TAKING OFF
No one knows where Maura was going three hours earlier when she got into her car at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where she was a junior studying nursing. She didn’t tell her friends, her family, or her boyfriend that she was leaving campus at all. The only thing she said to Bill, in an e-mail she’d sent at 1 P.M. that day (after she’d failed to return his two phone calls and an e-mail he sent the previous day) was, “i love you more stud. i got your messages, but honestly, i didn’t feel like talking to much of anyone, i promise to call today though. Love you.” Four hours after she e-mailed Bill, Maura did write a note to her boss at the campus art gallery before she took off.
In it, she said that she had a family emergency and had to go out of town for a week. According to the police report, she had also checked out information about Stowe Mountain and printed out directions to Burlington, Vermont (which is in the opposite direction from where she’d crashed). Then she packed her stuff, left her dorm, took $280 out of an ATM, bought a can of Skyy Blue and a bottle of red wine at a liquor store, got in her car—and started driving.
EARLY WARNING
Maura had always seemed like she had it all together. She was ranked fourth in her high school class (she scored a 1420 on her SAT), and enrolled at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Then, in fall 2003, Maura transferred to UMass Amherst because she decided she’d rather heal people than kill them, says her father, Fred Murray.
Maura had always shown athletic prowess too, and in high school her reputation as a star runner (she ran a five-minute mile) was known throughout Massachusetts. But when Maura didn’t win a race, which was rare, she’d get really quiet. Even though you could tell she was beating herself up inside for not winning, if you asked her whether she was upset, she’d shake her head no. Maura was like that: She kept things to herself and few people ever saw her cry.
That is, until a few days before she disappeared. Four days earlier, on Thursday, February 5, Maura had called her older sister Kathleen, 26, at around 10:20 P.M., during a quiet patch at Maura’s second job manning a dorm security desk. “I was telling her all about this fight I’d had with my fiancé,” says Kathleen. “Maura kept saying, ‘Don’t worry, he’s a good guy. It’ll work out.’” After they got off the phone, Maura was sitting at her desk doing her job. Then, according to police reports, she inexplicably burst into tears in front of a coworker—and wouldn’t say why.
ANOTHER OUTBURST
Two days later, on Saturday, February 7, Maura’s dad drove up to Amherst to help Maura buy a new car. Maura and her father spent the day at car dealerships and then hit the Amherst Brewing Company for grilled chicken salads. At 10 P.M. her dad wanted to call it a night, so he had Maura drop him off at his motel, then drive herself to the dorm in his car.
About an hour later, Maura arrived at her friend Sara Alfieri’s dorm room to hang out. For the next three hours, Maura, Sara, and a couple of friends sat around talking and listening to music while drinking Skyy Blue malt mixed with a little bit of wine. A couple of times, when there were pauses in the conversation, Maura mentioned that she wanted to return the car to her dad that night. “It didn’t make any sense,” says Kate Markopolous, who was there. Why would Maura, who’d had a few drinks and seemed tired, go to the trouble of driving all the way to her dad’s motel in the middle of the night, when she didn’t need to?
At 2:30 A.M., Maura left Sara’s room, telling everyone she was going to go upstairs to her room. But instead, she got in her dad’s car and started driving back to his motel. On the highway, the car jumped a sandy embankment and hit a guardrail. The front of the car’s radiator crumpled, so Maura called AAA to tow the car. The police arrived and wrote up a report—but didn’t give Maura a ticket.
When Maura told her father about the accident the next morning, he was upset. “The first thing I asked was, ‘Are you all right?’” he says. As Fred Murray called garages, Maura sat there crying. “She kept repeating ‘I’m sorry’ over and over,” he says. “I think she felt like she had really let me down.” At 2 P.M., Murray dropped a still-teary Maura off at her dorm in a rental car. “I said, ‘Maura, it will get fixed. Don’t worry,’” he says. Then Maura got out, and her dad drove away.
DESPERATE SEARCH
The next day, on February 9, the New Hampshire police arrived at the scene of Maura’s second accident—the one on Route 112. The police, fire department, and local residents searched area roads for her. They also left a message for the Murray family to let them know that there had been an accident. When Maura didn’t turn up the next day, the police called again and told them she was missing.
