On a Friday afternoon I woke up early to get a drink. I usually get around 6 hours of sleep between night shifts but on that day, I woke up in the midafternoon and wasn't sure if I would be able to go back to sleep. So, I did what everyone does when they suffer from insomnia, I checked my phone. Both Facebook and Reddit were uninteresting, my email however was a different story.

The email that got my attention was regarding a stabbing onsite at a pharmacy in the mall. It made me sit up - it's an unusual call for my team to attend. A lot of scenarios went through my head and I wondered about the fate of the victim as well at the whereabouts of the suspect. Since there was no mention of a suspect, I assumed that they ran away and felt better that my team was safe but I was concerned for the victim and wondered what my team would have to endure to save their life.

I had only slept about 3 hours but I knew that the team that was on needed relief so I started getting ready to go in early. After a quick shower and something to eat I left my wife for the night and she was left wondering why she didn't marry an accountant. The train ride to work is usually a peaceful time which I enjoy, I usually listen to music and read but I found it hard to relax as I prepared myself for what might be waiting when I got there.

I arrived 2 hours earlier than my normal start time and walked in the back entrance to change before saying hello to anyone. The atmosphere was the same as usual and I didn't see any members of the team to get briefed from, it was nice but it felt like the last bit of calm before the storm.

When I got to the office, I found a team of investigators in our dispatch centre and the supervisor's office. Mike who was a supervisor at the time was working in the office and answering questions for the police, he was surprised and grateful to see me. I asked about the state of the team and he told me that some of them were sent home early and others weren't doing well. I could see a pile of uniforms in garbage bags for disposal which were soaked in blood. I made my way around the team to offer support and provide them with a number for counselling services and then went back to the office for briefing with Mike.

From what I was briefed, a female was shopping in the pharmacy when a second female walked up and stabbed her directly in the heart with a small ceramic paring knife. The suspect then walked away into the mall as if nothing had happened. The victim stumbled around the isle until she fell over, she pulled the knife out of herself while lying on the floor. Her screaming was heard and got the attention of store employees who called Security. When security arrived, they began CPR and packing the wound but she was bleeding out quickly. Paramedics arrived within minutes and ran the stretcher back to the ambulance. She was taken to the hospital and was in critical condition.

Our team remained at the scene securing the crime scene until the police forensic team could collect evidence and take photos. Investigators had been on site since the incident viewing camera footage from both the pharmacy and the mall. The police were winding down their investigation but there was one question everyone had; where was the suspect? She could be seen leaving the pharmacy and rounding a corner out of camera view but wasn't picked up again at the end of the corridor by the next camera, she had simply disappeared.

Mike needed to go home; you could see it in his eyes. He had done all he could, so I told him to leave and took over. The investigators told me that they had seen all they needed and that they wanted the existing footage burned to a disk for them and the rest of the footage scoured for her movements prior to the stabbing and more importantly, after. The police (along with everyone else) were working a theory that this was a crime of passion committed by a jealous ex of the victims love interest, we were determined to find evidence of a targeted attack by this woman. At that time, I had lots of camera review experience and had no doubt that I would find the information they needed, I got to work.

The suspect was younger woman who was very well dressed. She was wearing a black suit jacket and skirt with polished black boots and was carrying a few shopping bags. Her delicate features wore her makeup well and her black hair was straightened which fell beautifully down onto her thin shoulders. Her mannerisms appeared sophisticated and she struggled to blend in among the average office worker that populated the mall. She was truthfully very pretty and everyone questioned her involvement early on in the investigation.

I started by burning the known footage of her movements while in the mall. She sat on a bench for a while and then wandered around seemingly aimlessly until she went into the bathroom for a few seconds while she got the knife out of her purse and entered the pharmacy. One minute later she walked out into the mall as calmly as she entered and turned the corner out of camera view. While I was thankful that I couldn't actually see the stabbing on camera, I knew that what happened when she walked into that pharmacy. This weighed heavily on me. High definition footage isn't compact and it took about an hour to output and burn.

