True Crime with Kimbyr - Part 1: Halloween Bloodbath: Two Murders, One Night of Terror!

Episode Date: November 10, 2025

What happens when a night of harmless fun turns into unthinkable horror? In this chilling episode of True Crime with Kimbyr, Kimbyrleigha uncovers the terrifying Halloween-night attack that shattered a peaceful Northern California community. Three roommates settle in after handing out candy but someone is watching. As screams echo through the house, one woman flees for her life while her friends fight to survive. Why did this monster choose their home, and how did darkness slip inside unnoticed? Kimbyr guides you through the fear, the chaos, and the heart breaking truth behind this unforgettable tragedy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There's a border between good and evil. As we cross the threshold, we step towards the deep, dark corridors of the human mind. Our vehicle to darkness is hungry to take us down to the bottom. The basement of the mind where motives are pinned down before victims are. And we go deeper. Innocence, broken. toys remember what children cannot. Deeper and deeper beneath the earth, where we bury what we can't bear.

But nothing stays buried forever. The deeper you go, the less human it gets. All. Pay off your home, travel for life, drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly Big Board Buckslot Machine by Aristocrat Gaming, Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is giving one person a $1.6 million dream package. The biggest prize in Yamava's history. Club Serrano members can earn daily instant prizes and secure a spot in the finale May 29.

Don't pass go and own it all. Only at Yamava, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You win? Details at Yamava.com must be 21-20. Please gamble responsibly. Monopoly is a trademark of Hasbro. Hasbro is not a sponsor of this promotion. I knew about investing, but I really didn't know how to go about it.

Meet Corey, a Walthfront client. With Walthfront, it could put money in, and it would automatically, distribute it into a diversified portfolio. Then it starts to compound. The compounding compounds on the compounding. Just let it wrong. And it's great. Over one million clients trust wealthfront. Get started at wealthfront.com. Client was paid $1,000 for their testimonial, creating a conflict of interest. Outcomes vary. Investment management and advisory services provided by Wealthfront Advisors LLC and SEC registered investment advisor. Investing involves risk to principle regardless of the strategy used. Has performance does not guarantee future results. It's Halloween night.

The kind of night where the autumn chill in the air makes it feel scarier. It's a night full of candy. mischief and laughter echoing off residential sidewalks. Porch lights glow orange, carved pumpkins flicker like tiny beacons, and in this small northern California town, everyone seems to be in on the very same secret, that for one night here, pretending to be something or not, is harmless fun. Parents sip wine from plastic cups at the end of their driveways.

Children tumble up the front steps and costumes, superheroes, tiny witches, princesses, dragging glittering, glittering skirts across the pavement. Behind every door is a bowl of sweets and a smile. No one is thinking about danger. Not here, not tonight. Because this place isn't the kind of town you lock your doors. The kind of town where you might leave the porch light on just a little longer, hoping

a few straggler trick-or-treaters will wander by. Inside one house at the end of a small street, three young women are doing the same thing everyone else was, answering the door, laughing at costumes, handing out the last of their candy. Later they grabbed their bowl of leftover chocolate, put a scary movie on TV, and plan to call it a night once the doorbell finally stops ringing. It's ordinary. It's simple and perfect. The kind of night that becomes a memory.

But somewhere outside, a man is watching. He doesn't need a mask. The darkness does that for him. And what happened inside that house, showed this quiet community that the monsters outside on Halloween can make their way inside. And this one wasn't pretending to be evil. Hi everyone, welcome back to my channel.

If you've never been here before, I am Kimberlea. It's nice to finally meet you. Sorry, my videos are a little late in the year this time, but these episodes during the Halloween season are naturally going to emphasize Halloween. The nostalgia, the traditions, and the haunting tone that it can set, especially when we're talking about real-life tragedies. Let's go back to Halloween night in 2004.

It's a little after 7 p.m., the streets are glowing, jack-o' lanterns are grinning from porches, porch lights flickering, trick-or-treaters dragging pillowcases full of candy on the ground. It's the one night of the year where ghosts walk with feet, where monsters knock politely and ask for chocolate. And it's still early when 27-year-old Lauren had gotten home from a long day of shopping and playing soccer. She was exhausted and she was glad to be back.

But she wasn't that happy that trick-or-treaters were continuously coming to the door that night. She loved the holiday. But her older dog, Chloe, a German Shepherd mix, would get really anxious and overwhelmed with every knock or ring of their doorbell. But of course, Lauren wasn't going to ruin the fun, so she let old Chloe bark while her two roommates pass out candy. Adrian and Leslie were both 26. They shared the rental home with Lauren, and they were so excited to hand out candy. They were laughing and enjoying every minute of it,

even getting a kick out of Chloe freaking out like a guard dog. And by 9 p.m., it was dwindling. It was Sunday. So that was kind of a good thing since they all had to work the next morning. They made a bite to eat, sat on the couch, watched TV for a bit, and then one by one, the girls went off to bed. First Leslie, then Adrian, Adrienne, and finally around 11.30 p.m.,

Lauren got tired, so she did what she normally did. She went around the house to every door and made sure they were closed and locked, especially the sliding glass door, since there was a habit of letting Chloe out and not securing it afterward. Once that was done, Lauren went to bed with Chloe, and it was a pretty uneventful evening.

Another Halloween checked off, but the first in their new home together. Just three good friends enjoying the beautiful rolling hills, the crisp autumn air in their cozy northern California neighborhood. But in the middle of that quiet night, once all the trick-or-treaters had gone home and Lauren was sleeping, something awful happened. Now, she wouldn't know it until 2 a.m.

When her dog started to growl loudly and wouldn't stop. The motion-activated light in the backyard went on. That wasn't that unusual. It could be a cat or maybe another kind of animal just scampering through the backyard. But then, she heard something inside the house. And at first it sounded as though either Leslie or Adrian had let a visitor inside.

And that wouldn't be surprising. Both of them were dating. However, when Lauren began hearing bumping, she got annoyed. They had just had a talk about bringing guys back to the house and being loud in the bedrooms, romping around while Lauren was trying to sleep. Her bedroom was on the first floor, so the noise carried from above. She really hoped that her roommates weren't disregarding her wishes, but then she heard it.

A scream that echoed from upstairs, and she knew right away, it was serious. And now she realized those bumps in the night were probably a struggle. She had to think very fast because someone was inside their home. Lauren slowly opened her bedroom door. She quietly stepped out, and she was right underneath the stairs. All she could hear was screaming over and over again, And then she heard someone running and their footsteps pounding against the hardwood floors, and she thought that she was going to be next.

