She Lied She Died

“What news? I haven’t seen it,” I said, voice barely above a whisper.

The other faces in the crowd slowly materialized like old ghosts; I recognized a few of my former classmates and Jenny’s brother in the crowd. My heart sank with guilt when I saw him. Although I’d seen most of the others around town, I hadn’t seen him in years. I’d heard that he moved away.

As a kid, whenever Mom or I would see Jenny’s family in town after the murder, we’d avert our eyes. Try to make ourselves invisible. Not because we blamed them, of course, but because we didn’t know what to say … what can you say to someone who’s lost a loved one that way? And perhaps, there was also a nasty little sliver inside us, that selfish part that worried their tragedy might become ours. That somehow it was contagious … in the same way people avoided me and my home because of what happened here…

Unfortunately for us, avoiding the Juliotts didn’t do us any good because look at what happened to Jack.

So, as Mike Juliott stepped forward, I forced myself to meet his gaze. He was her brother—if anyone had a right to be here it was him.

Mike cleared his throat. “Didn’t you hear? They’re letting that monster out. Bitch got paroled. Chrissy Cornwall is coming home.”

Chapter Three

Chrissy Cornwall is coming home. Five words I thought I’d never hear.

Mike Juliott’s mid-morning announcement rolled over and back in my gullet as I scraped watery eggs onto my plate and buttered two pieces of toast.

It was Thursday, which meant I had the day off (a pretty shitty day to have off, I admit), but I was up early anyway.

No matter how late my mother stayed up at night, she always rose for the day by 5am. As a kid, her early-morning antics had irritated me no end—on weekends, I’d tried to sleep in, but then I’d hear her: banging pots in the kitchen, boiling tea by the light of the moon.

One time I asked her why she did it—what is the point of it all?

“I used to sleep in like you do, but then I realized that I feel better about myself when I wake up early. There’s no guilt, and it makes for a good night’s rest.”

At the time, it sounded stupid.

But as an adult, I understood.

There is nothing worse than lying in bed at night with regrets and getting up early to accomplish everything I need to do reduces that slightly.

I munched my toast, ate a spoonful of eggs, then chugged half a cup of coffee. There was a list of things I needed to do—grocery shopping, laundry, etc.

But all I could think about was Chrissy Cornwall.

Could it be true?

When they sentenced her to life, we all assumed that meant she would stay in prison for “life”.

I understood why Mike was angry; he had every right to be. And the other people … well, most of the townsfolk had children, and I could understand why they didn’t want a murderer in town.

But my heart was in knots about it, my feelings mixed. Chrissy was fifteen when she got locked up. That must make her, what? Forty-five or forty-six?

Thinking back to who I was at fifteen versus who I was now … so many things had changed.

But at the same time, nothing has.

I was still the same girl deep inside, only now my mousy brown hair was streaked with gray, my face a spider web of wrinkles and broken blood vessels.

And as I looked around the same dingy kitchen from my childhood, with its peeling daisy wallpaper and cock-a-doodle-doo plaques on the wall … I felt more certain than ever that time was standing still.

I’m still here. Still me. I never thought I would be stuck in the same place, but I am. And if I haven’t changed much, has Chrissy? Do any of us … really?

I left as soon as I had the chance, right after my high school graduation. I had big dreams of going to college and becoming a writer, and I fulfilled one of those—I worked a tough package-handling job that helped pay for my tiny apartment and covered the school expenses that my student loans didn’t. I sacrificed my social life and moved to a college town in neighboring Kentucky where I had no family, no friends… I thought I’d have plenty of time for the fun stuff after college. But then Jack happened and somehow, I was back where I started—doing nothing with my degree, and just as lonely (if not more) here than I ever had been.

Yes, I had changed. It was hard not to after all that I’d gone through. And for the sake of Austin, I hoped Chrissy had changed too.

If she was really coming home, the town would be buzzing with it soon.

They already are, I realized, circling back to those ghoulish faces I’d seen in the field last night.

