Two British papers covered the same awful story today: Elisabeth-Jane Ross, a 38-year-old Scottish charity worker, found dead inside a suitcase in an abandoned lot in Athens. The Guardian's headline asks a question — "'Who could have done this?' Mystery over Briton found dead in a suitcase in Athens." The Mirror's headline answers it, with scare quotes: "'Aggressive' man named as 'prime suspect' after Brit woman found stuffed in suitcase in Greece." * Here's what the people actually investigating have said, per the Guardian's reporting from the scene: pathology was inconclusive, there were no evident injuries and no sign of struggle, DNA analysis of the suitcase "had not produced any evidence that could be linked to a suspect," and police have stopped short of calling the death a murder. A police spokesperson went as far as: "There is always the possibility that she died and then for some reason was hidden." That is an investigation saying, out loud, we don't know yet. * Now reread the Mirror's verb. "Stuffed." One syllable that quietly asserts everything the police won't: that there was a perpetrator, that it was violent, that this was a crime and not — as investigators themselves allow — a death followed by a panicked hiding. "Found dead in a suitcase" is what's known. "Stuffed in a suitcase" is a story. And by the second paragraph, Elisabeth-Jane Ross has become "Lisa," because tabloid grief is always on a first-name basis. * And the "'prime suspect'" who's been "named"? He's 'Markos' — no surname — a homeless man in his 40s who is "said to be" a heavy drinker, "allegedly has a reputation for being aggressive," and is "heavily covered in tattoos." Every clause on stilts, and the whole profile credited, twice, "according to the Mail" — one tabloid citing another tabloid citing an anonymous police source. Best of all, the Mirror prints that source's actual words: "We have a lead on a homeless man. We want to question a particular individual, but we are also looking for a number of other people." That is a police source politely declining to say 'prime suspect' — inside the article whose headline says 'prime suspect.' * Look at what that profile is made of: homeless, tattooed, drinks, 'aggressive.' No alleged act, no evidence, no charge — the description convicts a category of person, not a person. Worth noting who else belongs to that category in this story: the man who found the suitcase and did the right thing by calling the police was also homeless. And Ross herself, both papers report, had spent years in Greece working with the homeless. The only people the Mirror's shorthand has room to suspect are the people she went there to help. * Maybe 'Markos' knows something. Maybe he doesn't exist beyond a Mail source's composite. Either way, the honest version of this story is the Guardian's: a mystery, being investigated. Until the toxicology and the CCTV come back, "found dead" is reporting. "Stuffed" is a verdict — rendered by a subeditor, upheld by nobody.