When Everything Goes Wrong in a Small Town

Doesn't look like the typical crime scene, does it?

I learned the hard way that looks can be deceiving. People, monsters have a way of hiding who they really are, masquerading as human chameleons hiding in plain sight. Sometimes they are even under your own roof.

BASED ON A TRUE STORY: All accounts are my own experience's.

When I first met her I was incredibly uncomfortable and anxious. She was my boyfriend’s stepdaughter. She was apparently really close with her mama and since I was the new girlfriend after their divorce, I was unsure how friendly she would be towards me .

Although I always seemed to make a good first impression, I knew the deck was stacked against me.

As soon as he introduced us, she hugged me. It was a hug that made me believe we had been friends for ever. She was such a beautiful girl. And I was to learn quickly, she was even more beautiful inside.

From the very beginning, she went out of her way to be sure I was comfortable. Always complimentary, polite and helpful. I adored her.

We became fast friends. We texted a lot, confided and encouraged one another in our relationships. She and Scott had their issues when she was younger, but now they were incredibly close.

Scott, a plant manager at a pontoon manufacturing company, had access to all these new boat that needed driven, so we spent our summers putting hours on the new boats. We had a blast. We were together almost every weekend.

Funny when you spend so much time with someone, sometimes the edges of a perfect picture begin to curl.

Scott was my best friend. I had met him through a friend a couple years earlier. I had never been with a man that showed me and told me how much he loved me as much as he did. He was confidant and had a plan. He knew what he wanted and knew how to get that done. I was attracted to the and in awe of him. We were in our 40's when we met, but we felt like kids. The kind of relationship most only dreamed of, so it was no surprise when we announced that we wanted to be married. He proposed during a college football game at my favorite teams stadium. It was romantic and one of the sweetest things ever, and everyone cheered when I accepted.

Finally, everything I ever wanted. Or so I thought.

Denise and Justin declined coming to the wedding, not wanting to hurt her mother’s feelings, and we completely understood. They were there the following weekend and we celebrated our marriage and the newly formed bond between us all.

August 2013, we were married, and as my girls made their way through high school, we decided to move closer to town. It was closer to our jobs and it made sense to be back in our hometown. We (I) fell in love with the house and Scott made sure we could afford it, and before I knew it, it was ours.

We completely remodeled the inside, making it our own and I redid the flowerbeds in front of the house surrounding the pergola and swing he built for me. It was perfect.

We had so many people tell us that they would be willing to help us move, but as that day arrived, anyone who said they would be there to help had every excuse not to be. The only ones who showed up to help us move was Justin and Denise.

Denise helped me pack, it took us almost 3 days to get everything packed and marked, making the transition easier. Scott was a big hunter, so he rallied the help of his "family" with Connie to move the huge gun safe, and his vast collection of guns. It was quite the task. Denise helped me with everything from the actual move, to getting everything in place as we got things set up. She was amazing. Generous, and I would soon learn, generous to a fault.

As in any relationship, we both struggled. She and I were both a little insecure because of our pasts and this became a stress that hurt the connections we had with our husbands.

It was becoming obvious that Justin was really beginning to be mean. He used to keep it hidden, but when he was using, he didn’t have the ability to hide what he was feeling. He was stealing and sneaky. He degraded her publicly and was cheating again. Any opportunity he had he would be snarky to her and then overly nice to whoever else was in the room. If she apologized for making him angry and caused him to cheat, he would let her make it up to him, by doing whatever it took to make him happy. He liked seeing and making her grovel. Scott called him out a couple times, but he was getting more comfortable showing his true colors.

He and I were cordial, but I didn’t like his influence on Scott, and absolutely hated the way he treated her . Tensions began to build.

Coming into 2017, my mother began to get sick. Dementia and kidney disease. I was very close with my mom, so whenever I had free time, I was with she and my dad. Some nights I stayed over to help dad and Justin would stay at our house. Under the guise he was car pooling with Scott

This created More tension at home between Scott and I.

In January 2018, my mom died.

