Molly kept yelling. “After I killed Francine, I tore that house apart and couldn’t find the personal documents she had for her identities of Lorelei and Jeanne. I knew she’d hid them somewhere. I was desperate to find them. They had to be destroyed.”

There was almost no hesitation as Molly continued. “I was already living as Julia DeHaviland. I had to change the plan quickly and this took a little creativity. Francine and Julia’s murders were now going to be the same as Jeanne Coleman’s. It was going to look like a series of murders occurred, a serial killing, and they all were going to be pinned on some unsuspecting fool. That fool was Colin Turner. When I met him at that singles event, I knew he was the one who was going to take the fall for Julia’s death. Why not a couple more? He thought he married me for my money. Well, I married him because I needed someone to frame for murder.”

Val’s eyes blinked reflexively. Her heart pummeled as she prayed Molly hadn’t noticed.

“It’s even easier to frame someone than to steal their identity. Isn’t that a scary thought? You could spend the rest of your life behind bars, or worse yet be sentenced to death, because someone is smart enough to frame you. When I killed Julia, in addition to her sheets, I saved a towel soaked in her blood and a few items that had spatter on it. The blood dried out but that didn’t matter, in fact it was a good thing. Dry blood is a good source of DNA evidence, and items like this worked very well in staging a crime. I kept bloody items from all of the victims for this reason. Jesus, you never know what strange courses an investigation will take. The sheet thing eventually was thought of as a signature of the killer. It was never planned as that. Taking the sheets was just a necessity.”

Val’s thoughts flashed to that day she was in Julia’s bedroom, nearly collapsing when she saw blood on the spattered lamp, feeling devastated that Julia was dead. She choked on that memory now.

“The night I staged Julia’s death, I had the bloody towel wrapped around my arm, running it under the faucet, soaking it. I told Colin I’d slit my wrist. The water mixed with Julia’s blood and hence her DNA. He grabbed the towel to check what I did, to make sure I was okay.