It was survival instinct. Lauren turned around and she saw the back door just feet away and she made a run for it. She bursts outside clutching her dog and she can still hear the screams echoing throughout the house. It's the kind of sound that doesn't belong in real life. It's the kind that only happens in movies where post-production audio engineers boosts. the dial on everything that makes your skin crawl. But this couldn't be from a movie. It was too close,

and it floated through the same air that Lauren was breathing in and out, heavily, frozen in place. The yard was dark, and it was fenced in, and she had nowhere to run. She hid in the shadows, shaking. Her dog was trembling against her chest, and for a moment, all she could hear was her own heartbeat.

And then, footsteps, Slow, heavy, moving inside the house, and then a light clicks on upstairs, and she waits in silence. Finally, she forces herself back inside that house, and just as she's coming through the back door, she hears a noise. Right in front of the house, she sees a shadowy figure in the dark, pushing the wooden blinds out of the way on the front porch window and climbing out. She's as stiff as a statue. She's not even breathing. At that moment she realized maybe she hadn't checked if the windows were fastened before

heading to bed that night. But she couldn't dwell on that now. She was looking for the cordless phone. She knew she needed to call for help fast. And she found it. But it wasn't working. She thought this cannot be happening. She could hear a voice, a cry for help, and she could tell

it was Adrienne. She was saying, please, God, help me. Somebody help me. And Lauren followed her friend's cry. and made her way upstairs. The smell hit her first, metallic and sharp. It sung her nostrils. She looked into the first room at the top of the stairs,

which was Leslie's room, but keeps going because she could still hear Adrienne. There's a small light on in her room, and her eyes were beginning to adjust as she entered. She noticed the floor was slick under her feet, and it doesn't take long for her to realize that it's blood and it's everywhere. It's all over the walls, it's on the bed,

and there's a large pool of it on the floor and a trail coming from the hallway where she just entered. Lauren is trying to make out what she's looking at on the floor, and at first it looks like a pile of clothing, but on top, face down, was one of her roommates, with stab wounds covering her body. She wasn't moving.

I'm behind her on the bed, another victim. It was Adrian. She's still breathing, but barely, and she's staring straight up at her and whispering something. a prayer, or maybe the word help. Lauren couldn't make it out, but she sprinted downstairs, grabbed her cell phone and her dog, ran into the garage,

got into her car, turned it on, and backed out as fast as she could. She's calling 911, trying to relay what was happening. She says, my roommates, they've been attacked, and I think they're dying, I swear. Lauren's in shock. She's afraid. She thinks the killer makes her make her. thinks the killer may come back and kill her too.

She drove to the end of the block and she waited until those officers arrived. She didn't dare go back inside that house. Imagine what it would be like for police to be racing to a scene like this right after Halloween night. On the outside, it's an ordinary tree-line residential street, except carved pumpkins still glow faintly on porches. Fake spiderwebs purposely attached to homes that are usually immaculately cleaned and gravestones posed and propped on lawns almost mocking the dead

with funny sayings like, here lies my remains or crispy bacon. All fitting for the season, all acceptable decorations on all Hallows Eve. But inside the doors of 2631 Doorset Street, nothing is for show. It's chaos and quiet all at once, a witch dangling from the porch

greets the officers, ironically, in the worst way. As if to say, this place. Houses Haunted. Officers Darlene Aalya and Sergeant Pat Manzer were dispatched first. They arrived around the same time. It was 2.13 a.m. when they made their way inside with their guns drawn. Backup was already on the way. When they got to the stairs, they were covered in bloody footprints. And as they got to the hallway above, there was even more blood, concentrated and smeared all over the place, but coming from the first bedroom and into the second where both victims were located.

were located. Officer Ilya had never seen anything like this in her career. She literally thought to herself, I feel like I'm in a horror movie. Now by the next morning, real crime scene tape surrounded the house, and both sides of Dorset Street were blocked off through traffic. The quiet street was now lined with police cruisers, crime scene vans, unmarked cars belonging to homicide detectives, and even reporters. In this small town, it was a little town. It wasn't. hard to find out that something big had happened. Small-time reporters were already asking questions hoping to get a hit story.

A double homicide on Halloween night? They could already tell this story could write itself. But the victims had names, Leslie Mazara and Adrian and Sonia. They were more than a headline. They were both young women building lives that they were proud of, chasing their careers, love, and a version of happiness that until Halloween night had felt completely within their reach.

Leslie was the newest roommate to join the trio. She was a Southern Bell, soft-spoken, radiant, and a stunning former beauty queen from South Carolina who had just come to California chasing sunshine and a new start. She worked in marketing for a winery nearby, charming guests making them feel seen

and hoping to wow her boss so she could move up in her career. She loved to dance, she loved pageants, and she loved life itself. Her friend said she was the person you'd notice first when you walked into a room, and the one that you would miss the most when she left. Leslie Ann Mazar was born on August 1st of 1978 in Orlando, Florida, to Lenny Mazzara and Kathy Harrington.

And soon, Leslie was raised entirely by her single mother, Kathy, who had become a young mother at 18 to two boys, Paul and Andy, by the time she was 22. And at 27, she gave birth to her only daughter, Leslie, and right away, it was different. The bond that they shared was just so special. She was so close to her, sleeping right by her bed. And she remembers how little Leslie would sit up in her crib

and wake her up by saying, hi, in the cutest baby voice. That sounds so adorable. And this family ended up moving to Anderson, South Carolina, where Leslie was raised, a small town where money wasn't exactly abundant in Leslie's life, but love and effort. were. And the family's running joke was that Leslie, the only girl, got princess treatment.

Her brothers would tease her, but then they would turn around and defend her like it was their job. They were messy, they were noisy, but they were loyal. From the time she could talk about when she grew up, Leslie didn't pick one lane. She wanted to be a mom, a teacher, and a nurse, and that does sound like a kid answer. But if you look at the pattern in her life, it tracks, because every role that Leslie took on was about caretaking and showing up for people. That instinct never left. But she had other loves in her life. Dance was one of them,

where she found both discipline and joy. She trained seriously, Greenville Ballet Company, and then she earned a spot at the South Carolina Governor's School for the Arts. This wasn't just after-school ballet. It was early mornings, blistered toes,

and learning how to push herself when her body said to stop. The art school sharpened her posture her poise and her stage presence, the kind of confidence that you can see across a room without her even saying a word. Leslie had always been an adorable little girl, but as she got older,

she grew into a gorgeous young woman. She had dark hair, green eyes, and she just had this warm southern hospitality that shined through and made her memorable. She had big dreams. After high school, she headed to the University of Georgia and earned a philosophy degree, and it fit her whole ask bigger questions brain,

less about memorizing answers, and more about how people think and why choices matter. She kept the dancer's grace, but she layered it with this quiet, thoughtful side. She could come into a room and sit down and listen to you. And there were two special people in Leslie's life who loved her for who she was for as long as they had known her. They grew up with her, her two best friends,

Kelly McCorkle from ninth grade ballet class, and Amy Brown, who had known her since she was 15. They met at church. Kelly did pageants, and Leslie would see all the crowns in Kelly's room. She would try them on for fun, but she would daydream out loud. And Kelly wasn't the gatekeeping kind of friend.

