The Podcast

Chapter 19

West Coast Killers #1: My Best Friend, Chloe

Alright, my friends. Hello. This is Sumner West. And welcome to my...podcast? I still can't believe I'm actually doing this. Or at least, attempting to do this. Just to give you a visual, I'm literally hiding under a thermal blanket with my Amazon microphone like an inch away from my mouth but hopefully you all can hear me okay and there's not too much background noise from lovely downtown Los Angeles. No time like the present, right? You all have been encouraging me for the past few months to move from my blog to a podcast format and I'm really excited, but also equally terrified. Anyway, here goes nothing.

For today's episode—my first ever podcast episode—we dive into the story that started it all. Of course this has to be my first episode. For those of you who have been following my blog, you know this story, you've been on this journey with me as I've tried to make sense of such a scarring and unexpected tragedy in my life. But for the first time, I'm going to try to tell this story in audio form—as I experienced it firsthand—to outline and relay the facts that I've painstakingly researched and gathered for years in pursuit of understanding, justice, and closure. I'd add 'peace' to that list but I'm afraid that's just not in the cards.

Today's episode is about the unsolved murder of a college sophomore—found stabbed to death inside her dorm room at UC Santa Barbara. The search for her murderer will reveal a host of secrets in the victim's life that bring unexpected potential suspects to the surface. This is the story of my best friend, Chloe Burgess.

It's Tuesday March 11th, 2014 and I'm a college sophomore at UC Santa Barbara. I'm studying Writing and Literature in the school's College of Creative Studies and—full circle moment now that I think of it—I've just finished my last class for the day: Intro to Audio Storytelling.

It's 3:30 PM and I'm walking back to my dorm—Santa Catalina. It's the biggest dorm on campus and exactly what you'd expect: loud corridors, rooms set up for doubles or triples, shared bathrooms, cheap rented furniture. I live with my childhood best friend, Chloe Burgess. Now, when I say childhood best friend, I mean like permanently-attached-at-the-hip type of best friend. We met when we were like, three or four? Her parents moved in next to my Dad and me. For context, my mother died in a car wreck when I was two. And seeing as we were the same age, it made for super easy playdates and built-in babysitters and so on.

So when Chloe and I were applying to colleges, we were determined to attend the same school even though our parents were like, "Um, maybe you two should, you know, experience life apart now as adults?" Growing up in Thousand Oaks California, we landed on UC Santa Barbara, as did about a third of our graduating high-school class, and worked the roommate matching system to ensure we were together.

But despite how close we are at this point in time, we're different. I'm quiet and reserved—still am to be honest—and Chloe is sociable, friendly. Not necessarily in a life-of-the-party way but definitely a through-and-through extrovert. She makes friends easily at parties, is never awkward and shy when she doesn't know people, and always has a boyfriend. Basically the exact opposite of me, especially during our sophomore year of college.

Alright so when I arrive at Santa Catalina, I take the stairs up to the third floor—anyone who's lived there knows the elevators take way too long—and head to our dorm room, number 326. Now, here's where I notice something odd. When I put my key in the door lock, I realize the door is open. For some college students that may be totally the norm, no big deal. But Chloe and I always, and I mean always, lock our door, even if just one of us is inside and the other is out. I know Chloe's class schedule and she knows mine, so I'm assuming she's inside but still think it's odd that she didn't lock the door.