Fred Murray drove up to New Hampshire and got a room at the Wells River Motel, near the accident site. As the police continued their search, Murray, along with the rest of his family and Maura’s boyfriend, combed the area too. “I can’t explain how it feels to be walking up an embankment, thigh-deep in snow, and then there’s a big hill in front of you, and you have to walk up it because you see footprints in the snow and you might find your sister’s body at the end,” says Kathleen.
Two days after Maura’s disappearance, dogs had tracked her scent to the road, about 100 yards away from the site. Her family thought that maybe someone had picked Maura up, so they printed up 15,000 flyers with her picture, and a crew of volunteers began tacking them to every signpost and gas station within 50 miles. But weeks went by, and no one came forward. So the Murrays are still searching for Maura.
QUESTIONS REMAIN
There is still no sign of Maura. “The only thing that makes sense is that a bad guy got her,” says her dad. But police disagree. “There is no evidence that she was abducted,” says New Hampshire State Police Sergeant Thomas Yorke. Police have told newspapers that they suspect Maura intended to kill herself, but they’ve reached no conclusions. “As far as we’re concerned, she’s a missing person,” says Yorke.
Maura’s crying, along with her atypical drinking (her family and friends say she wasn’t a drinker) and the two car accidents just before she disappeared, raises the question of whether she was buckling under some emotional pain. “I don’t know what could have been going on that she didn’t tell me about,” says Bill. “As far as I knew, everything was fine.”
“I may go to my grave never knowing where she’s gone or even why she left school,” says her father. “And as far as I can tell, no one else knows either.”
Natural Born
Killers
When Tiffany was 12, she fell in love with
19-year-old Tony. Their parents tried to keep them
apart—so the couple did the unthinkable.
About a month before Christmas in 2003, Tiffany Khauv, a 12-year-old from San Jose, California, was typing up her wish list: Old Navy cardigan ($18), low-rider Dickies ($38), and a heart necklace ($275). Next to the necklace, she wrote, “reserved for Tony,” so Anthony “Tony” Chargualaf, her 19-year-old boyfriend, would know to buy it. It was obvious that Tony was willing to make Tiffany happy—at any cost.
LONELY HEART
Tiffany, a seventh-grader at Piedmont Middle School, was a mostly A student and sang in the choir. She had lots of friends and lived with her mom, her 17-year-old brother, and her grandparents. But on Friday, October 10, 2003, Tiffany sat down at her computer and wrote in her online diary: “The way I’m feeling is horrible.”
Tiffany was beginning to spend a lot of time on the Internet and phone—and less time with her family. “I always have the feeling that I’m not wanted,” she wrote. But her mom didn’t realize that—and she was getting annoyed with Tiffany for choosing to keep to herself so much. On Sunday, October 19, Tiffany was on the phone with a friend, as usual, when her mom finally yanked out the cord. “Who’s so important?!” she demanded to know. Tiffany thought to herself, Just because you don’t have a life, you don’t have to ruin mine!
FORBIDDEN LOVE
One day in mid-October, Tiffany was at the mall when some friends
introduced her to Tony, a cashier they knew at CyberHunt, an Internet café where they all hung out. Tony was a lonely kid, just like Tiffany.
He’d spent most of his youth shuttling back and forth between his father near Tacoma, Washington, and his mother in Milpitas, California, where he was now living. After Tony and Tiffany met, the two started e-mailing and chatting online. By November, they were calling each other boyfriend and girlfriend. But Tiffany’s mom forbade them to have a relationship because of their big age difference. Still, as often as possible, they’d meet at the mall. Tony even came to Tiffany’s school to see her between classes.
In May, Tiffany had a school trip to Six Flags Magic Mountain, and Tony met her there—it was a unique chance for them to spend the whole day together. But when chaperones noticed him hugging Tiffany, they reported it to the principal, who notified Tiffany’s mom.
A few nights later, Tiffany heard her mom talking to her aunt, saying she wanted Tony in jail. After snooping, her mom had found some pictures of the couple kissing, which might help prove Tony’s illegal relationship with her underage daughter. Panicked, Tiffany immediately contacted Tony. “Let’s run away!” she said.
