REVOLVER: The murder of Alice Sullivan

Guilty Panties [6]

Besides the panties, did you keep anything else? Omara asked me halfway through the second session. She had prepared much better for this session by asking more interesting questions that were harder to evade. It seemed like she had really reviewed the case, and she was probing and commenting on some things that I didn't even remember. I knew where the question was going. Serial killers always keep trophies, or at least that's what I've seen in movies. I've never been too interested in stories or series about murders, let alone biographies of famous cases or documentaries like the one we're recording now. In fact, Blackjack, the same one who had coached me on how to behave in my budding media career, also suggested watching other documentaries about killers. Surely that's what the producers have in mind, he insisted, and that's why it would be a good idea to know what they intended to do with everything I was explicitly blurbing at the camera. I didn't pay much attention to his advice, to be honest. It doesn't seem like an exciting topic to me, and besides, I don't think I have the cold-blooded killer streak in me, even though circumstances may suggest otherwise. Besides I didn't delve into the genre as Blackjack had suggested, I knew enough to realize that the question about the panties was meant to find out if I had kept other trophies, or perhaps even if I had killed another person.

Cold-blooded killers often keep trophies from their victims. Sometimes, it is strands of hair, or for example, in the Dexter series, the killer kept laboratory slides with a sample of his victims' blood. But I didn't kill anyone else, so there's no reason for me to go around collecting trophies. What happened with Alice was an accident. It got out of hand. I didn't actually want to kill her, let alone keep her panties as a trophy. That's why the question is malicious because it assumes that the underwear was a trophy similar to those kept by serial killers. I don't know if it was a genuine question or if she was trying to trap me into saying that I also kept a pair of shoes, and then they would search my closet to see if I had more women's shoes that didn't belong to Alice, possibly indicating more than one victim. Or perhaps it was a provocation because the fact that they considered the panties a trophy bothered me. Trophy for what? Maybe someone who keeps girls' panties is closer to a sexual predator than someone who accidentally takes the life of the person they love most in the world. The question was insulting, and I couldn't hold back and started answering, against all the advice Blackjack had given me.

I only have what she, herself, gave me, I said, but my answer wasn't enough. As I suspected, she wanted to inquire about what other things she had given me. To try to change the course of her interrogation, I tried to focus on things that undoubtedly couldn't be considered trophies, simply because they were men's stuff, unless they thought I had also killed one. A couple of shirts, I said, a watch, a notebook, all from when we were students. She was actually very generous; she gave me many things, and I kept them for a long time. 

Omara receives a little note from a man, I don't know who he is though. It seems like an unfair game because then I should also have an advisor, someone who is attentive to what I might miss. If they let me, I would request that Blackjack be here. "Don't say anything," one of his notes would surely say. The interviewer takes a moment to read the note that arrives on a yellow post-it and then says.

—So, you only kept what she gave you? 

—Yes.

—Where these gifts?

—Yes 

—The panties?

—Yes. 

—She gave them to you?

—That's right. Why else would I keep them?

—As you know, this was one of the main elements with which the prosecution tried to build your image as a murderer, a killer and predator.