Dover Chief of Police Richard Flynn arrived just prior to the removal of the body to the McGill Funeral Home. Inspector Rowe accompanied the ambulance to that location. Inspector Redden remained at the scene to begin an inventory of possible evidence and to supervise the taking of fingerprints from the locations determined to have been involved in the death. He also made a search of the exterior of the building. Footprints were found that corresponded to the entry search made by Elwell. There were also footprints that would have been made by Dodge when he made his rounds of two exterior buildings. There did not appear to have been any activity by any others. Back in the building, the taking of photographs continued; individual items thought to be related to the death were identified and bagged for further examination. (Because the murder had occurred on Friday the 1st, prior to the weekend, there was no immediate coverage of the event in Foster’s. The headlines and details of the investigation did not appear until the Monday edition, several days after the fact.)

At some point, as was standard procedure in murder cases, the New Hampshire attorney general’s office had been notified, and Deputy AG Henry Spaloss arrived at the funeral home to supervise the overall investigation. He and Young discussed the possibility of engaging a forensic pathologist from the Boston area, but after several unsuccessful calls to locate someone who could respond, it was decided to proceed. Inspector Rowe and Deputy Sheriff England took additional photos of the body, both black-and-white and color, creating a visual record of the procedure. Several of the individuals involved attended the autopsy: Rowe, England, Spaloss, and Roger Beaudoin, a member of the New Hampshire State Police.

Paul Young, the medical examiner, initially identified six wounds, four in the chest and two in the neck area. He discovered a substantial quantity of blood in the chest cavity. One bullet had severed an artery at the top of the heart, which would have led to Dodge’s death. Further into the exam, however, he confirmed only the four chest wounds. One of those had entered at an angle, “went underneath the skin and exited in the neck region, eventually causing the second superficial flesh wound in that area.” Young was having difficulty locating the bullets, so late in the afternoon the ambulance was recalled, and the body was transferred to Wentworth-Douglass Hospital for X-rays, supervised by Dr. Bixby. That exam identified the location of three bullets; the fourth — the one that had exited the neck — was never found. The three were identified as having come from a .22-caliber weapon. The body was returned to McGill, and the autopsy was finally completed around 8 p.m. Based on the condition of the body, and considering Dodge’s log showing he had completed his rounds of the buildings at 11:30, Young estimated the time of death to have been just short of midnight.

While the autopsy was taking place, the investigation continued at Kidder Press. A partial list of items that were collected and later personally delivered to the FBI by Inspector Redden for analysis: a shirt showing gunpowder residue; hair samples (some of which were determined to be human, some dog hair); blood samples (identified as Type B, but the source not determined); a button likely from a green shirt not worn by Dodge; and the blanket that was covering the body when it was found. The bullets recovered during the autopsy were confirmed as coming from a .22-caliber weapon. The FBI report, dated Feb. 8, carried the signature of J. Edgar Hoover, addressed to Richard Flynn, Dover’s chief. One additional product of the investigation was a series of hand-drawn, though not to scale, diagrams of the hallway, the snack room, and adjacent areas, showing the relative locations of doorways, access points, equipment, etc. Then, later in the afternoon, still on the 2nd, a call from the Portsmouth PD. Dodge’s vehicle had been located in the High Hanover Parking Garage. Arrangements were made to have this returned to Dover, and the interior was searched for possible clues as to the person who had stolen it from the Kidder Press lot. A number of items were removed and forwarded to the state lab for examination: armrests, the outside mirrors, the chrome gas cap, and the contents of the glove compartment, which were found strewn about the floor of the front seats. The missing keys, those from the vehicle and those cut from Dodge’s belt, were not found within the vehicle.

(to be continued)