Cold Roses

Abstract

Cold Roses Juliana Gray (bio) Vermont’s Green Mountains jut into the horizon like the dramatic, unlikely slopes I drew as a child. They seem so close, as if walking a few miles in their direction I might suddenly bang my knee against the incline. That illusion—that the mountains were only a mile or so around the bend—was unshakable during my drive here. Now, walking the hills above town, I feel it again. I take a few pictures, but the February day is bright, so I mostly capture sun flares against dark hills. I’m at an artists’ residency, and I should be writing in my cozy little studio. But it’s a rare sunny day, and I’ve been eating rich dining hall food with no exercise. Stretching my legs in sun, luxuriating like a cat, I strip off my coat and tuck my phone into my back pocket, earbuds connecting me to a true crime podcast for company. Back in my room, I post my bad pictures on Facebook and make a joke about how much I’ve missed my murder podcasts. “A lovely place for murder!” a friend comments. Amused, curious, I look online. And in no time at all, I find one. ________ Jodie Whitney was 35, with brown hair and a toothy smile. She worked at Stoweflake Mountain Resort in Stowe; she was married, and had a three-year-old daughter. On May 24, 2004, her husband reported her missing, saying he last saw her that morning before he left for work. She never showed up at the resort that day, and she never came home. Her Jeep was found behind a barn, not far from her house. Jodie wasn’t in it. ________ The podcast I had listened to during my walk was indeed about a murder, or rather, a likely murder. Eight-year-old Relisha Rudd was living with her mother in a homeless shelter; Relisha was taken by a friend, a man the mother trusted. She didn’t, at first, perceive that her child was in danger, and didn’t report her missing. Relisha was Black, so it was somewhat unusual to hear her case covered [End Page 166] by a popular podcast. Crimes involving people of color or marginalized victims such as drug users or sex workers are underrepresented in the media. The most popular stories are about murdered and missing white women, especially if they’re young, especially if they’re middle- to upper-class, especially if they’re blonde and beautiful. Think Natalee Holloway, JonBenét Ramsey, Gabby Petito. The podcast made a point of this underrepresentation, suggesting the police’s initial failure to investigate Relisha’s disappearance may have been linked to her race and her family’s precarious economic status. By the time police got involved, Relisha had missed over a month of school, and her mother hadn’t seen her in 18 days. When police did start to ask questions, the man who had taken her killed his wife, then himself. Relisha has never been found. ________ Police began searching for Jodie right away. Like most Vermonters, she was white. In all, 50 officers and a canine unit conducted a ground search in a one-mile radius around Jodie’s abandoned Jeep. There was an expanded search, an aerial search, a search of three miles of the nearby Gihon River. An unidentified woman at a hospital in Dartmouth, New Hampshire seemed to fit Jodie’s description, but she wasn’t Jodie. Soon people were comparing Jodie’s disappearance to those of two other young women in the area. On February 9, 2004, U Mass Amherst student Maura Murray vanished after an apparent car crash in rural New Hampshire. Then, just over a month later, 17-year-old Brianna Maitland disappeared after leaving her job at a restaurant in northern Vermont. The similarities—missing women, abandoned cars, geographical proximity—were compelling. People began to murmur about a serial killer. Then, on June 2, just over a week after she went missing, Jodie’s body was found. Her husband was already in custody, giving his confession. [End Page 167] ________ My writing studio at the...