She told Leslie, you should go for it. And then she helped her with the application to do her first pageant. That mattered. Leslie entered, she competed, and she won Miss Williamston in 2000. Then she went on to Miss South Carolina in 2003. She was perfect for it.

All around American girl, beauty, brains, and personality. But here's the important part. Leslie didn't just wear the sash and the crown. She used it. Her platform was child safety and abuse prevention, and she made it urgent and visible. She staged a sit marathon at the Anderson Mall inside a taped-off box

that matched the size of the bathroom, where a child, Stephanie Crane, was held and treated very badly before she died. And that's heavy. It was an intentional story to force people passing by to feel the feeling and the cruelty of that small space that a child should never have known. And by the end, Leslie raised almost $1,000 for a Calvary home, a foster care nonprofit. It wasn't performative. This was something that mattered.

It was empathy, and it translated into action for Leslie. Leslie was good at bringing awareness to causes like this that she cared about, but she would use her looks to grab attention and pull people in and then get them involved with her ambition for change. Amy called Leslie enchanting. She was a charmer. She loved people, and Amy knew everything about her best friend. She was her confidant.

She said that Leslie was a hopeless romantic to a fault. She would meet a guy. She would fall hard for him fast, hoping each time they would turn out to be her prince charming. There were so many men interested in Leslie that Amy lost count of how many boyfriends Leslie had in her lifetime. Boyfriend after boyfriend, she would open her heart as wide as it could go, even if it meant being heartbroken. She didn't do anything halfway when it came to love, which made every guy like her even more. But it didn't take much for to fall in love with her either. And Amy was right there through every excited first date, to every heartache and breakup. Amy noticed that many of the men Leslie dated would love bomb her.

I don't think they used to call it that back then, but for example, one of her boyfriends, Brian West, actually bought her a new car, only about two months after they began dating. Leslie didn't ask for a car and she didn't need a car, but that was the type of thing that a guy did for Leslie. They would fall at her feet. giving her gifts, pampering her, treating her like a princess, hoping for more. But things ended with Brian after a few months, and of course, Leslie gave the car back. But Brian wasn't over her. He went on to create an entire website, almost worshipping Leslie, like a digital shrine.

He dedicated the poem Silk Intent by Robert Frost to Leslie, which compared a woman to a silk tent to say they're delicate but resilient. Imagine a tent loosely tied but secure enough not to fall. It was meant to showcase Leslie as graceful, delicate, but strong. And a romantic relationship that explores love with liberty. While she was free to love, there were also ties connecting her, keeping her grounded, possibly ties to Brian, at least in his heart. As nice as it may sound, Amy thought it was not normal for a guy that Leslie broke up with to go out of his way to create posts. like this. However, she said, you know what? She wasn't surprised. He was so in love with Leslie.

It was almost a form of admiration. In her words, he idolized her and many people did. It doesn't exactly sound healthy, and he wasn't the only one who bought Leslie nice things and tried to win her affection. It was a constant thing, and it wasn't uncommon for Leslie to be giving a number of guys attention at the same time until she chose to get more serious with one of them. The one she rejected weren't always happy about it. They would try to somehow stick around and be a part of her life, even if they didn't become her boyfriend.

But Leslie was looking for the one. She wasn't going to settle. She'd give men a chance, but if they were not up to her standards, it was on to the next. Leslie wasn't all about men, though. She cared about a lot of things. Career-wise, at first she worked for Kennedy and Price

on Lady Street in South Carolina. It was office life, answering phone, booking clients, managing a calendar, and she did all of it with a smile. And then came the pivot that changed everything. Leslie's mom, Kathy, was finishing up a degree out in California, and she and Leslie and Leslie were very close. Leslie confided in her mom that she was feeling a little lost in life.

She wasn't sure whether she should go to grad school or she should go into a career. And Kathy kind of made a funny but kind of serious suggestion. She said, why not come to California? drink some wine and have fun until you figure out where to go in your life. Leslie was always up for a new chapter, and she wanted to be close as she could to her mother, so she took her up on that offer.

Now, at this point in her life, Leslie had been in a long-term relationship with a lawyer. His name was William Lee Youngblood Jr. He went by Lee, and so did his father, Lee, Sr., speaking of men who wanted to stay in her life after they broke up, because at the time she was deciding to leave for the West Coast. She was living with Lee, and she thought that maybe leaving the state would give her a reason to break up with him. It was something on her mind because his father made her feel very uncomfortable.

This was a powerful family. They had money. They were well known in the area. And at first, she pictured herself marrying Lee. She loved him. But after a while, Lee Sr. was just a little too close for comfort. He would hit on Leslie.

And Amy said that he seemed to be obsessed with her. He was a married man, but also, also her boyfriend's father. So she did it. She broke it off, she packed up, and she left for California. This part of Northern California where she moved isn't just pretty hills and wine tastings. It's like hospitality is a craft. And of course, for the Queen of Southern Hospitality herself, Leslie fit right in. It was like it was in her blood. Leslie immediately found a job in marketing at Francis Ford Coppola's estate in Rutherford as a concierge and sales rep. Now, Francis Ford Coppola, if you don't know, is an American filmmaker known for The Godfather,

among a lot of other classics and famous films. And this job led every part of Leslie's personality shine. This place is legendary. There are events every night of the week, especially during peak seasons and the holidays. I'm talking scenic tours of the park, food and wine tastings, Halloween carnivals, Christmas parties. It was a social butterfly's dream come true. And Thursday nights were Leslie's favorite, dance events, where, yes, the boss himself would sometimes come, and Leslie would kind of half-jokingly tell her friends, she hoped she would get discovered by him one of those nights.

She would say with a little smirk, but there was some truth under that. She did want to be noticed. And she was. The CEO, Jay Shoemaker, described Leslie with words like style, grace, and poise. Not just pretty, but present. When Leslie's mom eventually decided to relocate again, this time from Northern California to Michigan, Leslie didn't follow. By then, she was fully in love with the West Coast. The weather, the pace, the feeling that life was happening there.

She stayed in the valley, built a routine in a community, and eventually met friends that she clicked with. Socially, Leslie was thriving. She connected with people very easily, and she did date a lot. She was in that phase of, I'm young, I'm still figuring things out. But she did have that type of beauty that turned heads. But what actually pulled people into her was how she made you feel like you mattered. And there was a steady stream of visitors coming back to the Dorset Street House. It was nothing reckless.

