VOL. 52, ISSUE 14 | FEBURARY 2, 2011
Mace & Crown Student newspaper of Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, since 1930
www.maceandcrown.com
ODU student finds body at MacArthur Center Mall Police Rule Fall Suicide by Diane Dougherty Arts & Entertainment Editor
Sunday, Jan. 23, 2011 became one of the most bizarre and intense days of Brian Whitney’s life. Whitney, a senior at ODU, works a part-time job at the Apple store in Norfolk’s MacArthur Center Mall. When arriving to work early that Sunday morning, around 9:30, Whitney ran into a co-worker while walking down the stairs from the third floor towards the mall entrance on the second level. His co-worker mentioned he saw something or someone farther down the parking garage and wanted Whitney to go take a look with him. As they proceeded farther into the garage, they began to realize that it was in fact a body lying there and they began to run towards it. Once they arrived, standing over the body, the first thing they noticed was the pilepool of blood the body was laying in. There was a pool of blood around his head and they could tell it was starting to seep towards the rest of the body. “It took us a while to register our thoughts, our hands were shaking; it was such an intense moment,””, said Whitney. Whitney immediately called the police to report their findings. The first thing the dispatcher asked them to do was to identify the person’s gender and race. They could identify the body as male but there was so much blood covering the body’s hands, and the male’s hood was covering his head, sothat they couldn’t
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tell the race right away. Whitney had to circle around the body so he could see his face; finally he was able to identify the body as a young looking white male. The body was lying face down and its arms were positioned above its head. “The position of the body looked odd, I didn’t really know what to make of it,” said Whitney. ”, Tthey also couldn’t tell what part of the body the blood was coming from. Mall security was the first to arrive. “I think what bothered me most was when mall security told us they had made their rounds on this level just 15 minutes ago and hadn’t seen anything. All I kept thinking was whether this had happened right when I was parking my car,.” said Whitney. When Norfolk Ppolice arrived on the scene they took both Whitney and his co-workers information like their name, telephone numbers, and where in the mall they worked. The police told them they could go to work and they’d contact them if they needed anything else. Shortly after they returned to work, the cops came into the Apple store and pulled the boys back out into the parking garage. They asked them for a statement and were then approached by detectives who wanted to hear their stories as well. Apple decided it would be best to send them home for the rest of the day, seeing how what they had just been through had really shaken them. Although Whitney believed foul play could have been the result to this individual’s death, police have classified it as a suicide after the medical examiner was able to study the body. The male’s name and information has not yet been released.