Paolilla Christine - Never see them again

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T HESE BOOKS I write are not possible without the help of my sources and the people around me who help in ways they do not even realize. It feels redundant to keep thanking the same people, over and over, but they are, truly, the backbone of what I do.

First and foremost, I am entirely grateful and honored to have so many readers. It is because of so many of you fine people, who keep coming back, book after book, that I am allowed to live my dream every day. I never take any of this for granted; I need you all to know that I am grateful every minute of every day for the opportunity to write books.

Thank you from the bottom of my soul.

Of course, I would not have written this book without the support and help of George Koloroutis and Nichole Snchez. I appreciate the trust these two wonderful people put in me, and my hope is that nothing I wrote upset either one of them. If so, it was unintentional.

I also need to thank Tom Ladd, Brian Harris, and everyone at HPD who helped.

My family: Matty, Jordon, April, and Regina. My friends, too; everyone at St. Lukes Church; those great people at Hall Memorial Library in Ellington, who continue to support my career; and those of you who surround my life. I appreciate all of you for allowing me to talk so much about what I do.

I also want to thank Elena Siviero, who runs the M. William Phelps Fan Club on Facebook. I know it takes time to do those things and I greatly appreciate Elena volunteering. Please sign up on the fan club page: http://www.facebook. com/#!/group.php?gid=52752001614 . And also Sandy Sibert who maintains my website, www.mwilliamphelps.com .

Kensington Publishing Corp.Laurie Parkin, the Zacharius family, in particular, and my editors, Michaela Hamilton and Richard Ember, along with Doug Mendini and copy editor Stephanie Finnegan, and every other employee who works on my bookshas been there with me for over ten years and sixteen books now, supporting me, and always trying to figure out ways to reach more readers. I am both indebted and grateful for having such a great publishing team behind me.

Peter Miller, my former business manager and literary agent was a very important part of my career for many years and I appreciate and am grateful for everything Peter has ever done for me. PMA Literary and Film Management, Inc., anchors Adrienne Rosado and Natalie Horbachevsky have been equally important and helpful to me.

I want to extend immense thanks to Andrew Fazz Farrell, Anita Bezjak, Therese Hegarty, Geoff Fitzpatrick, Michael Dawes, James Knox, and everyone else at Beyond Productions who have believed in me all these years, along with my Dark Minds road crew: Colette Coco Sandstedt, Geoff Thomas, Jared Transfield, Julie Haire, Elizabeth Daley, Jeremy Adair, and Peter Heap; along with my producers at Investigation Discovery: Jeanie Vink, Sara Kozak and Sucheta Sachdev. A special shout out to Henry Schleiff, President and General Manager of ID, who has been behind my series since day one.

I greatly appreciate all of your help. I am grateful for everyone working on the Dark Minds seriesyou are all wonderful people, some of the most gracious and astute professionals I have ever worked with, on top of new friends. I look forward to the road ahead and where were going to take this series!

In addition to being a great friend and the best serial killer profiler on the planet, John Kelly has become a mentor to me in both life and work. I love the guy. Thanks for doing the series, Kelly. Youre the best.

I would be negligent not to mention all the wonderful booksellers throughout the country.

Lastly, HPD police officer Philip T. Yochum Jr., who was part of the HPDs investigation, working with Tom Ladd early on, passed away on Sunday, October 17, 2010, after a brief battle with cancer. Officer Yochum joined HPD on July 25, 1994. He was survived by his wife, Melanie Yochum.

Also By M. William Phelps

Perfect Poison
Lethal Guardian
Every Move You Make
Sleep in Heavenly Peace
Murder in the Heartland
Because You Loved Me
If Looks Could Kill
Ill Be Watching You
Deadly Secrets
Cruel Death
Death Trap
Kill For Me
Failures of the Presidents (coauthor)
Nathan Hale: The Life and Death of Americas First Spy
The Devils Rooming House: The True Story of
Americas Deadliest Female Serial Killer
Love Her to Death
Too Young to Kill

EPILOGUE

I ASKED GEORGE Koloroutis, as we finished up our interviews, if there is closure for him and his family in any of this. It is a wordclosureseemingly tossed around at the end of many murder trials, when families are trying to go on with their lives and justice has been (hypothetically speaking) served. Closure is something I generally ask all murder victims family members I write about, if I can. Having experienced the murder of a family member (my sister-in-law, five months pregnant, was murdered many years ago in Hartford, Connecticut: one account has a pillowcase placed over her head and her being strangled by a telephone cord), I could relate on a smaller scale to the families and wanted to know if we were on the same wavelength regarding that strange word.

I look at my nephews, Mark and Tyler Phelps, and my niece, Meranda VanDeventer (all of whom I love dearly). They are all grown now and have families of their own. They seem happy. Yet, the one thing I dont see on their faces or hear in their voices when they talk about their mother is closure. (I should note that their mothers murder remains unsolved to this day, and their father, my brother, Mark Anthony Phelps Sr., died at forty-seven years of agefrom what I am convinced was a broken heart masked as drug and alcohol addiction.)

George gave me what I believe is the best answer Ive heard thus far.

Closure? Theres no closureand there never will be, he said. My little girl was killed violently. She had the back of her head beaten in. She was going through hell during her last moments, choking on her own blood, while wondering, looking at her friend, why a friend of hers would do this.... She was scared... and Im sure she was, ah, umhe began crying, that endless pain deep within his soul emergingcalling my name out....

George could not continue the conversation.

Later, when I had a chance to talk to him, he brought it upbecause George Koloroutis, if nothing else, is a man who finishes things, no matter what.

Closure, George went on to conclude, is not something you are seeking.

I FELT COMPELLED to share the following transcript (nearly verbatim) of an interview I conducted with a source near the end of writing this book. I think its an important concluding (and uplifting) message. In this Q&A with Rachael Koloroutiss sister Lelah, the true spirit of Rachael emerges. I didnt want to incorporate Lelahs answers into the narrative where they belong in relation to a chronological order of the story, simply because some of what Lelah shares is so powerful, if only in its simplicity. It truly shows that the Koloroutis family, same as all the families I write about (and certainly all the families touched by Christine Paolilla and Chris Sniders crimes), is your typical family, going from day to day, unaware that tragedy is about to enter their lives and change them forever. It is also a good example of how I go about the interviewing process, allowing those people involved in the stories to speak on their own behalf by sharing their various memories and anecdotes. My bet is that I could have asked family members of each of the victims in this story the same set of questions and heard the same answers.

Could you give me one of your fondest memories of your sister?