It was just casual fun. And I think since we're all adults here, Leslie was just being an adult doing adult mingling and getting to know guys in town. No harm in that. I mentioned that she was the newest roommate to the area. The three women came together because of Lauren, and I'm going to get into that in just a moment. But Leslie didn't disconnect from her home, even all the way in California.

Her best friend, Amy, had just gotten married a few weeks ago, and Leslie had flown back home to be one of her bridesmaids. And then just a couple weeks before Halloween, Leslie's college friends Katie Norris and Vanessa Schur came to visit the Dorset home. They hung out with all three roommates. They went out on the town with Leslie, and they had so much fun. It was now unbelievable that Leslie was gone forever.

When these girls moved in together, it wasn't just about being in this least home. It was just a launch pad to everything they were doing in their life. Work, friends, late-night recaps. I'm sure you can just picture it. I told you Lauren was the one that brought Leslie and Adrian together. She was the common thread between them. So let me tell you all about Adrian

and how she met Lauren and eventually moved into the Dorset Street home. If Leslie was known as being the bright light in the group, Adrian could be known as the architect. Leslie and Adrian were kind of opposites. Adrian was analytical, detail-oriented, and she thought in numbers. She was the girl who didn't just admire a bridge. She wanted to know everything about it, load limits, soil type beneath it, the way the wind would flex the steel.

An engineering mind, Adrian, Michelle and Sonia was born December 30th of 1977. She was a Christmas baby. Her parents are Arlene and Tony, and Adrian was the second of four. First came Alexandria, known as Lexi. She was four years older than Adrian. Then after Adrian, three years later, was Allison.

And then finally, Michael in 2001. He was the baby of the family. They all grew up in a loud, supportive, the kind of family that we tease you because we love you. And there was bickering, Whose turn is it to do the dishes, who stole my hoodie? But there was also this dependable theme of We've Got Your Back. That foundation mattered later on in life.

At 10 years old, a huge change happened. Arlene and Tony got divorced. When Arlene was trying to put her life back together, she thought about a place that she visited once that she fell in love with, Calistoga, California. The family packed up and they moved from Texas to Calistoga. It was in northern California. It was a new town, a new school.

and a new everything. That area in the 90s was all about the good life, about vineyards, about field trips, and neighbors who learn even your dog's names, and that's so California. It's even true today here in Los Angeles. But it's also where Adrienne's interests came into focus. She was a Girl Scout, and her badges weren't just cute.

They were proof that she had skills. She loved anything that she could make with her hands. Other kids were building castles and sand, while Adrian was figuring out how to make a real, life, jawbridge work. And growing up, it wasn't as though she was just playing engineer. She was one. She just hadn't collected the degree yet. She clearly had a knack for figuring out how things worked. Arlene tells the best version of those years. She said, Adrian was at the kitchen table, head down with determination, studying a problem with total calm, like frustration didn't even

exist. Give her a challenge, and she would sit with it until it clicked. And she wasn't loud about it. She wasn't showboating. She just had this soft smile across her face. that meant that she had solved it. And by 13, she said the quiet part out loud, she said, I'm going to be an engineer. It wasn't a maybe, it wasn't, and I think, Adrian had plans. She knew she wanted to do this for the rest of her life.

That's pretty young to know what you want to be in the future, but that was Adrienne. In high school, she stacked her schedule with architecture, wood shop, autocad, and she wasn't afraid to get her hands dirty or look, unfeminine, using a torque run, or tools. And she was athletic. She played volleyball because she said she liked the physics of it. The way a perfect set feels inevitable when everyone's timing is right. And that's thinking with

numbers, which I don't do. I cannot relate to that. But someone like her, I can just picture. And then by June of 1994, something really terrible happened. It was a mother's worst nightmare. It was the beginning of summer. The girls were all at home. And Arlene asked Adrian, who was new to driving, if she would take the car and go run some errands for her. What 16-year-old would say no to having a car to themselves? So Adrian, of course, said yes. It was a 1981 Thunderbird, an older car that Arlene kept as a backup,

just something to use around the town. She expected this trip to maybe take an hour, not much more than that. She told Adrian to please call her when she returned. But when that call never came, Arlene called the house and Allison answered Arlene asked if Adrian was back in

and Allison said no and I don't want to sound like a broken record here but anytime we talk about cases that happened in the 90s I always say this was before cell phones not everyone was wearing a pager either so there was no way for Arlene to get in touch with Adrian so she just had to wait she returned home after work

and Allison was literally standing in the driveway with a very concerned look on her face and Arlene knew right then that something wasn't right. As soon as she stepped out of the car, Allison told her that she received a really concerning call from the hospital and they had told her that Adrian had been in an accident. Arlene lost it. She immediately needed to know what was going on.

She called the hospital in a panic, but she couldn't get any information other than what Allison already told her. Adrian was in an accident. Arlene had so many thoughts swirling in her head. Some of them were being said out loud, but she wasn't getting the answers. Instead, she was like, I better get there quick. It was even more confusing

when Arlene and Allison made it to the hospital because it wasn't just Adrian who had been injured. There were three boys her age also hospitalized. You can probably imagine what Arlene was thinking. What happened here? No one was talking because unfortunately all three teenagers were hooked up to machines and they were also in bad shape.

But Adrian was probably the worst. They said she was lucky to be alive. Adrian took one look at her daughter and was in total shock. Her head was swollen, it looked deformed. On one side, it was blown up triple in size than the other. It was unreal. And of course, you know, she had all these machines beeping around her, the wires, the cords, and looking at that,

it was heartbreaking. And she didn't even know her prognosis at the time. What they did know was that Adrian apparently wasn't even driving her mother's thunderbird. That was surprising to Arlene. And then they told her that Adrian was pulled from the passenger seat. It was a rollover accident. She could have been ejected if she hadn't been wearing her seatbelt.

She would probably have been dead. The car rolled at least three times and the right side of Adrian's head was hitting the road every single time through that window. It had either broken or had been left open, but that is just horrifying. And after all of these children were stabilized, Arlene got the truth, or as much as they could tell her from what she was able to gather. Adrian was out doing errands when she started talking to three boys from her school.

Now, these were not boys that she knew very well. They were just acquaintances. And for whatever reason, one of them convinced her to let him drive to Napa Valley about 20 minutes away. To a very touristy area, and here's the thing. The kid driving didn't even have a license. He was only 15. Wow. He was speeding, he swerved off the road, he tried to gain control the car, and it flipped.

Not on its side, because at first it actually flipped forward and then it rolled. And I kept thinking, poor Adrian, try not to blame her because I know my motherly side, you know, and even Arlene admitted she was mad at first before she realized that Adrian had been in such a bad accident and that she wasn't going to be coming home. But of course, as a parent, there is that other side where you feel bad, but you're also upset thinking, you know, why would Adrian let somebody else drive the car? But we can't get into the mind of a 16-year-old.

