Prologue
Inevitably people always beg for their lives. No matter how defiant one may seem at the beginning of an attack, the moment the scales tip against their favor, the average person will beg. The victim will scream. Cry. They try to gain sympathy. They negotiate.
According to William Vandorn, his wife did all five things during the early morning of Christmas Eve. He’d heard it all while cuffed to a railing on the second floor of his home. The blood from the couple’s thirteen-year-old son was soaked into the carpet beneath where he sat. If William pulled against the cuffs, he could lean back just far enough to see where the intruders had dragged the boy’s lifeless body.
A fingernail from William’s right hand was discovered embedded in the wood railing, according to the first officers on the scene. His only trace of blood was the stain left on his holiday pajamas by the nail that tore from the bed of his finger. Considering the state of his late wife and son, first responders could argue that William Vandorn was untouched.
The screams from Nina Vandorn, or cries from William, hadn’t woken their guest. The voices of the police officers woke them up. They announced their presence with loud, commanding voices, warning the Vandorn guest to make no sudden movements.
It had been the neighbor that called for help. Amy Jeffery from across the street told the 911 operator that she’d heard screaming from the Vandorn residence and, thanks to the large glass panels on either side of the front door, she could watch as Nina Vandorn took her final breaths.
Amy’s tone and pitch had not changed as she described the attack to the operator. Her words were so nonchalant that had she not been calling from the living room of her own home, she may have been a suspect herself.
Something’s happening in the Vandorn home.
15421 Norcut Drive. It’s the home with the awful gray trimming.
I think someone is killing them all.
The wife is lying on the ground.
She’d said all these things as if she were describing her favorite place for dining. Before ending the call, Amy would do what the rest of the city did upon hearing news of a Christmas Eve massacre-she began to pray.