I scrubbed my dish and fork with soap and water, then left them to dry in the sink. Taking my coffee with me, I trudged up the stairs to my office. It had been so long since I’d turned on my computer, since I’d felt the punchy feel of my keys.

I missed writing. But mostly, I missed the hope I’d held onto for so long—that one day I’d produce a great book. I wrote every night in my little apartment in Kentucky, mostly fiction—in the small gaps of time between work and school. I’d tried pitching some of my ideas to small publishers and agents, but without any luck.

Since coming home ten years ago, I’d been unable to write much of anything. Austin was, essentially, uninspiring.

My fingers glided effortlessly across the keyboard, typing Chrissy’s name in the Google search bar. I shivered despite the heat of my coffee—is the furnace going out? Why is it so damn cold in October?

It had been years since I’d checked up on Chrissy or researched the Juliott murder. As a teen and young adult, I’d been obsessed, and the invention of the internet had been both a blessing and a curse—it provided a wider window for my obsession and provided access to the horrors I’d tried—and failed—to forget.

The crime scene photos online were eerie. Some fake, but most of them real. And like the photos, the stories were a mix—conspiracy theories, repetitive summaries of the case. Podcasts and articles were helpful, and addictive, but the story was too complex for a six-paragraph op-ed.

It’s not like the story hadn’t been written—it had: twice. Little Angel in the Field and Evil in Austin had flown off the shelves. I’d dreamed of writing the story myself—who better than me?—but I’d never been able to get past the first few pages. After all, everything had already been written… What more do I have to add to the discussion? And what do I really know about writing true crime?

Several news articles filled my screen: the headline Child Killer Released caught my eye immediately.

Child Killer Released. It wasn’t a lie exactly—but it was a double entendre. Yes, Chrissy had murdered a kid—but what the headline failed to capture was the fact that she had been a kid herself when she did it. Did the person writing this intend for the reader to feel confused? Is Chrissy a child killer, or a child who killed? She’s both, I reminded myself. Both.

I scrolled and scrolled, reading more: Jenny Juliott’s Killer Released from Indiana Women’s Prison. I focused on another article instead, one with a more gripping headline: Something Wicked This Way Comes: The Monster Returns to Austin.

I clicked, immediately recognizing the article’s author, Adrianna Montgomery: class president, town know-it-all, and senior columnist of the Austin Gazette.

She’d been standing in the dark amongst the others last night, her eyes judging me as they had for years…

Once upon a time, we had been best of friends. But that all changed after Jenny. Adrianna’s parents had fallen into the category of people who tried to avoid our family and our house as much as possible. Adrianna was no longer allowed to come over, and at school, she avoided me there too. Even now, when I saw her in town, there was this wall between us … something dark and hard. Impenetrable. I hated her for turning her back on me, for standing back while the others at school teased me about the farm and what happened there. And now, seeing her flourishing as a journalist made me cringe with jealousy.

I read the first few lines of her article:

It’s been thirty years since the beloved Jenny Juliott was brutally sacrificed on the Breyas Farm. It feels like only yesterday to those who loved her. So, imagine the shock and outrage we all felt when we heard the news: Chrissy Cornwall is getting out of prison. What sort of failing system lets a monster like her out after only thirty years? Townspeople should take to the streets, petition the mayor—

I minimized the screen, rubbing my eyes in annoyance. The article was bullshit. Adrianna Montgomery had been my age when the murder happened. She didn’t know the beloved Jenny any more than I did. And calling her murder a ‘sacrifice’ made it sound like something from the occult. The murder didn’t even happen on our property … she was dumped here.

Any minute now, the field will be crawling with reporters … hunting witches in Austin. Thanks a lot, Adrianna.

I clicked on another article, this one national news from Crime Times. I waited for the grainy image to load, tapping the desk impatiently.

When it did, I gasped.