That wasn't even important to Arlene in the moment because Adrian was in critical condition. She suffered severe trauma to her head, and they thought she wasn't even going to make it. Miraculously, she did, but it was not an easy road to recovery. She had to undergo several surgeries, even cosmetic surgery to correct the slash on her face

that went right through her ear. Healing? isn't just about the physical wounds. It's about how someone feels on the inside psychologically. And it was hard to see yourself that way. Looking in the mirror and not seeing yourself the way that you usually look, Arlene actually brought photos of Adrian into the hospital so she could see what she looked like before as a reminder

and helped boost her confidence. She had a goal to get back to herself again. Afterward, the pain was chronic and complicated. She had headaches. She was lightheaded. She would be dizzy. and she was also in a fog. She did have temporary brain damage.

The physical healing was also very hard and the emotional part was even harder. Her stamina had dropped. Her independence was gone. Suddenly, you have to rely on others more than ever. But Adrian, let herself be human about it. There were days it broke her and her family would have to support her a lot,

but she just kept going. And eventually she even went back to school even within just a few months and she caught up. Not because she had anything to prove to anyone else. It was because her future self, future Adrian, wasn't going to leave her goals behind. And people noticed.

A local program called If Given a Chance looked at her story, her grind, and they didn't just see a survivor. They saw an engineer in the making, and they awarded her a scholarship to Cal Poly. And that mattered. Of course, there was the financial part, but there was also the symbolic part. It was a community saying that we believe in who you're becoming.

Now, if the name Cal Poly sounds familiar, that's because in last week's case, that case happened at California Polytechnic University, where Rachel Newhouse was attending at the time. So if that rang a bell, that's why. Same school. Cal Poly was the perfect fit for Adrienne. She went right into her classes for her civil engineering degree. She also gave back to her community. She became a Girl Scout troop leader, passing down.

the same things that she had learned. She also stepped up in the Society for Civil Engineers and the legendary concrete canoe tradition, she also did that. And I didn't know anything about it, but apparently every year the American Society of Civil Engineers have a competition where students design, build, and race canoes entirely made out of concrete. By 2001, Adrian now had her degree and she had a lot of options. She could easily chase money or prestige, but she chose proximity to the people that she loved the most and the place that felt like home, northern California. So when the Napa Sanitation District posted a job opening, she went for it, even though

it drew hundreds of applicants, many people that were older with a lot more experience, and most of them were men. She was only 23, just out of college, walking into a male-dominated space, but she was confident. And she landed the job. I wouldn't have expected anything less. I know I don't have to tell you this, but it definitely wasn't luck. It was mastery.

She made her coworkers believe in her because she believed in the work that she was doing. And her mom would joke that by her 40s, Adrian would be running the whole operation. And no one laughed about that because it was probable. And I'm sure you've looked over at a coworker and you think, okay, I'm looking at my future boss.

That was Adrian. But she wasn't all about work. She had a very social side. She loved making friends and she made them easily, but she was also picky and she chose wisely. At work, she found her best friend, Lily Prudholm, a fellow engineer with the same humor and the same drive. And their friendship had that really easy feeling where you just click right away. It started as just a work thing and it turned into late night debriefs, long days and then spontaneous Saturdays that started with coffee and would end with trips to Home Depot just to look around. Their Home Depot runs would be, I don't know, other girls' home good runs.

Lily lived in town, and Adrienne was commuting and looking for a more permanent place to call her home, closer to work and closer to her friends. And that is where Lauren comes in. I told you that she brought all the roommates together. Lauren Mianza was a local and she coached volleyball at the community college level. And Adrian, who I told you love volleyball, took a volleyball class, and that is where the two of them met. Lauren was the type of person that was very reliable, and you already know Adrian's personality, so the two hit it off right away.

And they started talking about looking for a place to rent together. And in February of 2004, Lauren saw the Dorset Street house for rent. So she ran up by Adrian, and she said yes right away. One, it was walking distance to Adrian's best friend Lily's house, and it was one block away from Adrian's boyfriend's house, Christian Lee. I'll tell you about him in just a moment. But doesn't that sound perfect? Your walking distance to your BFF and your BF.

It was like, sign me up and they signed the lease together. It was a four-bedroom house, though, so they thought it would be nice to at least split the rent with one more girl because the fourth room would stay open for guests. But one more roommate would be ideal. And that's when Lauren thought of Leslie. But that wasn't until June, when Leslie was looking for a place to stay

because her mother was moving to Michigan. In those months between February and June, when it was only Lauren and, Adrian. It was full of get-togethers for housewarming. It was Lauren's first time living on her own, so we all know the fun of decorating, setting your room up just right, and making a place for Chloe, her dog, and it made sense that Lauren would take the first floor bedroom near the kitchen and the sliding glass door with a fenced-in backyard so she could easily take her dog out. Adrienne took the back bedroom on the left upstairs and eventually Leslie claimed the first

bedroom on the left, right? When you get up the stairs, there was a bathroom between the their two rooms and the guest bedroom was across the hall. This is important for later. So right when you come up those stairs, Leslie's bedroom was the very first one on the left. It made sense that the more social girls were upstairs together. Their rooms would be a little further from Lauren's and she was the more quiet roommate. Leslie, Adrian, and Adrian's best friend Lily were more of the getting dolled up, going out and partying, drinking, and hanging out type, and both Adrian and Lily had boyfriends. Leslie was looking for one. So it just made since they all clicked. That year also marked 10 years since Adrian's terrible accident. It was the day

that she and Lily called the day she was supposed to die. They wanted to celebrate Adrian's life. So they took the day off, they went to an amusement park, they ate junk food, and they treated it like a holiday. It was honoring the math of Adrian's life, the probability that she wasn't supposed to be here, but she was. So they celebrated that. Adrian was here on borrowed time, as they would say. But I also told you that I want to talk about Adrian's boyfriend. Now, romance-wise, Adrian was not as calculated, and that is a jab to her good math skills,

because in this case, it seemed like the math wasn't mathing. Christian Lee. They were in an on-again, off-again kind of relationship or situationhip. They had their good days, and then they had arguments, and they wouldn't hide it. They would argue right in front of Lauren, Lily, and Leslie, and it was uncomfortable. Adrian would confide in Lily.

She would tell her all the updates, and sometimes she would actually show up to work crying. She would open up. She was honest about possibly wanting more than maybe with Christian. He was 25 years old, and he just wasn't ready to settle down, and Lily could kind of relate. She was their same age,

and she was navigating an eight-year relationship with her fiancé, also 25 years old. That's Eric Koppel. They met in high school and had been dating since they were 17. High school sweetheart, so Lily could understand what Adrian was going through. They both knew that things weren't perfect, and they were kind of re-evaluating things.

