Published on Sunday, March 13, 2005
in the Stuart News

Traffic death investigator gleans truth out of pieces

The first call goes to the morgue.

Florida Highway Patrol Cpl. Stephen Rudd doesn't want the body lying there at the crash scene any longer than necessary.

However, that's where emotions cease, and he must boil down this life under a white sheet into precise geometric measurements and crash reports. It's the only way he can explain to a family why it has lost a loved one, and gather the evidence needed for justice to be served.

Such is the life's work of a Treasure Coast traffic homicide investigator.

Life lost on the highway

The call comes over Rudd's radio as a "Signal 4" with a "Signal 7," the codes for a crash and a death. On Friday, there were two Signal 7s in a crash he investigated on Interstate 95 in Hobe Sound.

"On the way there, the wheels are already starting to turn," he says.

He asks the medical examiner to roll a van his way so it's there as soon as he's done taking the initial pictures. It still could be an hour or more.

"That's a long time for someone's family member to be lying there," he says.

At the scene on I-95, or most any road in Martin, St. Lucie, Indian River and Okeechobee counties, there are shattered vehicles and mangled bodies.

Fire rescue converges with that familiar sight of flashing lights and an air of urgency.

There's the smell of spilled fuel. Traffic backs up for miles.

State transportation officials want the road open in 90 minutes.

"You've got everything going on at one time," Rudd says. "You've got a lot of people that are upset because they've got to sit there."

Family members begin arriving.

"They want to go see the body. You try to talk them out of it but they want to see it," he says.

In 2004, FHP investigators alone would repeat this scene 88 times on the Treasure Coast, some involving multiple fatalities, putting the actual body count much higher.

There were four deadly crashes in Okeechobee, 35 in Martin County, 21 in Indian River and 28 in St. Lucie County last year.

Dealing with death

The look on the face of a person burned alive trying to escape a smashed vehicle always stuck with him.

So did the children watching as their parents lay dead.

"I wondered how I'd be able to handle it," Rudd, 41, said he thought when he left his career as a landscape foreman five years ago to follow his dream of being a state trooper.

A lieutenant once told him, "'You've got to treat it like a job. You really got to detach yourself. When you go to the scene, the person's dead. There's nothing you can do about it,'" Rudd remembered. "Do your job."

Sometimes, troopers share a quiet laugh as they work a scene.

"You've pretty much got to do some joking around to keep it from getting too serious. It's not that we're joking to make fun of what's going on. It's just a way of coping," he said. "People are going to get killed in car crashes, and so you've got to be able to deal with it and move on to the next one."

Start of an investigation

There are two traffic homicide investigators on every scene. It's an effort recently mandated across the state so roads can be reopened faster.

Eight such troopers work along the Treasure Coast.

They walk the scene to get the "totality" of it all.

They take photographs and witness statements.

They spray fluorescent orange paint on the pavement, the days-long markers of what happened here.

They roll the measurement wheel to "put everything back in exactly the same spot on a piece of paper."

"Then you pretty much kind of relax a little bit. And that's a good time; you kind of get with the other homicide investigator and say, 'OK, what do you think really happened here?'" Rudd says.

At the same time, a trooper is sent to notify the next of kin.

"You've got to get that done as soon as possible before they find out some other way," he says.

Rudd has his own way:

"When you get there, they know something's not right," he said. "I say, 'There's no easy way to say this so I'm just going to say it. Your son was killed in a car crash.'"

No death today

Sitting on the gravel shoulder near I-95, Rudd calibrated his radar unit using tuning forks, with a reporter riding shotgun.

The speed limit is 55 mph.

The red digital readout gives the speed as vehicles whiz by: 56, 65, 72.

"Eighty-six: That one is mine."

His Ford interceptor's engine absolutely screams as he pulls a U-turn on a black RX-7 sports car.

After Rudd has caught up with his paperwork and while waiting for blood tests and court dates that take months and frequently years to complete a case, he patrols his in Martin, his home county.

He's got pictures of his two sons, daughter and niece taped on either side of his speedometer.

He tells his high school-aged son about the fatalities.

"I say, 'Here's what happened. This is what this guy did. He screwed up by doing such and such and got himself killed,'" Rudd said. "I just try to teach him, learn by other people's mistakes."

Speeders and aggressive drivers top his list, but the damage from hurricanes Frances and Jeanne have created a mountain of work for troopers.

"Ever since the hurricanes and all these trucks, they're dropping crap everywhere. We're constantly getting stuff out of the roadway," he said.

He remembered two recent debris-related fatalities at the 93 mile marker on the interstate.

And he watches the traffic, reflecting on driving habits that will begin his next investigation.

"The majority of it is speed-related," he said. "They're going too fast and don't realize how quick things are going to happen."

Just then, a guy in a truck pulled over ¯ to complain about a ticket he'd gotten the other day.

"I'm going to give you some reality...," Rudd said, advising the man the best he could.

At least this time, he didn't have to call the morgue.