It was a split shot—on the left, a mugshot of Chrissy with her jet-black hair and hypnotic blue eyes. I’d seen this photo a million times over the years—she had grinned in her arrest photo, exposing gapped front teeth and her feral demeanor. Little shocks of white in her hair gave her an ethereal quality.

She looked like a maniac.

But the photo on the right was something else entirely … it showed a middle-aged woman, with stringy salt-and-pepper hair and sad gunmetal-gray eyes being escorted out of prison. This time, when Chrissy’s eyes met the camera, she hadn’t smiled.

She looked downright sad and ashamed. Defeated.

I maximized the image, studying the woman that I hadn’t seen in years—there had been a few photos from prison, but nothing in more than a decade. Supposedly, she had denied all interviews with the press after her trial.

There were no traces of the girl in the woman. Where did she go?

Her jowls were thicker, her chin whiskery … and she’d put on nearly fifty pounds. It was hard to correlate the wild teen in the mug shot with this sad old woman beside her.

Skipping over the article itself, I typed in the search bar: Where is Chrissy Cornwall moving to in Austin.

I didn’t expect to find an answer—surely, she’d try to keep her address private. And I knew she wasn’t moving back to her childhood home by the creek because it had been abandoned for years now, her deadbeat parents skipping town for good and local teens trashing the place during midnight drunk dares to visit the murderer’s house…

But my search provided an immediate hit. Not only was her address online, but also the addresses for every living relative of hers in the country.

Someone had discovered her location, essentially doxing her.

4840 Willow Run Road.

Stunned, I settled back in my chair, reading the address over and over again. Not only was Chrissy coming home, but she was moving less than a mile from here. It made sense why she’d picked it; Austin was a small farming community, but most people lived in the center business district of town. She was moving to the outskirts near me—the place where outcasts reside.

Is she already there? Already moved in? I wondered. The thought of her being so close, breathing the same recycled air as me, made my stomach twist with unease.

I did another search, trying to figure out when she had been released exactly. I got an instant hit—they let her out two days ago.

Willow Run Road was a long road, but I guessed she was moving into one of the trailers people sold or rented out there. Who is paying for her place? I wondered. Somebody must be.

With a sideways glance out the window, I looked on as reporters grazed through my field like wide-eyed cows.

I didn’t even hear them pull in.

A flash of cold white skin, those bulgy gray eyes…

I stood up and went to the window, lowering the blinds.

The monster is back.

But is she a monster … or simply misunderstood? What truly motivated her crime that day? My thoughts were stuck on those two words: child killer.

Even now, a small part of me was filled with doubt. The violence of it … it didn’t seem like something a kid would do. It had never made sense to me.

Most of the conspiracy theories I’d read online were bogus—there were people who believed she was framed, some blaming her parents, Jenny’s brother … even a few who mentioned my brother or parents.

But her guilt was never in question. After all, she confessed to the crime.

And yet, I’d always felt like there was something more … a missing link to the story. Something more than a silly crush on a boy had to have motivated such violence…

The media had lost interest in the case over the years, but I had a feeling with her recent release, the cycle would begin again.

If I’m going to write the story, now is the time.

But what is there to say that hasn’t already been hashed over a million times? The only person who can tell me more is Chrissy herself.

Determinedly, I took a seat in front of the computer and pulled up Microsoft Word. I started typing a letter, but then, changing my mind, I opened a drawer, taking out thick tan sheets of stationery and a ballpoint pen.

Handwritten is more personal.

Head bent low, I began crafting a letter to a killer.

The chances of Chrissy Cornwall agreeing to speak with me were slim to none, but what did I have to lose?

So, imagine my surprise when, a few days later, she showed up at my front door.

Chapter Four

Icy cold breaths crackled the morning air and I shivered, clutching the thick gray quilt to my chest. That damn furnace … it has to be like, what? Fifty degrees in here?

My shift didn’t start until noon and after my late-night scrolling on subreddit about the case, I needed an extra hour or two of sleep…

I closed my eyes, teeth chattering despite the heavy blanket.

