The Cinderella Murder Read Free

was the last picture she, Greg, and Timmy had taken as a family. Until last year, she had refused to keep any pictures of Greg in her office, certain that they would be a constant reminder to anyone who entered that her husband was dead and his murder still unsolved. Now she made it a point to look at the photograph at least once a day.
    Her morning ritual complete, she settled into the gray swivelchair across from the sofa and flipped through the agreement Mrs. Dempsey had signed, indicating her willingness to participate in Under Suspicion . The idea for a news-based reality show that revisited unsolved crimes had been Laurie’s. Instead of using actors, the series offered the victim’s family and friends the opportunity to narrate the crime from a firsthand perspective. Though the network had been wary of the concept—not to mention some flops in Laurie’s track record—Laurie’s concept of a series of specials got off the ground. The first episode had not only aired to huge ratings, it had also led to the case’s being solved.
    It was nearly a year since “The Graduation Gala” had aired. Since then they had considered and rejected dozens of unsolved murders as none had been suitable for their requirements—that the nearest relatives and friends, some of whom remained “under suspicion,” would be guests on the program.
    Of all the cold cases Laurie had considered for the show’s next installment, the murder twenty years ago of nineteen-year-old Susan Dempsey had been her first choice. Susan’s father had passed away three years ago, but Laurie tracked down her mother, Rosemary. Though she was appreciative of any attempt to find out who killed her daughter, she said she had been “burned” by people who had reached out to her before. She wanted to make sure that Laurie and the television show would treat Susan’s memory with respect. Her signature on the release meant that Laurie had earned her trust.
    “We need to be careful,” Laurie reminded Grace and Jerry. “The ‘Cinderella’ moniker came from the media, and Susan’s mother despises it. When talking to the family and friends, we always use the victim’s name. Her name was Susan.”
    A reporter for the Los Angeles Times had dubbed the case “the Cinderella Murder” because Susan was wearing only one shoe when her body was discovered in Laurel Canyon Park, south of Mulholland Drive in the Hollywood Hills. Though police quicklyfound the other near the park entrance—presumably it had slipped off as she tried to escape her killer—the image of a lost silver pump became the salient detail that struck a chord with the public.
    “It is such a perfect case for the show,” Jerry said. “A beautiful, brilliant college student, so we have the hot UCLA setting. The views from Mulholland Drive near Laurel Canyon Park are terrific. If we can track down the dog owner who found Susan’s body, we can do a shoot right by the dog run where he was heading that morning.”
    “Not to mention,” Grace added, “that the director Frank Parker was the last known person to see Susan alive. Now he’s being called the modern Woody Allen. He had quite a reputation as a ladies’ man before getting married.”
    Frank Parker had been a thirty-four-year-old director when Susan Dempsey was murdered. The creator of three independent films, he was successful enough to get studio backing for his next project. Most people had first heard of him and that project because he had been auditioning Susan for a role the night she was killed.
    One of the challenges for Under Suspicion was persuading the people who were closest to the victim to participate. Some, like Susan’s mother, Rosemary, wanted to breathe new life into cold investigations. Others might be eager to clear their names after living, as the show’s title suggested, under a cloud of suspicion. And some, as Laurie had hoped would be the case with Frank Parker, might reluctantly agree to go along so they