Next, I wanted to find out what I could about her movements. Where did she come from? The answer became a bit complicated. I could see her come from an entrance in the mall but staying in line with my standard viewing practice I watched the entrance for an additional 10 minutes and saw that she had just previously exited a few minutes prior. When she came back in, she was holding a branded paper coffee cup which I knew had a location a block away but she wasn't gone long enough to get there, order coffee, and return. I'm not sure where she got the coffee from but it wasn't from the coffee shop.

Prior to her exiting she spent some time sitting on the same bench where she was just before the assault. I thought that maybe she was sitting there waiting for her victim but she didn't appear to be looking around.

Prior to that she entered from a mall entrance however further viewing revealed that she had exited a few minutes prior, and so it went. Each time I would have her near the entrance I would see her exiting a few minutes prior. It seemed like she had been in or around mall for over an hour. Tracking her proved very difficult because of her unpredictable movements. She did not appear to be waiting for anyone and in fact I was not able to find the victim and suspect on the same camera at any time during the review. They even entered the pharmacy via different entrances. At this point I was beginning to switch gears and no longer believed it was a targeted attack. I saved everything I could.

The suspect wasn't in custody yet and we didn't know who she was, I really wanted to concentrate on where she went after the stabbing. I was hoping that we could see her use a card in the mall or enter a vehicle. The problem is that when she turned the corner and didn't end up predictably in frame on the next camera, there were several possible directions she could have gone in including the way she came. This became my obsession.

I watched her round the corner dozens of times hoping to see something different but it was always the same. She walked out of the pharmacy, turned the corner where she presumably walked in a straight line. By the time that she should have walked into the next frame two security guards who were already responding to the stabbing were walking towards her and would have had to pass her in close proximity. I wonder if they scared her and she changed directions which is why she didn't move predictably.

There were 11 different cameras that needed to be reviewed in order to find out where she went. If a person sits down and waits even 5 minutes to exit which breaks up the flow of the camera viewing it can be extremely difficult to find them when they finally move into the next frame. If you lose sight of a subject during viewing you rely on picking them up further down the line but if too much time goes by without a positive result viewing fatigue sets in, I call this potato eye. She could have sat down in an off-camera restaurant for hours and I would have no way of knowing. The advantage is very much to the suspect in this situation. Each of the 11 cameras would have to be viewed for literal hours in order to be sure she wasn't missed. This is what I did alongside my staff for the next several shifts.

In total I personally spent around 30 hours reviewing footage of a busy mall. My eyes turned into starchy potatoes and viewing fatigue was strong. To this day I still have no idea where she went when she turned that corner. I gave what information I could to the police but I am not sure that I helped.

Four days later she was identified on the news. The staff were shocked to find out that we actually knew her. She had been banned earlier in the year from a facility onsite and spent her nights in a nearby coffee shop on her laptop, we all frequented that coffee shop and saw her regularly. It took less than 24 hours for her to be arrested.

Morale was high and for a brief moment the team began to feel a calming as the pieces came together for healing and recovery, but two days later the victim succumb to her injuries in hospital and left behind a husband which she had married a few months prior.

It was heavy blow to everyone who was part of the story. That scene didn't just belong to the security guards that responded, it belonged to the staff and customers of the pharmacy, the paramedics, the police, the cleaners and everyone who frequents that area. We are all reminded of the life that was lost that day and the small part we played.

The suspect spent several years in and out of psychiatric facilities to determine if she was mentally fit to stand trial. In the end she was found guilty but not criminally responsible for the murder. The victim was said to have been chosen completely at random and was a sacrifice made to appease voices in her head which told her that the government was watching. Today the suspect has been granted supervised visits in society and is moving on with her life like the rest of us. An unsatisfying end to a tragic story.

What did I learn? - Don't let your judgements gather evidence. Sometimes patience doesn't pay off. Some endings are less satisfying than others, but sometimes the end isn't satisfying regardless. Bad things happen to people, all we can do is our part to make things right.