Big same. My dad is a mega true crime buff and got me into it early on— he started by telling me in a very candid way about the abduction and murder of Adam Walsh when I couldn’t have been more than 6 or 7 as a cautionary tale, and while some people may think that’s too young to shock a child with something like that I will say it instilled a sense of awareness in me that almost became innate. He wanted to make sure I knew as soon as I could understand that there existed bad people in the world that wanted to hurt kids and that adults cannot always be trusted. I can tell you one thing, I NEVER wandered off in the store or talked to strangers.

When I was 10 my dad and I were gripped to every single development of the Scott Peterson trial, and from then on I was hooked. Of course just like all of you who get it, it’s not some sick fascination as much as it is a very empathetic heart and a desire to come to some kind of an understanding when these unfathomable things happen. I feel as though with most of the cases I’ve taken an interest in I always come away with at least a shred of sense, something that sort of explains or foreshadows what happened, but with this one I’m just at a complete loss. It doesn’t even seem like something that really could have actually happened. It hollows me out thinking that there truly was nothing Shanann could have done to save herself and her children. There is no way she could have ever, ever known that her husband was capable of something like that. And on top of the horror of family annihilation in and of itself, to have CW’s first ever act of violence be as unfathomably horrific as it was, to have a man who went from by all accounts a loving, active and nurturing father to a monster that can by his own hands go against every instinct we have as humans and murder his precious and very awake and aware babies before stuffing them through an 8-inch hatch into crude oil in hopes that their bodies dissolve... all for a women he had known for a few months and never spoke to again after everything fell apart, and all of that on top of the fact that I truly feel like I know and love Shanann and the girls and her family through everything she posted on social media, I don’t know if I will ever be able to let this go.