‘The murder of innocence,’ read VG, dated three days after the attack. ‘One life lost, another two shattered. The surviving girls of the Carúpano shooting, Elisabeth Eliassen and Kristina Hellerud, of Sandvika, Bærum, are receiving trauma therapy in Caracas after Thursday’s brutal attack. They are receiving support from the Norwegian foreign office in Venezuela, and are expected to return to Norway later this week.’

I opened a third article, this one in Dagsavisen. ‘Rickards, who recently turned nineteen and was a graduate of Sandvika Gymnasium, had spent most of the summer working at 7-Eleven in Bekkestua to save money for the trip of a lifetime, traveling around South America for six months. Excitement turned to tragedy just two weeks into the trip, when the Norwegian trio decided to hitchhike in the notoriously dangerous northern Sucre region, after several scheduled buses failed to showed up. The girls were picked up by Rodriguez, who brought them to a house party at a private home near Carúpano. According to the witness statement of Elisabeth Eliassen, they stayed for several hours, taking drugs and drinking alcohol with Rodriguez, his brother and several others. At one point in the evening, Rodriguez, an unidentified second man and the three Norwegian girls retreated to a gazebo in the grounds of the house, bordering the surrounding jungle. It was here Rodriguez brought out the weapon and threatened the girls when they refused to perform a sexual act on himself and the other man. The girls tried to run, but Rodriguez fired the gun straight at Trine Rickards, who was killed instantly. Elisabeth Eliassen and Kristina Hellerud managed to run off into the jungle in the commotion that followed.

‘Hellerud was recovered several hours later, disorientated and dehydrated, a few miles away in the Macarapana area. She remains in hospital care and is said to suffer from cognitive impairment as a result of the incident. Elisabeth Eliassen managed to reach the main road and flagged down a vehicle. She was brought to the Hospital General de Carúpano, where she was reunited with Hellerud the following day, before being transferred to Caracas at the insistence of the Norwegian Consul General, Einar Johannessen.’

I was so shocked to learn what you’d been through. It changed everything. I had to know more. I suppose I wanted to know how it had affected you and how you could have survived something like that and gone on to seem so whole. I pored over the images of teenage you and your two tragic friends. Blonde-haired, blue-eyed Trine, tiny next to you and Elisabeth who are both so tall, smiling in every picture. Trine was obviously the goofy one, unable to resist a peace sign behind your head, or crossing her eyes, or sticking her tongue out.

What kind of monster could point a gun at her head and pull the trigger?