GROWING DESPERATION
Terrified that he and Tiffany might be separated, Tony stole his mom’s credit card, bought two plane tickets to Hawaii, and they took off. Tiffany’s mom noticed her daughter was gone and reported her missing. But it wasn’t until four days later that Tony’s mom tracked them down on his cell. “What’s going on?” she asked. “We ran away,” he replied. Then he said he was so desperate to be with Tiffany that they were going to jump off a mountain so they could die together.
Upon hearing that, Tony’s mom hung up, horrified, and called the Hawaii police department. Using information from her credit-card bill, they busted Tony and Tiffany in their hotel room a few hours later. “Pack your bags,” an officer said. “You won’t be coming back.”
Later that night, Tiffany was sent against her will to her mom in California. Tony was held in a Hawaiian jail until he was released a few days later, in early June, pending investigation for child rape. Once he got back home, he was scared that the police would charge him—and he’d lose Tiffany for good. So together they made a new plan. The next Saturday morning, Tony stole his stepdad’s Toyota truck, picked up Tiffany at her home, and they fled again—this time to Tony’s father’s home in University Place, Washington. Even though Tony’s father, Anthony Chargualaf, had heard about Tony’s illegal trip to Hawaii, he welcomed the pair and set up a mattress for them in his living room.
But for some reason, Tony didn’t reciprocate his father’s generosity. Later that week he stole his father’s credit cards and took Tiffany shopping for new clothes and a haircut. Within hours, Chargualaf’s credit-card company called him, asking about unusual activity.
Later that evening, Tony spoke to his father on the phone. “Get over here and get your stuff!” Chargualaf screamed. He knew that Tony had stolen from him— and he wanted him out. When Tony arrived, his father had already piled up all his clothes. “Give me my key,” Chargualaf said coldly. Knowing full well why his father was so mad, Tony simply handed it over and left.
Over the next few days, Tony’s other relatives from the area let the couple stay with them, not realizing how young Tiffany was. But then Tony’s uncle told him that Chargualaf was planning to call the police and report that his son was dating a minor. So once again, Tony panicked. He knew that he had to stop his father—or risk losing the love of his life. So at 2 P.M. on June 25, he and Tiffany drove to his father’s home.
NECESSARY EVIL
While Tiffany waited down the street in the truck, Tony pried open his father’s window and entered the empty apartment. He brought two knives with him, but he also looked around the apartment for more—and found a machete to place by his side.
After about an hour of silently waiting in the living room, Tony heard his father’s footsteps on the gravel outside, approaching the apartment. As the door opened, Tony kept his two knives in his pockets. Chargualaf spotted his son—and immediately began yelling at him. “What are you doing?!” he screamed. “You’re dating a 13-year-old!” Suddenly wild with anger, Tony pulled out one of the knives and lunged toward his father, stabbing him in the neck.
Chargualaf began bleeding as he tried to fight back. He grabbed the machete that Tony had placed in the living room and used it to hit his son on top of the head. But then Tony grabbed his father’s neck and started choking him—until Chargualaf managed to use the machete to cut a huge gash in his son’s leg. But Tony was able to pry the weapon out of his father’s hand—and began beating his dad over the head with it.
Within minutes, the two burst outside through the front door, where Tony continued to beat his father— until Chargualaf finally slumped over into a bush, twitching. As Tony watched his father take his last few breaths, he called down the street to Tiffany, “Babe?!”
She got out of the truck and walked toward them, where she saw Tony—and his father’s body—covered in blood. Tiffany says she was shocked—yet she didn’t flee. Instead she stood by. Tony dragged Chargualaf inside. “Can you help me clean the house?” Tony asked Tiffany. “Yeah,” she said, cringing.
Likely in shock over what they’d just done, they took a few days to buy cleaning supplies, plastic storage bins, and an electric saw that Tony planned to use to cut the body into pieces before disposing it in the plastic bins. That week after the murder, they had dinner together at a Red Robin—where Tony finally broke down. “I feel bad about killing my dad,” he said quietly. Tiffany looked down at her hamburger and was reminded of the rancid smell of blood in the house. She felt like she was going to throw up.
