The Death of Annie McCann

Annie was a 16 year old from Fairfax County, VA. On October 31st
2008, Annie failed to make contact with her parents at the end of
the school day. Upon returning home, Annie's father received an
automated telephone message from the school saying that Annie had
never arrived at school that morning. Two days later on November 2,
a person discovered Annie's lifeless body behind a dumpster, in the
housing projects of Perkins Homes which is a high-crime Baltimore
neighborhood over 50 miles away from Annie's hometown. At that
point the investigation became the responsibility of the Baltimore
Police Department, who were certain they were dealing with a
homicide despite reporting "no signs of physical trauma" on the
body. Among the garbage detectives located another item: an empty
bottle of Bactine spray, with the lid removed. Another piece of
evidence surfaced a few days later. Annie's white Volvo was found
abandoned at a nearby gas station with no immediate signs of a
struggle. Police were able to lift a single smeared print from the
car, which they quickly matched to a known offender in their
database: a local teenager named Darnell Kinlaw. During his
interrogation, Darnell claimed that he and a few of his friends had
found the Volvo with Annie inside by chance, and decided to take it
for a joyride after depositing her body behind the dumpster where
she was later found. He insisted that Annie was already deceased by
the time they came across the vehicle and has consistently
maintains to this day that neither he, nor his friends, had any
involvement in her disappearance or death. Police carefully
scrutinized the empty Bactine bottle that was found alongside her
body. Even more significantly, Annie's DNA was found on the open
rim, yet her fingerprints were nowhere to be found anywhere on the
bottle. The manner of death was ruled a suicide. Learn more about
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