I always thought she did it too. Look how cold she is right after it happened. You see the pictures of her standing around the door of the house, the police tape, the ambulance parked outside, the bodies brought out—poor little Madison, her tiny little body bag. And Casey’s there and she’s not even crying, not even losing it. She’s totally calm, her arms folded, and we’re supposed to believe a teenager would act like that if she found the entire family dead, blood all over the place? Plus has no one mentioned that she had gunshot residue on her hands? She said she picked it up, without thinking, in case one of the kids got hold of it, but would anyone be that dumb? And don’t you only get that if you actually fire the gun? I mean she’s not dumb, is she? She managed to get out of prison after killing three people. IMO she’s very clever, very cunning, kind of a psychopath, really. Look at her eyes when she’s standing outside, and the police are in the house finding them all dead. Nothing, no emotion at all. She doesn’t feel a thing.

-reply by BB2000

Does anyone have an idea where Casey Adams might be these days? She went back to the UK, right?

Rachel

Rachel

After hours of questioning at the police station in Barrow, I was allowed a break. I asked if I could go outside for some fresh air – I was becoming paranoid about losing that again, and needed to get as much into my lungs as I could.

DS Hope looked boot-faced but didn’t say no. ‘All right,’ said DS Hegarty. ‘Come with me.’

He led me through the building, down winding, windowless corridors, past small, cramped offices, and out a fire door at the back into a car park. It was raining again, swept with a salt-tinged wind off the sea, and I shivered – I had left my coat inside. All the same, I was determined to stay out. I lifted my face to the darkening sky. Then I realised Hegarty had not left.

‘Have to stay with me at all times, huh?’

He shrugged. ‘I like the air too. Sometimes I pretend to go for a smoke just to get out of the stuffiness. I haven’t smoked in ten years.’ Neither had I, of course, after it became such a contentious issue for me, the odd fag I had sneaked and thought would have no consequences.

‘Have you always lived here?’

He froze slightly at the question. I had often tried to talk to the prison guards in America, to make them see me as more human, but also just to keep myself from going insane. Even a guard was a person.

‘I grew up here. Went to London for a bit to work with the Met – it’s tough down there. Came back about six months ago.’