Denise was avoiding spending much time with me because of Justin. We still texted and called one another. Come February as our marriage began to crumble. The stress of my mother's passing and the troubles we had seemed overwhelming and I believed we only needed space. As things progressed it was clear we were at a stale mate. So, I moved out.

A few months later, Justin and Denise moved in with Scott. They had lost their apartment and none of her family would allow Justin to stay at their houses. A warning that should have been a red flag and taken seriously. However, in our moment of dissolution, we were oblivious to any warning signs the past few months had been screaming at us.

I was now the outsider and Denise apologized like it was her fault. She always encouraged me that Scott and I were perfect for one another and she was sure we could work it out. She confided to me that Justin was getting more aggressive and vulgar in the way he spoke to her. He was using drugs and sleeping around. Now living and working with Scott. He and Justin were going to the gym and drinking all the time. She had me tell Scott some of the things Justin had sent to her in text messages, hoping he could get through to Justin, but things continued to escalate.

She mentioned one night when I was visiting, that Justin had gotten in her face, squeezed her cheeks and said, "I will so fucking kill you" Scott said he would talk to him, she didn't need to worry, and that was that.

Two weeks later

On a snowy shitty night in October 2018, I stopped after work to talk with Scott, hoping we could reconcile our differences and work things out. He assured me that he still loved me, and that he still needed time to work through his feelings- but that there was no one else. He said he loved me and was staying home for the night and he would call me later. So I went home.

I decided later to go to the movies with my daughter’s.

Venom was almost over when my phone began buzzing. It was a text from someone I was friends with, asking me if I was ok. I ignored the text. I remember thinking that was a weird thing to text me. A few minutes later it buzzed again. It’s Scott calling , my oldest daughter whispered for me to ignore it. I did, twice. The third time, excusing myself from the theater I answered.

It's Scott, he says with panic in his voice, “I need you to come home, Justin killed Denise," Not fully hearing what he said and not wanting to make assumptions, due to the panic in his voice I asked , WHAT?! He repeats, “Kelli, I need you to come home, there is blood everywhere and I can’t find Denise, I think Justin has hurt her, I think she’s dead!”

I am now in flight mode. I have always dropped everything at any given moment for him, this was not changing now. As I went back into the theater, my daughter’s reading my expression, began to move without hesitation as I said “we need to go!” The swirl of questions, and the oncoming tears with no answers left me feeling overwhelmed . As we headed to the car, my daughter commented that it is snowing pretty heavy and it’s probably slick. I am in "go" mode. My phone begins to ring as I am driving out of the parking lot and onto the county road that leads home. It’s my neighbor, well I suppose technically it’s Scott’s neighbor.

Staci says, “Oh my god, Kelli, I was afraid it was you!” “What was me” I asked. “She is laying in the yard, between our houses, I think she’s dead! There are police cars everywhere and Scott is screaming in the yard “. Just then, my phone beeps, it’s him. “Staci, it’s Scott calling, I have to answer, I’ll call you later. Hello?! Kelli, are you coming? That son of a bitch did it, he killed her Kelli, it was my gun, he used my gun!"

Silence, tears, I can't catch my breath.

Suddenly, as if someone else is speaking, I calmly say, “listen to me, we are on the way, I am about 10 minutes from home” He is screaming in a voice so primal, so broken, so angry that I am scared. This is not the man I have come to know. The one who has everything under control.

“Scott, listen to me, are you listening? Yes, I'm listening-I’m gonna kill him!" he says in a guttural tone. "STOP, don’t say anything else, I am almost there”. He sobs, “I know, you were the only person I knew to call, I just need you here”. I can hear the officer telling him to hang up, the officer takes his phone and says to me. “When you pull into the addition, tell them we said to let you through, what do you drive? I will let them know you are coming, he is in bad shape” I ask the officer, “ is she dead?” He pauses and says, “you shouldn’t be on the phone now, see you soon”. and hangs up.

It was the longest drive ever.

As we pull into the addition I thought would be my home address where I would greet my grand babies one day, we are nearly blinded by all the lights. Our house was clear in the back on the cul-de-sac and as we were let through, I can see his silhouette, pacing and holding his head. Between the houses I can see a figure covered with a white sheet in the middle of the yard.

