By Champaine Trujillo
It was a warm Thursday in June, a couple, Dave and Marie Jacobs talk about what they are going to do this upcoming weekend since it will be their three-year wedding anniversary on Saturday. They are both avid hikers and adventures. They loved their life together, everyone in their family including their friends idolized their relationship. Those who were close to them would describe them as the “perfect couple”. However, nothing is as it seems behind closed doors. Recently, they had run into some problems because Marie does not work but has a tremendous spending habit and Dave has been trying to support them but her spending habits have been out of control. Nevertheless, Dave wants to have a happy anniversary with his wife and make up after all the fighting that they have been doing recently. In his in-home office, he has been planning what he wants to do after a long week of working overtime.
Marie approaches Dave, “Hey honey, I know that our anniversary is coming up this Saturday do you have any ideas in mind?”
Dave responds, “I’m not sure honey, I was considering on taking you on a nice dinner in town. What do you think?”
Marie states, “I was really hoping we could go hiking this weekend, at Grand Teton the weather is supposed to perfect. That’s how we first met don’t you think it will be perfect?”
Dave Shrugs and drops the topic. Dave is the local dentist, he finished dental school two months after their wedding date and it has been a really difficult work week for him for all of overtime hours he’s been putting in at the office. He was hoping to have a nice dinner and come home and relax.
Dave goes into work the next day and tries to pick the ear of his lead dental assistant to get her opinion since she is his best friend and right hand “man”.
“Hey Melissa, Marie has brought up our anniversary this weekend. I was really hoping to
take her out on a nice dinner and relax at home after this week, I’m exhausted.”
Melissa responds, “I think that’s a great idea! Have you asked Marie what she would like to do?”
“Not really, she brought up the idea of going on the Grand Teton hike, but I’m not sure I would really just like to stay in and relax.”
The patient below the working team responds, “I heard that this weekend is supposed to be the perfect week to get out. It not going to be too hot!”
Dr. Dave thanks the patient for her input and the conversation is dropped. When he gets out of work, he is excited to go tell his lovely wife about their upcoming hike on Grand Teton. She is so excited about the hike and tells him that she’ll buy all things necessary. She leaves to go purchase their necessary hiking material. Dave is frustrated as he just told her that they need to cut down on spending this month, but since its their wedding anniversary he decides to dismiss this, he does not want to have another exhausting weekend of fighting.
Since Dave had such a long weekend, he decides to take a nap, the “nap” lasts all night and when Marie gets home, she does not wake him up which is abnormal since she usually comes home from her shopping trips and wants to show off all of the things she found.
Dave wakes up slightly confused and irritated after looking at the updated bank statement, but he rolls over kisses Marie on the forehead and tells her Happy Anniversary despite everything. They make a nice breakfast with one another and enjoy each other’s company and then they get ready to go on their celebratory hike. They pack up the car and make their one-hour long drive to Grand Teton. The car ride is special, some of the best moments they’ve had together within the last three months. They are sharing all of the memories they’ve made together these past three years and expressing their love for one another through physical touch and memories. Marie decides to put on the song that they shared their first dance to and they are reminiscing their wedding day and they laugh so hard they cry.
They are rudely interrupted by the obnoxious sound of the low fuel indicator, Dave states, “oh no- I have to stop at this gas station to put gas before we run out. Sorry honey.” Dave kisses Marie and gets out to go pay the teller for the gas, when he is looking in the window, he sees that Marie is on the phone and it seems as if she is shouting at the phone. Confused and concerned Dave approaches the car and listens into the conversation that she is having. It is muffled since there are cars passing on the road beside them, but he picks up a few words, “life insurance.” Dave confused, wondering why Marie is spending their anniversary calling the life insurance company when they are open tomorrow. Curious he decides to bring it up to Marie, “Hey honey, is everything okay? It looked like you were yelling though the phone.”
She replies, “Oh no, it’s nothing just the stupid bill collectors”
Reluctantly Dave shrugs it off because he knows how often the bill collectors’ callers try to get ahold of Marie regarding her debt, but Dave does not feel right he has a bad feeling about the conversation being had especially since they were talking about life insurance.
The rest of the drive there, they were quite Marie fell asleep and Dave was letting his mind wonder, “why would Marie contact them on our anniversary?” “would she really be yelling at a supposed bill collector this way?” Dave looks over at Marie’s phone face up on her lap and there is an excessive number of notifications; from a number that was not saved in her phone. Dave reaches for the phone but right when he gets ahold of it Marie wakes up, looks at Dave and defensively asks, “what are you doing?”
Shocked, Dave said “oh nothing, I was just going to silence your phone it was distracting me from the road.”
She rolls her eyes and goes back to sleep.
They arrive at Grand Teton, there are not too many people which is unusual since this hiking place is such a hot commodity. Dave notices a black car, a Cadillac drive really slowly past Dave, there is a man in a ski mask staring at him immensely. Before they get too far out of each other’s sight the driver winks at Dave.. Startled, he shakes Marie awake, Dave states slowly, “that was really weird, did you see how slowly they drove by us?
Marie gets pretty aggressive and shuts the conversation down immediately. “what are you talking about? I didn’t see anything you’re being weird”
Marie, walks away from the car texting away Dave notices this and is wondering what can be so important on her phone than their anniversary hike that she was supposedly so excited about. This frustrated him but he does not know how to bring this to her attention without her yelling at him or starting a fight so he ignores his feelings.
