8-11-07

"Recognizing Modern Heroes:

In remembrance of Madeline Isabel Madison"

Interview

'When Madison walked into a room' comments from friends:

Special Agent Seeley Booth (Madison's work partner and boyfriend): "When Maddy walked into a room, she lit it up. I could be close to yelling at someone and then she'd come in and everything just shifted. Getting even with someone or putting them in their place didn't matter anymore, all my attention was on her. When she left I'd get this urge to follow her, because where ever she was everything seemed ok."

Lynne Spencer (Madison's co-worker and friend since childhood): "Maddy has this calming effect on you when she walks into a room. Her whole life she's always been the one to mediate fights and reprimand people when they swear and stuff like that. She'd get pretty mad sometimes if everyone around her was fighting. So when she comes in it's like, 'Oh, Maddy's here, time to chill.' We calm down even if we don't want to, and then we feel better."

Dr. Temperance Brennan (Madison's boss): "Even though I was her boss, Madeline and I were friends as well. She definitely brightened up the room when she walked in. She was a joy in the work place. I think that every room that Madeline walked in to still has a piece of her there, watching over us."

On intimate relationships:

Special Agent Seeley Booth: "I'm not comfortable with disclosing any 'intimate' details about how Maddy was in a relationship. I won't disrespect her now, even if she isn't here to get mad about it. But on a less intimate note, she was the perfect lover. With her, it was all about the little things like calling to check up on each other or making a special dinner for me when I had a rough day. These things never lessened between us over time.
"When she woke up in the morning, she always had this confused look for a second or two like she couldn't remember where she was. She looked like an angel that had just dropped out of heaven. It was unbelievably adorable."

Dr. Jack Hodgins (Madison's co-work): "I never formally dated Maddy, but we did have a bit of a fling back when she first came to the Jeffersonian [the Institution where Madison worked. It was nothing like what she had with Booth, just flirting mostly. We realized we were better off as just friends, but before that I did get a glimpse into the romantic side of her.
"Maddy was very intelligent, but she was also incredibly naïve. She really had no street smarts beyond the basic 'don't take candy from strangers'. I think that's what infuriated Booth the most about her during the first half of their relationship before they became intimate. Booth has major protective instincts over people close to him and when they started working together, there's really no other way to put it, he got a crush on her. We all watched it happen, every one of us at the Jeffersonian. We were almost on the verge of making bets about when they'd actually start dating before it actually happened. I think that Booth saw her as untouchable at first. You know, since she was a co-worker. And also, Maddy had a touch of innocence about her. Ok, more than a touch. She still got hurt when people were mean to her and she got scared really easily, which are things you don't see in many of the over confident woman today. So she and Booth played this game for months. When they finally got together, they really deserved each other."

Special Agent Seeley Booth: "I guess that Maddy was the object of my affections and desires for a long time before I told her so. It took a lot of work on my end to get her to open up to me, but I think it took more work on her's. As you already know, she went through a lot when she was younger. She lost her entire family when she was twelve, and the shit she went through after that was unbelievable.

"Our relationship hadn't lasted very long before she passed away. We were really just getting started."

In her work and as a co-worker:

Dr. Zack Addy: "Maddy was my best friend. She was great to work with. The first day she came to work at the Jeffersonian, she came up to me and just started talking. But not just talking, asking too. People rarely ask me about myself and my opinion. I found it refreshing."

Lynne Spencer: "Maddy definitely had major walls built up. That started when she was put into the foster care system, and it increased as we got older and started to see what was out there in the world. But it never stopped her from making friends.

"Maddy had this thing she did. When you first met her she didn't seem defensive at all. She was always the first one to reach out to the new person and make them feel welcome. The way she talked to people and let them share how they felt about things was very sweet.
"We worked together, she and I. We both did facial reconstructions. I would reconstruct skeletal features on the computer from skulls we were given, and then she would draw the faces. It was a great set up. Eventually we had labs other than the Jeffersonian paying us to do their reconstructions as well."

Dr. Temperance Brennan: "Maddy was a truly brilliant artist. Her drawings brought life to the faces of hundreds of murder victims. When she teamed up with Agent Booth, they were unstoppable."

Special Agent Seeley Booth: "Working with Maddy was...eye opening. It's amazing to see someone so passionate about doing the right thing, yet keep it in balance with everything else in her life. I had done some partner work before her, but only for short periods. None of them were like her. When I first met her and my boss told me we'd be working together, I was a bit wary. I don't always play well with others, and being stuck with a woman all day that I had to actually work with was not at the top of my list of life goals. That was the first out of many times that Maddy proved me wrong. We were on this four hour rode trip to a crime scene out in the middle of nowhere one day and traffic was horrible. So I was sitting there about ready to start shouting and swearing at the cars in front of me and Maddy starts talking. Before I knew it she had got me betting quarters about what kind of people were driving the cars in front of us. She had a way of distracting you from whatever mindset you swore to yourself you were going to stay in.
"When it came to our actual cases, she was brilliant. I still don't know exactly how she did it, but she solved almost every single case before I had a chance to comprehend it. When we'd go out to interview people she'd hang back and let me do the talking, occasionally she'd ask a question of her own but mostly she'd listen. Then in the car on the way back, she'd sit and think. It was like her mind was going over every single detail about the case until she had formed an orderly list of all the possible suspects and murder scenarios. Then we'd go over them together until we figured it out."

In regards to the circumstances of her death:

Special Agent Seeley Booth: "We were going in to arrest Daryl Manners for first degree murder charges. He was located in an abandoned warehouse and we decided to head in that night. Maddy and I left a little after 9:00 pm. We always did this together. We could have called in a SWAT team to meet us there, but we didn't think it was necessary. It was just one man who wasn't expecting us. We thought he didn't pose a threat. That was horribly wrong. She and I went in, both wearing Kevlar vests and carrying guns. I went first. After kicking the door in, I ordered Manners to show himself. I told him that we were armed and if he came quietly nobody would get hurt. When he didn't come out we started scoping out the building. I kept her behind me the entire time, thinking I was keeping her safer that way. That was a mistake too.

"We had covered three or four rooms when I heard this weird sound behind me. I guess it was a sort of strangled gasp. I turned around and Manners had Maddy in a death grip. Then it was like everything started going in slow motion, but it went by really fast at the same time. I had my gun aimed at him and said I'd shoot if he didn't let her go. As all the criminals do, he put her in front of him, thinking it would keep me from shooting. That's the mistake they all make. They think I won't shoot because I might hit the person in front of them, but I was a sniper. I always hit what I'm aiming for. None of that mattered this time, though. He was holding a remote detonator is his left hand. In his right he had a knife that was hovering dangerously close to Maddy's neck. Manners let me know that the detonator was directed to a bomb which was planted in the club that was half a mile away. It's one of the most popular in town, and it was a Friday night. It would be packed with innocent people, and our close friend Lynne Spencer.

To Be Continued...