Chapter 4 - Wade Operated Somewhere That Wasn’t a Hospital
The incision showed vital reaction.
Bleeding.
Inflammatory response.
Melissa had been alive when she was cut.
The medical examiner estimated surgery occurred only hours before death.
Yet no hospital in central Ohio had admitted Melissa.
No emergency department registration.
No ambulance transport.
No surgical record.
No anesthesiology record.
Nothing.
Then investigators searched Wade’s outpatient center.
Most ambulatory centers close overnight.
Wade’s security logs showed entry at 2:41 a.m.
His badge.
Brent’s vehicle entered the service lot seven minutes later.
They left at 5:16.
Melissa’s body arrived at the funeral home at 7:02.
I read the timeline and had to put it down.
My daughter had not died in her bathroom.
She had been taken somewhere.
Cut open.
Then delivered to a funeral home under a false story.
Wade finally admitted part of it.
Melissa was extremely ill.
He believed she had an acute abdominal catastrophe.
“Why didn’t you call 911?” investigators asked.
“She refused.”
“Was she conscious?”
“At first.”
“Did you document refusal?”
“No.”
“Why take her to an outpatient center not equipped for emergency abdominal surgery?”
Wade’s face tightened.
“I thought I could stabilize her.”
“What did you find?”
He requested an attorney.
That ended the interview.
But the medical examiner found evidence of bowel perforation and widespread abdominal infection.
This had not appeared in ten minutes.
Melissa had been severely ill for hours.
Possibly much longer.
Prompt hospital treatment might not have guaranteed survival.
But delay mattered.
Then came the strangest finding.
A short segment of damaged bowel appeared to have been surgically removed.
It was not with Melissa’s body.
The specimen containers from Wade’s black bag were empty.
Sophie had said:
He took something.
May you like
A child’s statement was still not proof.
But now adults had evidence worth following.
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