—@StocktonStoic
Ignoring Wen’s order to go straight to his room and wait for her call, Jordan spent the late afternoon and early evening hours driving the streets of Reseda, slowing at bus stops and crosswalks to scan faces for Campbell’s. Once, he had to take evasive action to avoid a familiar black Ford Explorer that pulled over ahead of him to question a group of teens idling on a corner. The last thing he wanted was for Crosby and Hart to tell Wen he was on the street.
But after emptying a tank of gas over five or so hours, he finally called it quits and went back to the motel, where he had nothing to do but stew, exiled to a room that smelled faintly of weed and air conditioner mold.
Wen was probably right that a tip would come in. But the new picture of Cara Campbell had blanketed the media, and they hadn’t had any credible sightings yet. Trying to remember if he’d ever seen an image of Karl Campbell alive, Jordan picked up his phone and searched.
A moment later, he was staring at a sixty-ish, affluent-looking man with a practiced smile and white teeth. He had been handsome, but somewhat generically so. His full head of salt-and-pepper hair was probably enhanced with Rogaine or even hair implants, and his face showed no obvious signs of plastic surgery but seemed suspiciously smooth.
Jordan tried to picture Cara Campbell swinging a hammer at that head and couldn’t quite do it.
Finding the obituary, he learnedthe handsome plastic surgeon was a standout offensive tackle at UC-Davis.He remembered from the arrest report that Karl had not been a small man. So how had Cara taken him in hand-to-hand combat? A well-placed hit from a hammer could take down anyone if it came from behind. But Karl had defensive wounds, and most of the hits he’d taken had come from the front—as he rushed to help, according to her.
Jordan fluffed the thin pillows and leaned back against the headboard, bumping it into the wall. He had been moving so constantly that it felt weird sitting still, like getting off a merry-go-round to stand on hard, unyielding ground. He knew he needed more sleep, but the mattress was lumpy and the idea of rest felt like a waste of time. It was more worthwhile to learn about the woman he’d been chasing—specifically, the crime that had sent her to prison.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have his laptop and couldn’t access the arrest report on his phone. But there was still plenty of reading material.
Sensational social media and web “content” dominated the search results, including the Danvers podcast, which had chronicled the ins and outs of the trial, but he zeroed in on the traditional media. There were long articles in theNew York Timesand theLos Angeles Times, andRolling Stone, of all places. The last one was the most useful, because it paired an in-depth story with dates and time stamps.
3:01 PM: Cara and Karl Campbell are captured on video at the Mira Monte Shell station. Despite the lack of audio, their body language and facial expressions clearly suggest they are having the kind of argument only deeply unhappy couples can have.
4:36 PM: Cara posts a reel on @carasloveisgold, gushing about the accommodations at Glamp Ojai. Karl is nowhere to be seen as she breathlessly catalogs the amenities—luxurious tents, locally sourced gourmet food, and outdoor activities from horseback riding to a zip line—that promise “the most romantic getaway ever!”
5:15 PM: Ezra Threlkeld at Glamp Ojai sees Cara near the unlocked toolshed that contained the hammer used in the crime. At trial, Cara confirmed she was in the area creating video content but had no reason to enter the structure. Because there was no security camera in this area of the glampground, neither assertion could be confirmed.
6:00 PM: Cara swims in the saltwater pool, again sans Karl. Thorsten Markus, a self-described “venture capitalist and adventurer,” testifies at trial that “she showed an unhealthy amount of interest in my marital status and what I did for a living.” Cara denies speaking with him other than to politely ask him to get out of her shot. Her subsequent post about the pool includes no record of their encounter.
7:28 PM: Cara posts a picture of a bottle of champagne and a tray of light hors d’oeuvres, writing about the imminentmoonlight hike to Johnson’s Point. In what appears to be a lighthearted tone, she adds that Karl is reluctant to hike because the path is lighted by luminaria—not exactly roughing it.
11:24 PM: Ventura County Sheriff’s Department receives a panicked 911 call from the lodge at Glamp Ojai from Cara Campbell: “My husband—oh my God, my husband!”
11:51 PM: A sheriff’s deputy arrives at Glamp Ojai. After fire department EMTs arrive, they hike to Johnson’s Point, led by Ezra Threlkeld.
12:30 AM: At Johnson’s Point, the deputies and EMTs discover the lifeless body of Karl Campbell. Savagely beaten, he is covered in coagulated blood, as is Cara, who is treated for a scalp contusion and possible concussion at the main lodge.
1:48 AM: The forensics team arrives and discovers a hammer nearby. Cara Campbell’s bloody fingerprints are later identified on the handle. Ezra Threlkeld identifies the hammer as having been taken from the resort’s equipment shed.
Despite the preponderance of circumstantial evidence, and the fact that spouses were always the most likely killers, it still seemed strange to Jordan how quickly Cara Campbell had been charged. The hammer was the only physical evidence linking her to the murder—wasn’t it possible she had picked it up to defend herself? Or grabbed it in horror? At trial, she had guessed the latter while admitting she couldn’t remember.
Moreover, the killing blows had been delivered to Karl’s face. Had Cara Campbell, 5’7” and 126 pounds, really faced off with her big, burly husband and bashed his face in?
The place was isolated enough, but if she really had wanted to kill him, why would she do it while she was working and hadtold the whole world they were going to spend a romantic night together?
Online, speculators called it an attempt to stage the perfect crime. Many claimed the romantic evening and the public posts were well-planned misdirects, and that the gas-station argument, unwittingly caught on video, showed the true nature of their relationship. Everyone knew #InfluencersSoFake.
Jordan did know from experience that women sometimes killed their partners, but he also knew they rarely did so with blunt instruments when a physical mismatch created a much smaller chance of success. Too, Cara herself had been hit on the head with the hammer—even though the defense couldn’t prove the single blow had, as she claimed, knocked her unconscious.
The Ventura County Coroner had become an internet figure of fun because he’d refused to hike to the crime scene in his designer dress shoes. In the court transcripts Jordan found, he came across as a pompous, self-regarding blowhard. But Cara’s fingerprints on the murder weapon, the existence of a three-million-dollar life insurance policy naming her as beneficiary, and the lack of an alternate suspect—along with questions about Karl’s financial health and Cara’s self-incriminating online persona—had convinced the state’s attorney to charge Cara Campbell with the murder of her husband.
Given that approximately ten hours had passed between the murder and the coroner’s arrival at the clearly contaminated crime scene, Jordan couldn’t see how any of the circumstantial evidence found there was admissible in court.
Campbell had never once strayed from her story: Her husband had been killed by a masked, black-clad figure with blond hair spilling out from under a baseball cap. But she had offered no plausible theories as to who that person might have been, other than to claim her husband’s missing watch could be a motive. He remembered from the arrest report that it wasvaluable, but not exceptionally so, and had not turned up in any local pawn shops or online marketplaces.
The trial transcript had been requested by a citizen journalist and reposted online.
PROSECUTOR CAMERON: Ms. Campbell, who would have lain in wait for your husband, choosing such an unlikely time and place? Was it a disgruntled patient, angry at a botched plastic surgery job?
ABEL: Objection, Your Honor. My client is not responsible for trying the case against her.