They were each other's support system. They would spend hours gossiping about their love lives, and when they weren't with their men, they were planning fun things to do together, girl things. They were actually planning a trip out to Australia to visit Adrian's mom and sister who were out there at the time. Adrian and Lily had their itinerary already mapped out. It was going to be happening in November.

So these girls had so many plans. They were really looking forward to Christmas because Leslie promised to introduce all of her Southern-style traditions, the food, the desserts, the decor. They were so excited, but they never had a chance. So now we are back to Halloween. And I really hope I did do a good job painting a picture of these women. They had no idea what would happen on Halloween night after the kids were done trick-or-treating, after they were all asleep in their beds.

It's the morning of night. November 1st. Neighbors have to blink a few times to understand what they're looking at. Real crime scene tape, not Halloween decor, draped across the lot at 2631 Dorset Street. Two young women dead on Halloween night. As you can imagine, reporters were already trying to think of taglines for this case. They were there on Dorset Street flagging down officers asking what was going on. And I've seen a lot of these articles. Nightmare on Halloween. Halloween horror. Things like that. And I'm not any better because I do need to come up with a title for this video, or no one will watch it. It's a requirement. I get it.

But I can just picture actual people clamoring around outside of a crime scene for information. It paints a picture of the chaos that the neighbors saw when they woke up. Detectives had actually been there since 3 a.m., and they were still there when the sun came up. The residents had been asleep. It wasn't apparent that something horrific had occurred until they were coming outside to walk their dogs, grabbed the morning paper, or go for a walk. When they realized their street was full of official vehicles, news trucks, a coroner's van.

But it was important to talk about those detectives that were on the scene. One of them was Detective Kirk Primo. He had been with the police department for 14 years at the time. I already told you that a couple first responders had come to the scene from the police department. Those officers made sure that no one was inside. They cleared every room. They saw the victims, and they reported that they needed backup. But homicide detectives were now on scene, as well as crime scene analysts.

And Detective Primo only had to take a simple look inside and realize that there had already been some contamination on the stairs. Those bare footprints that were actually coming down were Lawrence. She went upstairs to find her friends, and then she ran back down to call the police. So he decided in that moment, instead of having a bunch of detectives walking up and down the stairs, in this small house and into those bedrooms. They wanted to take a look at everything from an upstairs window. They used a ladder and they looked inside of Adrian's bedroom

and they were able to ascertain the positioning of the bodies and all the other things they could take pictures of from that vantage point. This was a small bedroom. It was only about 9 by 12. So that was also a concern. Having so many people trying to get in there, they wanted to preserve as much evidence as possible before the collection took place.

The size of this room also comes into play with the fact these girls were trapped. There was no place for them to go. Adrian was basically pushed up against a wall in the corner on top of the bed. And if this is giving you deja vu, or you're having a flashback to the Idaho case, Kaylee and Maddie,

I understand that. And you can find a lot of articles in posts online comparing these two cases to one another. Starting with the fact that there was a survival in the house who saw the perpetrator was frozen in fear in both cases, and eventually call 911, even though in the Idaho case it took much longer. And there are some similarities, I'm not going to say there isn't, but overall, these cases are not the same. I will point to some things that have been written about extensively, actually, but I assure you the similarities end

pretty quickly. I know one of the things that's important to me and also to you is finding out more about the crime scene, so let's start with one of the forensic specialists on scene. By 2.30 in the morning, Janet Lipsy was there, and she had been on the forest for nearly 30 years. Her job was to collect anything of evidentiary value and photograph the scene. Here are the most important findings that will come into play. Initially, when walking in the front door, it was immediately apparent, and we already know this because we have a survivor that was able to give an account, which we'll talk about in a moment, but it was apparent that the perpetrator had come out

through the window to the left of the front door. This was a push-up-style window, and it had been unlocked, something that Lauren thought about later, that she hadn't checked every window. It had been a very cool autumn at the time. People were leaving their windows open for the breeze to come in, even in the evening, and it was closed at the end of the night, but unfortunately not locked.

This was where the perpetrator gained entry and left. He was seen leaving by Lauren and climbing out that window, and on the metal siding outside, they found blood, which was collected, photographed, and swab for DNA. And naturally, when they got inside, they examined the other side of that window. There was blood on the wooden blinds that you could see, and they were disheveled,

showing they were forcefully pushed aside as the perpetrator came and went. Right underneath that window, there were black, plastic zip ties. They had a rubber band around them, them and it appeared the perpetrator dropped them either on the way in or the way out. These type of zip ties can be used to control the victim, possibly to tie their hands behind their back or other body parts.

So immediately, this was noted because that can go to a motive to bind or to tie one or all of these women and carry out some sick plan. Now I'm going to get to more of that later, but this was significant and they were collected as well. Another thing to note is that the garage door just steps away from this window. And that is where Lauren ran after she saw the perpetrator leave. So if you had been wondering how she knew that she would essentially be safe, her bedroom is close to this kitchen area.

And when he was coming in, she was hearing all that commotion and the noises, the bumping. She was able to look out and have a good view of both the stairway and the front window. Out of these three roommates, Lauren probably had the best advantage to flee if she had been attacked. But it's very interesting to detectives at this point that the perpetrator went straight upstairs and he didn't go check Lauren's room. That made this look targeted. Another similarity to the Idaho case. The killer also made it beeline for the room upstairs going towards motive and intent. Detectives already started building a theory as they were seeing all this evidence.

The rest of the downstairs was untouched. So they started making their way upstairs to collect evidence and that is where the bloody staircase comes in. There were two significant aspects. I already talked about the bare footprints belonging to Lauren. The blood was from upstairs, most likely a mixture of the two victims, and we're going to get to all of the DNA evidence as well. But beside those footprints were droplets, pretty large droplets that were round in shape,

and when you see this type of blood evidence, it's usually from the weapon, from the blood that's on the weapon and is dripping down as the perpetrator is walking or running away. It was important for all of the weapon. all of these different smears, footprints, and droplets to be swabbed, because the killer could have possibly harmed themselves, and their blood could have been left behind.

It had been noted in reports that multiple detectives and analysts mentioned that this was the bloodiest crime scene they had ever been a part of analyzing. With that being said, that's another similarity to the Idaho case. And don't worry, I won't be talking about the similarities much longer. But in the Idaho case, there was so much blood evidence and other items collected, it was overwhelming. There was also four people killed in that case, so that's to be expected.

But in a small town like this, they had 71 pieces of DNA evidence, and that was extremely rare. One of the analysts said that maybe two or three was common, but there was just an overwhelming amount in this case. Other than these cases, both being stabbings, that was where the similarities pretty much end. The reason why there were so many pieces of evidence in this case,

was because we're talking about a town that had never seen anything like this before. And I think we can liken that to Moscow, Idaho, in the college town. So if you are wondering, those were the things people connected in these cases and kind of analyzed online. But again, that's really where the similarities end.

