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If only these walls could talk...the world would know just how hard it is to tell the truth in a story in which everyone's a liar.
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writing
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Gregg Olsen |
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Some of this story is completely true. And some of it isn't. Like truth, evil comes in all sorts of flavors. Some bitter. Some deceptively sweet. Sometimes it comes with a heavy price. While most people don't invite evil into their lives, the dirty little secret is that an invitation isn't necessary. Locked doors don't matter. Neither do fancy security systems. Evil is kind of amazing when you think about it. She knows how to get inside.
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Gregg Olsen |
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Why you need a reason for everything? Reason is something people say to make sense of things that don't make sense.
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Gregg Olsen |
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Her daughter's comment amused Emily. 'I didn't know stalking could be a group activity
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Gregg Olsen |
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Maybe it was more than that. Maybe some things shouldn't be explained.
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Gregg Olsen |
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You poke at evil with a stick," Valerie had said, offering chilling advice they'd never forget. "Never use your fingers."
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Gregg Olsen |
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I'd tell my mother to, you know, go you-know-what herself and I would go help those children. They're in an orphanage and they've got family! That's sickening. What does John do? Nothing. His kids are in an orphanage... and he does nothing. ~ Michelle Jarvis
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Gregg Olsen |
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I'm a successful businessman, a very successful bussinessman,' he said, dead-eyed to the camera. 'Guys like me don't kill our wives. We trade 'em in and get a new one
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Gregg Olsen |
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Trust and stupidity are close friends. Of course, no one really knows that until it's too late.
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Gregg Olsen |
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I was free. Free also means nothing.
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Gregg Olsen |
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leathery tan face and eyes popping from white rings of flesh left by tanning goggles, had his head so far up his ass that he needed a snorkel to breathe. At least most thought so.
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Gregg Olsen |
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But in late March in the Pacific Northwest, a cease-fire on precipitation only meant the clouds were taking a coffee break.
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Gregg Olsen |
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He always told his girl, "If only these walls could talk... the world would know just how hard it is to tell the truth in a story in which everyone's a liar." But the walls didn't talk."
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Gregg Olsen |
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No one, certainly no teenager, was normal or felt they were. Everyone wore a kind of mask that kept people from really seeing what - or who - was inside
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Gregg Olsen |
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their stories, tell their tales, pose for pictures, and shake their heads for the TV cameras. As one high school student told the reporter from the Today show, "Nothing much ever happens around here, so this is kind of fun. Sad, but fun at the same time."
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Gregg Olsen |
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And he'd kill Lily Ann Denton, put her in the trunkm and go to arbys.
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Gregg Olsen |
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You should have dragged my butt out of bed." "Your butt's too big to drag," Taylor said.
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Gregg Olsen |
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She was only fifteen! What is the matter with these kids today? Can't they wait to have sex until they get their driver's license and can go somewhere?
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Gregg Olsen |
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She looked at ways to quantify life. Analytic in nature, her head almost always overruled her heart. Love it? Hate it? She wanted to KNOW it.
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understand
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Gregg Olsen |
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Only in the campfire-stoked stories of Boy Scouts, bedtime tales baby-sitters employ to frighten bratty charges, or in the sweet delight of grandpas who never grew up, would the stories live on.
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Gregg Olsen |
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I don't know why the water and the sky scare me. I wonder if it is because here at the ocean there is no place to hide.
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Gregg Olsen |
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mother says her son turned blue and she was unable to revive him. Father was at home and made the call for emergency aid. Both parents reported that such an incident had never
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Gregg Olsen |
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lobby of the Santa Louisa courthouse drinking a cup of black tea from a paper cup. She pushed her long, dark hair behind her ears and tapped her pointed shoes in time with the Muzak undulating over the marble floors. A Helen Reddy song, she thought. Maybe Cher? She smelled of White Shoulders perfume and spearmint gum. When Hannah walked by, the woman smiled and raised a hand as if to wave. But the friendliness of the gesture was not returne..
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Gregg Olsen |
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Larvae can consume an entire human body in a week.
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Gregg Olsen |
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The young man from Seabeck who'd been in and out of the county jail so often he thought he'd be able to leave some belongings behind for his next stretch of incarceration.
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Gregg Olsen |
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the West Valley City police were still silent about the fact that it was Susan's blood that they'd recovered from her house, and that she had left a note saying she was afraid her husband might kill her.
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Gregg Olsen |
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Around forty children die every year after they're forgotten in a car,
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Gregg Olsen |
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grateful because each detail kept her from the purpose of the call. She talked about her life in California and how she had never returned to Rock Point or Spruce County.
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Gregg Olsen |
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There's another, simple, idea that has been shared on the Internet: after buckling a child into a car seat, a driver takes off his or her left shoe and puts it on the back seat. Once they reach their destination, they won't go far without the shoe, and they'll be reminded of the child.
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Gregg Olsen |
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No one speaks the truth to anyone anymore. Lies either by omission or purposefully have become our national pastime. Backstabbing is an Olympic sport. Or at least it should be.
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Gregg Olsen |
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Hannah set down her paperwork. "That's complete bullshit."
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Gregg Olsen |
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the faces of Mimi Garcia and her dead brother, Enrique. His was lifeless, chalky white. His sister's was full of fear. I'll take care
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Gregg Olsen |
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Casting was a source of amusement. Tatum O'Neal, Darryl Hannah, Gail O'Grady, even Calista Flockart were mentioned as possible
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Gregg Olsen |
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Nothing so terrible can be forgotten. But all she wanted--all the others had wanted--was a chance to get on with their own lives. They deserved and hoped for a chance at being normal. But that was never to be, though in time the headlines would shrink, the interest would ebb. But it could not be completely disregarded. There was always the angle. Always and forever.
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Gregg Olsen |
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As the campfire burned to an ashy bowl of red-hot embers, the boys would ramble on, piling up horror upon horror, like cordwood stacked under a blood-red-barked madrona tree.
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Gregg Olsen |
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But just as no one really knows what it is like to be a mother until she holds her first child, no one who hadn't felt the sudden loss of a child could ever even approximate the stabbing ache that came with every breath. I
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Gregg Olsen |
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The women laugh a little. I do too. Though I'm only mimicking their laughter. Nothing is funny to me.
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Gregg Olsen |
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Mary Kay would come home after being two hours late and sit in her car for a half hour and go through mail and papers, and I'd be just sitting there waiting to go home. After the kids were sleeping... I was just sitting there. She would irritate me. ~Angie
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Gregg Olsen |
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If she pleaded not guilty, David said she could suggest that the boy had been the agressor, or maybe it was all some teenage fantasy that went too far. Maybe the sex never really happened. Mary Kay saw that scenario as ridiculous. Almost laughable. She didn't think it would work. "I'm carrying his baby," she said. Scratch that."
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Gregg Olsen |
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People born rich don't try so hard. They know they don't need to. They already have everything they want, and they never have to break a sweat to show it off. Showing it off is for those at risk of ending up back where they started.
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Gregg Olsen |
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The lie would grow into a disease. Cancer, probably.
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Gregg Olsen |
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now." Emily pulled"
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Gregg Olsen |
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mean, not for the same reason," Birdy"
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Gregg Olsen |
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three-year-old girl in a car unattended.
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Gregg Olsen |