It was interesting to note that Walt wanted to set things straight only after I contacted his wife and she wanted me to talk to him. Until then, although he had my phone number and knew where I lived, he never attempted to contact me and discuss anything. He never called me to tell me to knock it off. It was my conclusion that he simply wanted to impress his wife with his “honesty” so she would think I was the crazy one.

What struck me as odd in this conversation was that Walt talked to me as though I were a close friend, although he knew me for only four weeks in 1990 as his landlord. Why the strong connection? Why no hostility? Perhaps Walt was telling the truth and he was just one great guy, but more likely it was one major snow job. His wife stayed on for a few more years and then divorced him.

I was happy to find out that Walt was on the path exactly at the time Anne Kelley was murdered. In 2009, a detective from a town nearby told me that Walt Williams remained the only suspect in the murder of Anne Kelley.

WHEN I LOOK back on twenty years of dealing with the murder of Anne Kelley and the walking anachronism that is Walt Williams, I still wish more than anything that this case could be resolved.

I have the private satisfaction that the police still consider him a top suspect, that they agree the circumstantial evidence is convincing enough to believe Williams might have committed the murder. Sure, there is always a possibility that Williams is a nutjob who lies and says and does stupid things and on the same night that he waded across the stream, another killer popped out of the bushes and murdered Anne. Anything is possible, and that’s why you have to have enough evidence to convince a jury that a suspect is truly guilty.

Although I know that I was justified in gathering evidence and pushing for the police to pay serious attention to Williams, everyone just got the story secondhand from me. If I had to go to a court of law to prove Williams should be the number one suspect, I could do it; I have enough statements, written and oral, to back my claim. I couldn’t prove he did it, but I could prove the police should have investigated him thoroughly.

But nobody else-and I mean nobody-saw what I saw and experienced what I experienced.

I didn’t go looking for this case. It came to me. I never thought the world of Sherlock Holmes I enjoyed as a child would become my reality three decades later. Sometimes fate takes a very strange turn. Here I was, a homemaker and sign language interpreter no more.

I was a criminal profiler.

CHAPTER 4.A NEW CAREER

I’ll never say that I know what a family who has lost a loved one through violence goes through. I don’t have a family member who was the victim of a horrible crime. No one wants to be that person. I don’t ever want the knock at the door that tells me my child has been murdered.

I have observed the agony families go through and how they never get over it. I have talked with many families of murder or suicide victims and have heard them express their despair over feeling separate from all others, and of being alone. Friends don’t want to hear about it after a while. They get sick of you. Oh, there you go again. They have normal lives. They don’t have killers in their past. They just want to talk about what happened at their son’s baseball game or how their daughter has a new costume for Halloween. They don’t want to think about evil monsters. They don’t understand what you’re talking about or why you’re so obsessed. You become a pariah, a strange being with knowledge that nobody else has and a situation of which nobody else wants to be a part.

Once upon a time, people who were grieving, people who were ill with a terminal disease, people who were struggling with alcohol or drug problems, also felt quite alone. They had to rely on their small circle of family and friends and whatever religious faith they might have. Sometimes they had no one with whom to talk. Now there are support groups for just about every problem, including wonderful groups to help victims of crime and families of murder victims.

I was in a weird, lonely spot of my own, because I was chasing a killer but nobody had killed my child. I went to some support groups for families of murder victims, hoping to find a form of kinship, but I was not really a person who fit the criteria. When I started to speak, I immediately felt my problem was trivial in comparison to what the others in the group were going through. We were all frustrated with the criminal justice system, but when I expressed my feelings about my struggle, I felt like some whiner complaining about heartburn to a group of heart transplant patients. I realized my faux pas, apologized, and never went back.

There are no support groups for people who think someone killed somebody. No support groups for people chasing serial killers or for those who want to become criminal profilers and change the system. I was a victim of sorts, but there was no support group listed in the newspaper that served someone with my “problem.”

I shared many of the same emotional difficulties that families of victims of unsolved murder suffer from: anger, frustration, rage, fear, and desperation. Thoughts about the crime take over one’s life and, worst of all, the thought that one must continually do something about it. One mother of a murder victim told me she hadn’t swum in her backyard pool since her daughter had been killed because the first time she jumped in, guilt overwhelmed her.

“My daughter will never get to swim again,” she told me. “How could I dare enjoy myself while her killer was still out there?”

I thoroughly understood where she was coming from. Police had done nothing to shake my belief that Walt Williams might have killed Anne Kelley. It was hard for me to do things like go to the movies or read the latest best seller-selfish, frivolous stuff; someone might die because I was wasting time in a theater eating popcorn.

I know this sounds a bit egotistical, like I thought I was the only one who could save the world, but what if I was the only one who really did know who killed Anne Kelley? What if it was Walt and he continued to be a free man? That knowledge dumped a load of responsibility on me and I couldn’t just walk away from it.

So there I was. I felt my time should be dedicated almost exclusively toward solving this mystery, developing evidence, doing something. It was stressful, and there was nobody who understood that.

Then there were the people who started telling me that I was nuts, which didn’t help. And the folks who didn’t say anything, but I could see they didn’t get it because they had that look that says, “We must tolerate those who are a bit out there.”

I would be plagued with doubt. I started questioning myself, thinking, “Gee, maybe I am wrong.” Then I would reread my notes and the evidence would get me back on track.

I became obsessed with working this case night and day, and that was a strain on daily life. I still taught my children, of course, and I still went to all the Boys and Girls Clubs games. I still went to the hospital and did sign language interpreting. The minute I walked into the treatment area I changed my expression completely and everybody would say, “What a Pollyanna! You’re always cheerful and always happy.” They had no idea what I was going through, none.

At a certain point, I was exhausted and realized that I didn’t know how to balance my life. Several people suggested I should get some therapy and counseling, which I eventually concluded was a good idea. It might help me get things in place. I went to a counselor and she immediately thought I was nuts. She suggested medication. I tried to explain the situation as carefully as I could, but the therapist was already pulling out the prescription pad. I didn’t get angry; I just left. I understood exactly what the therapist was thinking upon hearing my crazy-sounding story. I get a lot of those phone calls and e-mails myself, from a lot of people who are nuts, who are psychopaths and attention-seekers.