Who Killed Chrissy?: The True Crime Memoir of a Pittsburgh girl's Unsolved Murder in Las Vegas Read Free
Author: Beverly Simcic
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skinned, and me
having blonde hair and ivory skin. I’ve been told I am the spittin’ image of
Stevie Nicks or the other singer, Blondie. I have been involved in the modeling
and entertainment industry since my teens in Pittsburgh. The two main
influences in my early teen years were two Pittsburgh women, mother and
daughter, named Virginia and Dana Pugar, who happened to be friends with my
family. They were models and airline stewardesses and appeared in the Ivory
Soap TV commercials that featured mothers and daughters washing dishes
together. These glamour girls unknowingly molded me in my early teen years. I
poured pure peroxide on my mousy brown hair at the age of thirteen, determined
to become the blonde bombshell of a woman that Dana was in my mind. She had
the sassy personality and looks of Cybill Shepherd, and that’s who I wanted to
be—frivolous, blonde and casting my fate to the pure romance of life, which,
upon thoughts of it, smelled like a magnolia blossom to me, sweet and fresh and
peachy….
I convinced my parents to pay for Victoria Modeling School in downtown Pittsburgh, which was the only place to go if you wanted
to learn how to walk and talk with class. I also attended the Pittsburgh
Playhouse for acting.
My other friend growing up was
Cathy Cahill. I was convinced she was the younger sister of Elizabeth Taylor,
who I worshipped after first seeing her in National Velvet, which was also
about horses, my other passion in life.
Coupled with periodic worship of
Natalie Wood and Vivian Leigh, I found that living in the movies kept me
wanting more and more glamour. These women were all hopeless romantics,
searching for true love and being discarded along the way by men who only
wanted their beauty. How does one know this at such an early age? You don’t.
You only know that romance and glamour brought attention and high emotional
drama in and out of your life on a regular basis. The highs and lows kept you
wanting more and more.
I have known Christine Casilio for
over six months now since moving into the spacious apartment at 151 Riverview
Avenue near Observatory Hill on the North Side of Pittsburgh.
It’s an old building that I stalked
for a year while waiting for a vacancy, a building that is the last structure
on Riverview Avenue before entering Riverview Park. This park holds sacred
memories for me from my childhood—skating on the frozen pond in winter, testing
the cracked ice for weakness, trying to bust through it with your blades,
getting half soaked, then standing cold and wet by the barrels of raging fires
near the woods. Wild ice skating, no restrictions, nothing holding you back
from sliding into the danger area where thin ice was waiting to be smashed
through, and no one there giving you instructions or rules to follow—you were
on your own on the ice, you could make your own decisions on whether to take
the risk or not. No restrictions, only pure romance of the mind, pure
unadulterated joy of life’s passionate pursuits.
Finally my voice emerges, “What do
you mean Chris—you’re naked? You’re talking about a real knife? Why would you
be doing that kind of weird shit?” I still can’t imagine why she’s telling me
this, maybe for the shock value, maybe because she wants to show me how brave
she is. In the short time that I’ve known her she impresses me as the type of
person who always wants to show or prove how tough she is. I understand the
“North Side thing”—I, too, was raised on the North Side of Pittsburgh, where
everyone was scrappy, tough and prone to trouble, alcohol abuse and breaking
the law. I went to St. Cyril of Alexandria school on Brighton Road in the
fifties until graduating eighth grade in 1964. We had to attend mass every
morning in grade school, and we had the toughest nuns in Pittsburgh. They had
to be tough. The North Side boys were bold and followed no one’s rules. Sister
Augusta had to occasionally pick up a desk and hurl it
having blonde hair and ivory skin. I’ve been told I am the spittin’ image of
Stevie Nicks or the other singer, Blondie. I have been involved in the modeling
and entertainment industry since my teens in Pittsburgh. The two main
influences in my early teen years were two Pittsburgh women, mother and
daughter, named Virginia and Dana Pugar, who happened to be friends with my
family. They were models and airline stewardesses and appeared in the Ivory
Soap TV commercials that featured mothers and daughters washing dishes
together. These glamour girls unknowingly molded me in my early teen years. I
poured pure peroxide on my mousy brown hair at the age of thirteen, determined
to become the blonde bombshell of a woman that Dana was in my mind. She had
the sassy personality and looks of Cybill Shepherd, and that’s who I wanted to
be—frivolous, blonde and casting my fate to the pure romance of life, which,
upon thoughts of it, smelled like a magnolia blossom to me, sweet and fresh and
peachy….
I convinced my parents to pay for Victoria Modeling School in downtown Pittsburgh, which was the only place to go if you wanted
to learn how to walk and talk with class. I also attended the Pittsburgh
Playhouse for acting.
My other friend growing up was
Cathy Cahill. I was convinced she was the younger sister of Elizabeth Taylor,
who I worshipped after first seeing her in National Velvet, which was also
about horses, my other passion in life.
Coupled with periodic worship of
Natalie Wood and Vivian Leigh, I found that living in the movies kept me
wanting more and more glamour. These women were all hopeless romantics,
searching for true love and being discarded along the way by men who only
wanted their beauty. How does one know this at such an early age? You don’t.
You only know that romance and glamour brought attention and high emotional
drama in and out of your life on a regular basis. The highs and lows kept you
wanting more and more.
I have known Christine Casilio for
over six months now since moving into the spacious apartment at 151 Riverview
Avenue near Observatory Hill on the North Side of Pittsburgh.
It’s an old building that I stalked
for a year while waiting for a vacancy, a building that is the last structure
on Riverview Avenue before entering Riverview Park. This park holds sacred
memories for me from my childhood—skating on the frozen pond in winter, testing
the cracked ice for weakness, trying to bust through it with your blades,
getting half soaked, then standing cold and wet by the barrels of raging fires
near the woods. Wild ice skating, no restrictions, nothing holding you back
from sliding into the danger area where thin ice was waiting to be smashed
through, and no one there giving you instructions or rules to follow—you were
on your own on the ice, you could make your own decisions on whether to take
the risk or not. No restrictions, only pure romance of the mind, pure
unadulterated joy of life’s passionate pursuits.
Finally my voice emerges, “What do
you mean Chris—you’re naked? You’re talking about a real knife? Why would you
be doing that kind of weird shit?” I still can’t imagine why she’s telling me
this, maybe for the shock value, maybe because she wants to show me how brave
she is. In the short time that I’ve known her she impresses me as the type of
person who always wants to show or prove how tough she is. I understand the
“North Side thing”—I, too, was raised on the North Side of Pittsburgh, where
everyone was scrappy, tough and prone to trouble, alcohol abuse and breaking
the law. I went to St. Cyril of Alexandria school on Brighton Road in the
fifties until graduating eighth grade in 1964. We had to attend mass every
morning in grade school, and we had the toughest nuns in Pittsburgh. They had
to be tough. The North Side boys were bold and followed no one’s rules. Sister
Augusta had to occasionally pick up a desk and hurl it