Without hesitation, I am out of the car. Before I reach Scott I am stopped by an officer catching me up on what is happening. He is talking but I can’t hear him, I interrupt him and say, “I need him to know that I’m here”. At that moment Scott turns around and runs to me. He is screaming and crying and undeniably drunk. “ what happened? Is that Denise, where is Justin? “ An officer interrupts tells me to get him to the police station. I can see blood all over the garage. I hear barking. They won’t let me in to get the dog. “After the coroner leaves you can get her, you cant disturb the crime scene” Crime scene?!!! This is my home. What in the world is happening here!

We head to the police station, Scott, my girls and I. There is another couple there, I knew vaguely, but I didn’t know why they were there. We are crying now, as it begins to sink in- what the actual fuck was going on.

And I’m mad. No, I was beyond mad, furious. How did my carefully planned life end up at a police station with my daughters, sitting across from strangers with my good friend shot dead in my house laying in the front yard!!?

Turns out that after I left the house, they all went out drinking. The to get drunk kind. They were all so wasted that when Denise said to Scott that Justin threatened her at the bar, no one thought anything about it as he left, He returned 35 minutes later to take her home alone leaving Scott at the bar. No one thought, hey, that's a really bad idea.

Not quite an hour after, Scott asked for a ride home. As they dropped him off in the driveway they noticed everything completely wide open. All the lights were on and there were no cars in the driveway. As Scott walked into the open garage he noticed a pool of blood.

He runs back out onto the drive to flag them down to help him look through the house. They find no one but the dog, who is out of her mind with fear. They follow the bloody footsteps out of the garage and through the flower garden where they find her laying face up, her knees bent and her hands folded together on her chest, like she was praying or star gazing, in the snow.

Justin is just gone.

While everyone is being questioned, except the one who has vanished, Scotts phone rings. It’s Connie, Connie is Denise’s mom.

Small town bullshit and social media strikes again. She heard on Facebook that her daughter was shot and killed. Let me say that again, Facebook!!

They are short on officers and everyone else is too drunk to drive, so I (her ex husbands estranged wife )go to her house to bring her to the police station so the coroner can tell her Facebook was right. Her daughter was shot in her ex husband’s garage and lying covered in a sheet in the snow in the front yard, right now.

I'm sorry, that is some messed up shit.

Everything that happens next is complete madness.

Justin is found in a small town about 30 minutes away, where his brother is a cop (yeah) he has been texting Denise’s phone non stop, creating what I believe to be an alibi. Asshole.

After a few hours we are released from the police station. I leave Scott with Connie to sort it all out and collecting the dog from the “crime scene, that is my home

The girls and I go home.

The next morning Scott and Connie are to meet with detectives and rehash the events that took place and fill in the blanks.

Myself and the neighbor begin the small town crime scene clean-up. That’s right, in a small town, there is no one to do that, so you clean it yourself.

Let me tell you, there is nothing that compares to the smell of stale blood. What’s worse is that it’s the blood of someone I love.

It kills you a little inside.

Being that I am an administrative assistant, I should not know anything about this. But now, I do.

At about noon there was a knock on the garage door (the door with the bullet hole in it) and it is a detective. A young kid. He stopped by to inform us that after interviewing Justin, they believe that Denise must have committed suicide, (apparently his reaction to the news about his wife being dead was appropriate enough to convince them he didn't do it, despite people coming forward, saying he said that he would). I looked at him and asked if they had done a test for gunpowder residue. He scoffed and said “ "you watch too much tv, we don’t do that”. I was immediately enraged “are you kidding me!? I have a friend who is a detective in Detroit, and they rely on them all the time." He implied that it wasn’t common for small towns, and he was just informing us what the coroner was probably going to say.

I have always been a people pleaser, I hate confrontations, but in the past few hours I had become intolerable of ignorance. This new me, wasn't having it.

I sat down on the stoop, the one they say she was sitting on when she shot herself, smelling of bleach and said to him

"So you are telling me that they came home- beyond drunk (his words) they get into an argument, went into their room that was down 10 stairs, into the basement (according to Justin), where she grabs a gun (which she is deathly afraid of, and has never shot) and threatens to hurt herself. He then dramatically wrestles the gun from her and she chases him out of the house into the garage, where he then locks her out to protect himself? This man who can press well over 250#, hiding from his 100# wife he had just previously disarmed?!