My eyes fluttered open again as I heard the panic-inducing thumps at the front door. Even now, thirty years later, the sounds of knocking disturbed me. Reporters, cops … you never knew who would turn up at the Breyas farm.

Ignore them.

I scurried deeper under the blankets, covering my mouth and nose. Squeezing my eyes shut as I tried to keep my nerves at bay…

But the thumping grew louder. More determined.

Fuck.

And there was something else too … the buzz and whine of voices. I pushed the covers back, listening.

There’s more than one person out there.

The whir of voices grew louder, until there was no mistaking it: people were shouting.

I threw the covers off with a low growl and stumbled out of my parents’ old bed.

The wood floors felt like patches of ice beneath my bare feet as I tiptoed to the front living room, trying not to make a sound.

“What are your plans here? How do you know Natalie Breyas?” A nervous rush of fear at the sound of my own name lodged in my chest and throat. Breathlessly, I pressed my ear to the thick wooden door, struggling to interpret the buzz of what could only be an angry hive of reporters outside.

A sick trickle of fear came over me as I had a flash of memory—my dad in the doorway, cameras flashing in his eyes … he’d reached for one of the cameras, hands tangling with the reporter instead, and as I’d watched the incident unfold on the local news, I’d been filled with horror and shame. My dad’s reaction to the reporters had been understandable, but not to them … Is Robert Breyas a violent man? What does he have to hide? That’s what the next day’s headlines had read.

They had wanted to make him look bad. And they succeeded.

They also succeeded in driving my mother away. She was never the same after that, and finally she left us for good, at a time in my life when I needed her most.

I yelped as another bang vibrated through my cheek and ricocheted through my skull.

Whoever was on the other side wasn’t giving up.

Remembering my dad’s regrettable fury, I composed myself, smoothing licks of wild hair from my face and wiping residue from last night’s mascara from my cheeks.

“Evil bitch!” That was a man’s voice, a booming rasp of pure hatred.

Before I could change my mind, I unlatched the deadbolt and swung the front door open. Morning sunlight and the flash of a dozen cameras bombarded me, and temporarily, I was blind. Shielding my face, I squinted out at the hazy crowds of people and the mess of news vans tearing up my front yard.

But they all faded to static … background noise … because leaning against the side of my house, head ducked protectively to her chest, was someone I recognized. In the dusty haze of cold morning light, she looked almost … celestial. Head lifted, her eyes raising to meet mine…

She opened her mouth and said, “Hello. I’m Chrissy Cornwall.”

Chapter Five

As though I didn’t already know that. How could I not? I’d studied her face … dreamed of it, even.

Once again, I was baffled by her appearance. On TV a few days ago, she had looked old and pitiful. Some might even say regretful.

But now, face red and rageful, jaw jumping in her cheek … she looked like the feral woman from before.

“Who the fuck do they think they are, huh? I did my time. And I’m still doing it! They surround Dennis’s trailer night and day, banging on the window like vultures. That has to be a crime, doesn’t it? Harassment, or something?!”

I couldn’t respond. Couldn’t breathe.

Chrissy Cornwall, convicted child killer and killer of children, was standing in the center of my living room, hands on her hips like she owned the place. Unknowingly, I had backed myself into a corner of the room, arms crossed over my chest and backside pressed against a wobbly bookshelf that housed dozens of true crime novels. Including the two that featured none other than Chrissy herself.

Chrissy was tall and broad-shouldered—larger than she’d looked in her photos. She unraveled a soft blue scarf from around her neck, endlessly twisting, then plucked a matching wool hat off her head. I watched as she shook out her shiny long locks of hair—it had been washed recently, the scent of jasmine floating through the air. Her hair had also been dyed—the wiry black hair with the silvery streaks was gone, replaced with an odd attempt at going blonde that gave her hair a peachy look.

