but gave the team some concrete rubble for examination.
After examining the concrete rubble, the team found some molecules of taurine about which Jones had no clue. So they asked Grace about it, who told the team that taurines are used in energy drinks, which revealed that the killer used to drink energy drinks. It was also revealed that the killer used cocaine after Grace analyzed the powder specks found in the concrete mixer (the murder weapon).
Relationship with suspects
Rachel had assigned Gail to investigate Greene Holdings for her as nobody in the company was speaking to her anymore, despite her thinking that Gail was too naïve and innocent to be out in the field. Gail's contact within the company was executive Philip Rockwell. Constantly worried about her work and sharing a mutual dislike with Rachel, she was often taken out to parties by venture capitalist Derek Molina and his business partner, Irina Phelps. The three of them had in fact gone to a party the night Gail was murdered. The party was eventually taken to a motel named Stone Cold Motel where the motel owner Susan Peck sold her and her company the drugs that would cause Gail's overdose. Some time during the party, Gail took out a company car which the killer then used.
Killer and motives
The killer turned out to be Irina.
Irina killed Gail to "protect" Derek's company. Irina was drunk when she found Gail unconscious (because of overdose) in the construction site. She thought that Gail was dead and encased the victim in solid concrete so that the body could not be found. Irina did this because she thought that Gail's death would give Derek's company a bad image since the victim was associated with Derek, and as a result, she hid Gail's body in solid concrete. She did not want to jeopardize Derek's company, which the two of them had built with a lot of hard work.
Trivia
- It is possible to deduce that she weighed 180 lbs when killed, because the 140 lbs of her killer plus her own weight equals 320 lbs.
- Gail bears a striking resemblance to Penelope Garcia from Criminal Minds.
Case appearances
- Innocence Lost (Case #19 of Grimsborough)