But speaking of a bloody crime scene, as they make their way to the top floor and right into Leslie's bedroom, which is the first room that you come to when you make it up those stairs, there was so much blood. Something that this platform here does not like me to show, so I have to blur this entire picture. But you can kind of make out what's going on here.

I tried to figure things out as well. It looked like to me the cordless phone sitting on the right and also the base of that phone, which makes sense. Because someone tried to grab it and use it, and the base was pulled from them all, making it useless. The reason there's a lot of blood in this area is because Leslie, appeared to have probably been in this area as she was being attacked as she was trying to leave. She ends up in the next room over, which is where Adrian was sleeping.

She had been woken up by all the noise and she turned on a light. That was the light that Lauren saw from outside. It was turned on while she was hiding. And there is a smear or a stream or trail of blood leading from Leslie's room right into Adrians. Detectives couldn't be sure if Leslie was dragged in there, if she was crawling in there to get help, no one could know for sure. But it was obvious to detectives that the killer came into Leslie's room first, which again was important for motive. If Adrian hadn't woken up, they wondered, would there have been two homicides? Was the perpetrator there to take Leslie by force?

She screamed and she fought because she did fight for her life hard. And it could have been the case that the killer was blocking the exit on the stairs. So Leslie had no other choice and nowhere else to run except to Adrian. There was a phone in Adrian's room, but the only problem was that once the other phone was ripped from the wall, there was no way to use any of the phones because the other one was off the hook. If you've had a corded phone, even if it's cordless, you'll remember if you pick one up, try to dial with it, leave it on, you can't use the other one. The phone in Adrian's room was laying on the side table and it was useless.

Looking in Leslie's room, the way that the blood patterns existed on her bedsheets seemed to point to her being asleep when she was attacked. And because there's a nun where she would be laying, it appeared as though she woke up by maybe someone grabbing her, putting their hand over her mouth, doing something that would make her sit up and try to figure out what was going on. And at that point, it appears she had been stabbed again and again.

And this was absolutely brutal. And yes, I am going to go over the autopsy report. But the side of Leslie's bed had smears and swipes that showed movement, as if she was trying to get away. And there was a lot more blood. below her bed on the bed skirt and the pillows that had fallen to the floor, as well as a lot of droplets showing a lot of active bleeding while standing or kneeling, as well as cast off on the walls. Now moving to Adrienne's room, Leslie's body was faced down in a pile of dirty clothes at the

end of Adrian's bed. Obviously, this was the bloodiest portion of this entire house. I heard that there were two inches of blood in there. I don't know if that's true. It was in a report I read, but this is where both of the girls ended up passing away. It is where Adrienne was in an active struggle as well. She was attacked near or on the bed and had bled out with Leslie on the floor taking her last breath. A knife or a sharp object was used and they had both been stabbed multiple times.

Adrian and Leslie both had defensive wounds. One comment that multiple authorities made who had a lot of experience at crime scene said that they could never forget the smell of this house. And I know that that can sound morbid, and this case is heartbreaking. But that metallic smell of blood was so distinctive and so poignant that it was written about many times and noted.

And there was a reason for this. The house was only about 1,200 square feet. It was small. I've said that a few times now. And the lead detective, Todd Schulman, likened it to a doll house, which I just remember. another similarity in the Coburg case.

There was a replica of the Moscow-Idoho house, and I think the defense team called that a doll house, and that was offensive to the victims. So the judge ordered them not to call it that. But this house on Dorset Street had very small rooms. I already told you. Adrian's room was about 9 by 11 feet. In such a compact space, this smell is a lot to take in.

With the way that the blood had been smeared and dropped, you could almost recreate all the action that happened in there. And that's what these detectives were doing. Bloodhounds were even called out, and they took blood from that room on samples, and they brought these dogs outside. The dogs tracked to Highway 29, which would have been an easy getaway route. It was only about half a mile away, so this perpetrator could have gone anywhere, and there were no witnesses. Nobody heard or saw anything in the neighborhood, except for, of course, Lauren, who was inside the house. The killer didn't leave anything behind on the road or anywhere inside the neighborhood.

They canvassed the entire thing. However, forensic analyst Miss Lipsy located something that she thought was significant in the backyard. A broken cigarette. Not the butt or the filter, but the part where the tobacco is. This seems significant because of the way was broken. Now, most of us know that DNA can be collected from the butt, so she's keeping an eye out. She didn't know if this was from a resident at the Dorset house or not, so she collected it just in case.

Then she went around the perimeter of the house, and that's when she found. Two matching cigarette butts smoked all the way down to the filters, and they were both located together in the gutter in front of the house. Now, this seems very significant, almost like somebody was casing this place, just standing around looking at the house, smoking cigarettes out front,

and perhaps they tried to jump the fence. the light went on, the motion-detecting light, and maybe that's when they broke one of their cigarettes, leaving that part behind. It's plausible, and it seemed like a clue, and everything was bagged for DNA. There was so much to this crime scene that the bodies were not even removed and taken for autopsies until Tuesday. But let me get into some of that now. I'll let you know, and I already told you, that both died from multiple sad wounds. I was only able to get extensive autopsy reports for Leslie's injuries. I don't know why Adrians were not released the same way, but I was able to actually see a document that revealed everywhere that Leslie had been wounded in detail.

So I am going to go over that. I think it'll give you an idea of how this attack occurred. If you think about where the wounds are located on her body, she had most of her wounds on the left side. There was a wound on the left side of her neck, three more above her left breast, probably as she was waking up and sitting up because her bed was positioned in a way where the left side of her body would have been facing the door. So as she sat up, probably after she heard somebody in her room, or maybe her attacker put their hand over her mouth, we don't know. But as she sat up, she most likely was stabbed at that point. She had stabs to her left bicep, the right side of her chest, at least three wounds to the left side of her abdomen, on both sides of her stomach, four in her

upper back, one in the back of her left arm, there was another one on her left thigh, and a number of defensive wounds all over her hands and forearms. But the most tragic and severe injury was a stab right through Leslie's heart. And this meant that she bled out very quickly, and unfortunately, there would have been in no way to save her. This doesn't just show overkill. It shows a crime of rage. And right away the fact that she is a former beauty queen, very social, does a social job, dates various men, is out every week getting to know new people. And the fact that there were zip ties brought to that scene, the killer went right to Leslie's room, almost knowing exactly where it was seemed to point to her being the target. As for Adrian, it seemed like she

was awoken when the commotion happened. Even though that is speculative, Lauren saw a light go on in Adrian's room and then she heard her scream. So that tends to lean to her hearing Leslie being attacked and screaming and the killer was blocking them both in so they couldn't run away. Adrian had multiple stab wounds as well and it was referred to as a very vicious and brutal attack. But I don't have the specific areas on her body like I do with Leslie. However, she also had, like I said, defensive wounds on her hands and forearms and even cuts between her fingers as she tried to grab for the knife. There was also a gash to her face and her neck. With what we know about Leslie's injuries, we can infer that Adrian's injuries were just as bad. But as far as the reports are concerned,

I read that Leslie's injuries were more severe and there were more of them. This is in no way to diminish what happened to Adrian at all, but that is the information I was able to gather. Adrian was athletic. She played sports. She worked out at the gym regularly with her best friend Lily, so she was definitely someone to put up a fight. And she was still alive when Lauren ran up to see both of her roommates lying in that bedroom. Unfortunately, there was just way too many wounds to her body and to Leslie's for them to survive.

