She was my friend and now I am reading a book written about her murder. It is surreal. It is surreal because I knew her. I knew about her frustrations with her professor-husband. I knew about her devotion for her dog, Riley. I knew about her love for all things natural and her fierce commitment to keep what should be wild, wild. I knew her as a fellow anti-corporate zealot. I knew her as my friend.
In a city hardened by the report of ‘just another homicide,’ the clock stopped when Christine’s name was read on the news that night in November, her body dumped in one of my favorite spots, ironically named Devil’s Bathtub, a unique geological formation known as a ‘kettle hole’ formed by by a receding glacier. This unique, natural marvel was also one of her favorite spots.
Christine was murdered and body dumped by her husband whose aim was to kill ‘the pack,’ which besides Christine inclded Riley and himself. He got Christine, he tried to kill and injured Riley, and somehow wimped out on killing himself.
Riley survived. Tim is incarcerated in federal prison. Christine is gone but not forgotten.
The tragedy here is not only Christine’s murder, but what was found to be husband Tim’s psychosis. Chilling is the question this raises: how many people are living with their so-called ‘normal’ husbands, wives, sons, daughters? There is a quote on the back cover of Upside Down that captures the terrifying result of such unknowing:
“Trapped in the stygian depths of his psychosis, Wells saw only one solution…”
madmuser 