He goes up to her and says, “Hey babe, ready to start this?”
Distracted she mumbles, “mhm.”
They begin their hike they take lots of pictures and see some beautiful sights when they stumble across a trail of blood, this startles the both of them.
Dave looks at Marie, “look at this blood trail”
She states, “we should follow it”
Together they follow it when they see a girl lying face down covered in blood with no clothes and severe injuries throughout her body. Dave panics and tells Marie, “Call 911, NOW!”
Marie calmly states, “I don’t get any service here, I need to go out of this trail a little I’ll be back.” Dave is touching the dead girl, trying to help with her wounds. Marie is taking what feels like a lifetime to Dave. In all actuality, it has been fifteen minutes when Marie still hasn’t returned. He decides to walk away from the girl to look for her. When walking he notices Marie’s phone on the floor and a body laid on the bottom of the cliff. The hair was brown, curly and the skin was a golden tan, just like Marie.
Terrified, he runs to the car to see if he can get a good signal when he gets nothing, he decides to drive down the road. Finally, he is able to get ahold of 911.
“Hello! Please Help!! I am at grand Teton and found a dead body and my wife is missing and I think she has fallen off a cliff.”
The operator responds, “Okay sir, we will send someone immediately.”
The police arrive to Dave siting on the ground crying, but since it took the police 25 minutes to get there, he has calmed down significantly. The police start questioning him and he is put into the back of the police car for safety and is taken to the station to be questioned further.
The police state to him that they only found one body but they cannot find the supposed body laid at the bottom of the cliff. Hopeful, he states so “my wife is okay?” They ignore his question.
During questioning back at the local station, he is getting grilled with really difficult questions in regard to his marriage with Marie and since Dave does not want to seem guilty, he does not ask for an attorney.
The police search Dave’s vehicle finding, a hiking hit, water, and snacks but when they search a little further, they find chloroform, a kill kit containing rope, tape, and large black bags. Dave starts to become hysterical when denying what they found. Getting angry and aggressive. Since the officers don’t know the cause of death of the body, they are forced to release Dave.
He returns home and is depressed; he cannot get ahold of his wife and there is no sign of her anywhere. He shuts down the dental office temporarily and grieves. When all of a sudden, he gets a knock at the door by police, they are arresting him for one count of first-degree murder. Upon autopsy reports, it was discovered that the cause of death for the woman was chloroform poisoning and fibers found of the woman’s clothes are conclusive with the fibers in Dave’s vehicle, including his multiple fingerprints all over her body.
Dave pleas, and begs for mercy. He did not do it, but no one is listening to him because why should they trust a murderer? He then asks for an attorney.
Dave has a conversation with his attorney, “please help me I swear I did not do this, what can I do to be released of all charges?”
His attorney states, “the best thing to do is take a plea deal for a lesser sentence but because they have such hard evidence it will be difficult to have these charges completely dropped.”
Dave looks at him depressed and nods his head. The attorney pats him on the shoulder and walks away.
Confused, and with all the time he has in his cell he gets to thinking “where is Marie? Is she okay? What happened to her?”
A year goes by, it is time for Dave’s trial. He plans to take the plea deal if he is offered. However, he has heard nothing from his attorney. The police provide all of the evidence found to the judge and the jury; all evidence proves that Dave killed this woman, and is the leading suspect for the disappearance of his wife, since no one has heard from her.
Dave asks to make a statement, “I know this looks bad, but I didn’t do it, I have so much to lose I would not risk everything for this. There is no such anger in my heart. Please have mercy.”
The crowd looks around and starts whispering.
After three hours of deliberation, it was determined that Dave Jacobs was convicted of first-degree murder and is sentenced to the death. Dave immediately starts crying and screaming stating over and over again, “I didn’t do it, you have you believe me!” He is pinned down by the courthouse police and escorted out of the court room.
He goes back to his cell and has a lot to think about, how did his life take such a dark turn? He has worked so hard for everything. Someone is framing him but who? And why? He spends six months thinking about what went wrong on this June day when one day he gets a visit from his financial advisor, someone borrowed from his one-million-dollar life insurance and his bank account has been completely wiped of all money. He asks if they can file a dispute, but the dispute is denied due to the state that Dave is in.
Time goes on, he’s lonely, depressed all of his family and friends abandoned him when they discover his charges. He hasn’t talked to anyone since he’s been imprisoned, and Marie’s disappearance case has gone cold.
Tomorrow is Dave’s scheduled execution date. He is preparing to accept his fate when the warden throws a letter into his cell. The envelop reads,
“TO: DAVE MY LOVE
FROM: YOUR ALWAYS”
Dave recognizes this handwriting and tears this letter open, nervous. It looks just like Marie’s handwriting but how? She’s missing. When the letter is opened a picture of Marie falls out of the torn envelop. The picture was taken in a parking garage and she is sitting on the hood of a black Cadillac. The same Cadillac that was at Grand Teton that he was suspicious about. Staring at the photo for several minutes at a time, dumbfounded, he finally builds enough courage to read the letter.
The letter reads:
“MISS ME?” with a kiss mark on the bottom left corner of the paper in red lipstick.He states to himself, “you did this to me?!” and the letter falls on the floor.
Leonardo Magazine 