Chrissy raised her still-dark eyebrows at me and smiled expectantly. When I said nothing, she sighed, then folded up her scarf. She placed it neatly on the loveseat, along with her hat.

“I got your letter. I thought you wanted to talk to me,” she said, her eyes crinkling with amusement. She leaned her head right, then left, studying me, then added, “You look scared. Don’t be scared of me.”

A small whoosh of breath escaped from between my lips. As though being told, “Don’t be scared of me” by a convicted killer was any real consolation.

Truth was, I wasn’t so much scared as I was shocked. My brain running twenty paces behind, I couldn’t catch up with what my eyes were seeing.

Like when I’d found Jack… I’d been … frozen. Brain too stunned to absorb the truth, too slow to react.

I cleared my throat. “Ummm … would you like to sit down?” It was someone else’s voice coming out of me, robotic and strange.

“Yes, but can we move away from here?” Chrissy thumbed the front window behind her. The curtains were drawn—they always were—but there were still people outside. Talking. Shouting. Then another bang at the front door.

But that was all background noise. My mind sharpened as I studied Chrissy’s face. I sent her a letter and she came. She actually came to my house…

Her face was tired … and haggard. A web of wrinkles sprouted from her eyes and mouth, and a scar I hadn’t noticed in her picture the other day—a shimmery white line on her left cheek—ran from the bottom of her left eye to the top of her lip line. Did someone cut her in prison?

I’d asked if I could write her story. But I didn’t ask her to show up like this. It seems like a violation—turning up at my front door with no warning, the rabid press trailing behind her … but this is what I wanted, isn’t it?

I thought back to my letter … to me, neatly folding the paper and sliding it in the envelope … to me, slowly and hopefully licking the seal, and carefully filling out the return address when I could have simply left it blank.

You knew what you were doing when you sent it, I told myself. And it’s not like she couldn’t have found out where you lived anyway … a few simple clicks online and we’re all exposed these days.

This was my chance—the one I’d dreamed of for so many years. Access to the story that could change my life. And a chance to hear the truth from her.

But I had to get things off on the right foot … I had to stay professional, in control.

Chrissy was staring, eyes wide and still slightly amused, as she waited for me to move, to react…

“Stay here while I change and brush my teeth. We’ll talk upstairs in my office, if that works for you. Would you like some coffee or tea?”

Chrissy smiled, that sliver of amusement replaced with genuine gratitude. “Yes, please. I’m so out of breath from dealing with those fuckers outside. They followed me the whole way here, from my trailer to your house…”

My heart was drumming in my chest as I made my way through the galley kitchen and down the hall to my room to get changed. She hadn’t even told me which she wanted, coffee or tea, and I had no questions prepared … no clue where to start. And what should I do about the people on my front lawn?

But I needn’t have worried about that—I’d barely slipped into my sweater and leggings when I heard a rush of voices and then Chrissy’s words shouting: “Natalie Breyas is writing my story! The true story about what happened all those years ago. So, if you want to hear what I have to say, then you’ll have to wait to read the book.”

I opened the door to my bedroom, smoothing my hair, body tight with shock all over again. Emerging in the hallway, I saw Chrissy towering in the open front doorway, a flash of reporters splayed before her, like lovesick—or hatesick—fans groveling to get onstage.

A roar of questions erupted, but Chrissy simply raised both arms like Jesus and shouted, “The story of my innocence is coming!”

Chapter Six

“I must admit. I’m pretty shocked you showed up at my house. What made you decide to talk to me?” I asked, a mixed flutter of anxiety and excitement building inside me.

Chrissy Cornwall sat across from me, the cherry oak desktop creating a barrier between us.

“Honestly? Your letter touched me. It didn’t seem judgmental or angry. More like … I don’t know … curious. I’ve wanted to tell my side of the story for a long time now. And I had a feeling you’d contact me one of these days … I wasn’t expecting it to be so soon though.” Chrissy twisted her shiny peach hair in a knot at the base of her skull, fidgeting in her seat.