He says, "Well, the neighbor said he saw her crossing the yard to enter into the sliding door at the back of the house, and heard banging and then a short time after, a couple popping sounds."

I say, in that tone a mother uses when trying to figure out an untruth being told.

"So, you're telling me that she was beyond drunk, yet after wrestling her husband who is twice her size, that she supposedly snuck into the basement to find yet another gun? He then realizes she has come inside so he cautiously sneaks out of the garage and leaves in her truck without her knowing? So then what...?" I say, becoming more and more irritated,

"She sits here on this stoop, in a tank top, in 30 degree weather, with the garage door wide open to smoke a cigarette? She is holding this gun in her hand and then decides to put it against her chest and fire it into herself without flinching? (I am going through the motions as I talk.) "Wouldn't there have been some drawback or recoil from firing the gun? How is it that there is a perfectly symmetrical hole in her, the garage door and without moving up or down, a hole in the kitchen cabinet, perfectly aligned? Also, please explain to me how there was absolutely NO blood on the door, none! And no blood on the stoop! All the blood was 3 feet in front of her, and the gun was on the other side of that...then she got up and walked through her own blood to go for help?! What exactly are you trying to sell us here?! "

" If she was as drunk as you say, when she made it into the basement, after walking up and down the stairs, where it was warm, if she truly intended to hurt herself, why not just do it down there? Just lay down and be done? Why would she come back the stairs, beyond drunk, to sit in the cold garage? Why was her phone and drink back by the sliding door, which by the way has boot prints half way up the glass. Did anyone check about that? I'm sorry, but none of this makes sense! "

He makes an excuse that he was just relaying what the coroner might say, and that someone would be reaching out to Scott soon. He simply turns around gets into his car and drives away.

I was in disbelief at their seeming disregard for this loss of precious human life.

I kept Nestle (the dog) to allow Scott the opportunity to stay with Connie, as she shouldn’t be alone. That evening Scott came back to the house to get a change of clothes. I told him all about what the detective said. He was furious. I suggested he stay with Connie until arrangements could be made. He called me early the next day to say Connie had suffered a stroke and they were taking her to the hospital. His being with her ultimately saved her life.

After Connie was strong enough, there was a service to say goodbye. Justin threatened to come, but being the coward he is, didn't. He was too busy trying to get ahold of what life insurance was to be had.

A few days later, we were replacing the garage door, and discovered an empty shell casing just beside the stoop, just under a work bench. The fine detectives had missed it. It coincided with the neighbors account that there had been two shots fired. They assumed the neighbor was confused as the only bullet found was in the kitchen cabinet.

When the detectives arrived at the house, they found that there was in fact another bullet that had been shot from the second gun. That gun was gone, with no investigation or explanation. There was one at the scene, but not the one that killed Denise.

They ran a laser light to determine where the shot had come from. The stray bullet was in the house directly across the cul-de-sac from our house.

There were so many questions and mistakes made that night, that it seems (due to terrible assumptions and ignorance) they have helped a man get away with murder. Her death certificate states suicide.

A few weeks later we found out that Justin had been arrested for fraud. He was caught with another man's wife, living in her car. The man had been found dead, 4 short days after Denise was killed, an apparent overdose. Justin had been using this man's credit cards to shop at Lowes. He spent about 6 months in jail for that crime and then was re-arrested for battery a few months later, on the same woman.

I can't change what happened, I wish I could. I would feel some satisfaction in knowing that the person responsible were in jail for her death, he isn't.

He WILL do this again.

All I can do is tell the story as I experienced it. Denise was a spectacular person. She was beautiful, kind and giving. Her biggest mistake was that sadly she trusted the one man she should have feared the most.

If you know someone in a relationship like this, please listen. Use your voice to help protect those people you love. Ask questions, pay attention, and be aware. I now live by the saying, it is better to be safe than sorry.

You are missed daily Denise