His first arrest occurred the year Ophelia moved to New York. He was arrested in Atlanta for inciting a riot and released due to a lack of evidence. It appeared he moved to New York shortly after that, where he attacked Ophelia.
The background notes on Albert were alarming. He was a confirmed founder of an alt-right Christian group formed in 2010 called The Pure. Ophelia’s face scrunched in disgust. Lewis’s notes said that The Pure was active primarily in Southern states and believed in purging the world of all “heretics.” The Atlanta riot forced the dissolution of the group due to the number of arrests and negative political attention.
She’d never heard of The Pure before. Through a quick online search, Ophelia noted that there was very little mention of the group, but her search led her to the online archives ofThe Atlanta Journal-Constitution,where she found one article that referenced the riot where Albert Thompson was arrested. The Pure had met downtown on a busy Saturday afternoon and marched through the streets, “haphazardly attacking innocent people without motive,” according to the paper.
The riot was classified as an act of terrorism. The group used pepper spray, baseball bats, nunchucks, smoke bombs, and other miscellaneous weapons. The pictures from the instance werehorrific. Hate-filled men and women with disgust and anger coating their faces, inflicting violence on fearful citizens. The group was dressed in street clothes, so aside from the weapons the group members carried, it was difficult to discern who was part of The Pure and who was a citizen. Ophelia zoomed into the photo, and in utter shock at what she saw, she slammed both hands on her marble desk. Two men in street clothes, carrying baseball bats, wore silver medieval cross necklaces hanging from their chests.
“Holy fuck,” she said under her breath.
Since the article was all she could find in her initial search, she turned to the forum-based site that she used to research the serial killer. The site held millions of forum topics from skincare reviews to discussions around the best plants to grow in the Pacific Northwest during an El Niño year. She began combing through posts related to alt-right groups. Eventually, she found a thread from 2010 about the creation of The Pure. There was no mention of Albert Thompson, but a commenter asked if anyone had heard of the group, and twenty-three people responded. There were comments about the name being stupid and hypotheses around what the group stood for, with most agreeing that it was some type of Christian supremacy group. The second-to-last commenter wrote a whole paragraph.
AnonymousPapaya07445: Y’all, my cousin is in this group, and he’s mentally ill. He told me The Pure will eliminate all “magical people.” I kid you not. He thinks magic is real. He believes that only “good” Christians should be allowed to live. And he got a tattoo on his back that says “I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.” Fucking whack. My aunt kicked him out of the house.
Ophelia stood up from her desk in disbelief, her world tilting on its axis. It was all clicking into place. There were two keypieces gluing it all together— the cross necklace and the Exodus verse. The article from theAtlanta Journal-Constitutionnewspaper confirmed the existence of multiple necklaces and validatedAnonymousPapaya07445’s comments. The Pure was using the necklace to identify magical people, and the Exodus verse connected The Pure to the murders. It was all coming together. The murders were hate crimes against magical people. She was confident that all of the other Cutthroat Killer victims possessed magic of some kind. She couldn’t prove it yet, but questioning family and friends could help.
She didn’t know what to do or where to start. Did she go to the cops? Did anyone else know about what was happening? She began to feel the gravity of what she uncovered. Her heart squeezed, and a heavy feeling unexpectedly pressing down on her chest made it hard for her to breathe. Her hands shook.Breathe, she reminded herself. She took a shallow gulp. It was too much. She needed help. Grabbing her phone, she thanked God Etienne was off work today and called him.
“Hey, O,” Etienne said through the phone.
“Hi, um…I need you to come over. I got the files from Detective Lewis.” Another shallow breath. It wasn’t enough. She tried to force air into her lungs again. “I need someone.” She felt like she was about to die. “I need…I…I…I’m having a panic attack.”
“Ophelia,” he said calmly. “It’s okay, baby. I’m coming over right now, and you’re going to stay on the phone with me. First, lie down somewhere. Are you at home?”
“Yes,” she said shakily and climbed onto her large beanbag pillow.
“Okay, I know it’s hard to breathe right now, but let’s first try to find something to focus on. Pinch your arm.”
“W…what?” She didn’t understand.
“Yes, pinch your arm till it hurts.”
Ophelia pinched her arm that was holding the phone. It didn’t really hurt, so she did it till all she could feel was the sharp squeeze of the flesh on her forearm.
“Okay,” she said.
“Do it again.” So she did, and it brought her mind to that singular place of pain.
“I’m in the car. I’m almost there. Can you breathe with me now?”
“Yes, I’m still shaking, but I can breathe.”
“Great. Breathe in, one, two, three, four. Breathe out, one, two, three, four.” Etienne did this with her till he arrived at her house.
Once Etienne arrivedat her house, he found her still curled up on the large pillow in her studio. He immediately went into action, checking her vitals and treating her by decreasing her cortisol levels. Then he typed up an email from Ophelia to her team and the board director at Healing Artists, letting them know that she was taking the rest of the day off work due to an illness. He read it out loud to her while she was still curled up on the pillow. She nodded in approval of the wording, and he hit send.
He then convinced Ophelia to move to her bed in the cottage for a nap. After he watched her drink a glass of water, he gently removed her shoes and jeans and guided her under the covers. Her brain was exhausted and still in shock, so the last thing she remembered before swiftly passing out was Etienne curling around her body and holding her in bed.
A few hours later, Ophelia’s eyes blinked into focus as she took in the afternoon sun filtering through her room. The heavy weight of Etienne’s arm wrapped around her middle provided a deep sense of comfort.
“How are you feeling?” asked Etienne, noticing her awakened state.
“Better,” she sighed and rolled into his chest. “Thank you, E. I’m sorry about that.”
“Don’t be sorry. I’m glad you called.”
Etienne moved her hair out of her face, and they locked eyes.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.