They both died of multiple stab wounds, and the manner of death was homicide. At this point, both victims are officially identified. Their names were going to be released to the media, but this is where things get crazier. First, it was the fact that a double homicide happened on Halloween night. But then knowing that a former beauty queen, a Southern Bell,

that came out to California recently to live out her dream had been brutally murdered, it was like Adrian went into the shadows and everything revolved around Leslie. Immediately, all the news outlets were looking for family and friends of Leslie so they could find out as much information as possible about this beautiful, stunning model,

who was killed in this home and possibly targeted, and had been stabbed multiple times. times. It just made for really gripping headlines. But of course, they wanted to locate Adrian and Leslie's family members first. That was very important, but it wasn't going to be easy. Adrian's mother was on vacation out in Australia visiting her youngest daughter, Allison, who lived out there. And Arlene had a different last name than Adrian. She's Arlene Allen, and the same was with Leslie's mom, Kathy Harrington. So there was Arlene, vacationing with her two friends, planning to meet up with her younger daughter later that week,

she gets back to her hotel room, and she gets a note that her daughter, Lexi, and her other daughter, Allison, had both reached out to her and left messages, and that was not good. She could understand maybe why Allison would get in touch, but not both. So the first thing she thought was maybe something happened to her parents.

She called Allison because they're both in Australia, and of course, she had no idea what she was going to hear. and Allison got straight to the point. When Arlene said, Hi, I just received your message, what's going on? Allison said, Mom, an intruder broke into Adrian's house, and Adrian and Leslie are dead. I don't blame her for being so blunt,

but I cannot imagine as a mother getting that message, but there really is no right way to tell someone that their child has been killed. And poor Adrian, she's sitting there, she repeats it out loud. Her friends that she's staying with are right there. What a moment of shock. When out of her mouth, she does say, Adrian's dead?

If one of my friends said that out loud in the moment, I don't know what I would have done. I would have broken down. And that's what happened in that room. Arlene really just couldn't even wrap her head around what she was hearing, and I don't blame her for not being able to comprehend. She kept saying it.

She's dead. She's dead. And Allison repeated. Yes. Adrian is dead. And once it hit her, Arlene fell apart. She was screaming. Her friends were, of course, trying to run over and comfort her,

but they were also crying. And it was a mess. It was just such a heartbreaking and devastating moment, as I'm sure any of you can imagine. And at that point, she couldn't get to her daughter fast enough. You want to hold them one last time. And Arlene had no idea what happened or what was going on at this point.

And that makes you feel so helpful. She was so far away, not being able to be there for your child when that is a parent's job. Allison and Arlene got to the United States as fast as they could to meet with Adrienne's other sister Lexi, and then it was straight to the police station. And that was Wednesday. Of course, they were a grieving family, but I say this all the time. They also need as much information as possible, so of course they have to sit down with police. Time is of the essence.

they're trying to figure out what direction they should go in. But the thing is, Arlene cannot think of one person in Adrian's life who would ever want to hurt her. So her mind immediately shifted to Leslie. The newest girl of the group, the one who was really social, and the other person who had been murdered that night. So Arlene tells police that she truly believes that somebody that Leslie led into her life had intentions to harm her

and that her daughter Adrian tried to help Leslie, and that's why she was killed. She knew that's the type of person Adrian was. She would put up a fight and help someone in need. Now, when it came to informing Leslie's family that she had been killed, it was even harder. She was not a local. Nobody there really knew anything about her.

All of her connections were in South Carolina. And I know you might be thinking, why couldn't they just ask someone like Lauren, the survivor? Well, she was grieving. She was a wreck. We don't know what Lauren was dealing with in those moments. But the way that Leslie's mom found out that her daughter had been killed

was really heartbreaking to me. Leslie's aunt had heard from a friend that the news was reporting two girls got murdered on Dorset Street. And she knew that was the same name of the street that Leslie lived on. And can you imagine hearing that? How fast your heart would be beating?

Kathy was driving, by the way. So just the thought that your child might be dead. And when she got home, she immediately called the local police, and she introduced herself and said, I'm Leslie Mazar's mother, Kathy. And they were like, we've been waiting for you to get in touch. Right then she knew. But the wait actually wasn't over yet

because they had to have a detective call her back. So for an hour, she was trying to look at the news for information. And as soon as she saw that there was one survivor, she was praying that that was her daughter, but we know that it wasn't. The detective finally did talk to her, and I understand they have to be blunt. It's probably better to just say it right away,

but they just let her know that her daughter was killed with the other roommate in the house and they were very sorry for her loss. And I understand, but at the same time, like, oh my God, that is just so cut and dry like they're just writing a report. Like you're delivering any old message to someone. Kathy, just like Arlene, hurried to fly out to California, and she called it her worst nightmare. And by this time, Detective Schulman was interviewing Lauren in depth.

They wanted to know every single detail from that night. They even went over her 911 call, which was now kind of being scrutinized. I read through it. I can see why it looks a little bit suspicious, but there were a lot of rumors swirling. also reminded me, hate to keep saying it, of the Idaho case. So I guess there's one more similarity that I forgot to mention. Remember there was a surviving roommate, Dylan Mortensen, in that case, and everyone started talking about how she could be involved

and saying these terrible things about this poor girl who went through such a tragic ordeal. She could have died that night. Well, the same was happening to Lauren. They were asking, why did she escape? How was it that she doesn't have one stab wound on her? Nothing happened to Lauren. Well, the detectives thought that perhaps the killer didn't even know that Lauren's room existed.

Or he knew exactly where he wanted to go, and he was targeting one or both of the other females in the house. But since the police were not releasing much information, the residents and the media were having a field day with theories. There were some people in the neighborhood who wanted Lauren arrested. They wanted her to become a suspect. They wanted to make sure that she had been entirely ruled out by police. There were rumors that she was jealous of the other roommates, that she might be a lesbian and liked one of them, and the other one was dating her.

I mean, you name it, they were saying it. And to be fair, there were some people saying, you know, if Lauren was a guy, she would be the number one prime suspect.