On July 1, the odor in Chargualaf’s home got so bad that Gerard Sullivan, an owner of the chiropractic office above the apartment, called the landlord. After the two men decided to let themselves into the empty apartment, Sullivan noticed plastic wrapping piled by the front door. Slowly he lifted it—and found the rotting corpse, which the kids still hadn’t cut up. They immediately flagged down a police cruiser passing by.
Shortly after, Tiffany and Tony were on their way back to Chargualaf’s home when they spotted the police car out front. Panicked once again, they drove past the building without stopping. They had nowhere left to go, so they randomly decided to drive to Florida. Six days later, as Tiffany and Tony were in a hotel in Missoula, Montana, on their way east, police, after tracking them by their credit-card purchases, arrested them.
LASTING CONSEQUENCES
Tony and Tiffany were brought to the local police station, where Tony confessed to the murder. “Did you go with the idea that you wanted a confrontation with your dad?” detectives asked. “I didn’t want it to happen, but then, like, in order to be with Tiffany, yeah,” he said. Detectives interviewed Tiffany separately. “Did you ever think about calling 911?” they asked. “Yeah … but I was kind of a runaway, so I would get in trouble and I was frightened,” she said. Then she asked, “I can’t see [Tony]?” The answer was a resounding no.
After spending 15 days in juvenile detention, Tiffany was sent home to her mom in San Jose, where she stayed until her September 27 sentencing hearing for providing criminal assistance to Tony. Her eyes darted nervously as her lawyer coached her through her statement. “I apologize for all the mistakes I’ve done,” she said quickly. Then the judge sentenced her to 15 more days in a juvenile detention center.
Meanwhile Tony remained in jail, where he pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and second-degree child rape. On October 15, 2004, he was sentenced to serve 285 months in prison—more than 23 years. “I just wish it never happened,” he told investigators. “Did you love your dad?” they asked. “Yes,” he replied. “But the reason this happened is because that love for Tiffany was the most important thing?” they pressed, in hopes of understanding his motive. “Yeah,” he said. But now, as Tiffany resumes her life—going to 8th grade, even meeting new boys—she is f
orbidden by law to have any contact with Tony. And Tony just sits alone behind bars, paying for his heinous crime of passion.
Josh’s
Suicide
When Josh, 20, began pulling away from
his tight-knit family, they had no idea that
he was heading toward a tragic end.
About 9 P.M. on Sunday, June 13, 2004, Jodi Bergkamp, 20, was watching TV at her home in Norfolk, Virginia. She picked up the phone to call her parents in Branson, Missouri, as she did every night before bed. “It’s me,” Jodi casually said when her mom, Carolyn Horne, answered. “I can’t talk. There are people here,” her mom abruptly replied—and hung up.
Jodi was confused—her mom always had time to talk to her. What was going on? Finally, 10 minutes later, her phone rang. Figuring it must be her mom, she ran over to get it. “Hello?!” Jodi asked. But all she heard was soft crying on the other end. It was her older brother Tony, and he had to talk to her about her twin brother, Josh.
GOOD BOY
Jodi and Josh grew up on a farm in Ottawa, Kansas, with their parents, two older brothers, and younger sister. They were all close and spent a lot of time together but in many ways, Josh was the center of it all. He was the comedian—making everyone laugh with his “happy kick dance” and the celebrity imitations he did around the house.
Josh was also known as the handsome one—and he was proud of that. “He spent more time [primping] in the bathroom than his sisters,” says his dad, Dan Horne. “I guess it paid off, considering he always had a girlfriend.” Josh spent a great deal of time perfecting his sports too, especially cross-country running. In March 1997, when Josh was 14, he announced he wanted to spend his spring break running across Kansas—more than 200 miles. For seven days, the family slowly drove behind Josh as he completed his goal. “We thought he was crazy,” says Jodi. “But he was so proud when he finished. The papers wrote about him—we thought he’d be in the Olympics one day.”
Seventeen Real Girls, Real-Life Stories Page 7