In a plea agreement with the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office, the 32-year-old Chase pleaded guilty to the murders of Nicole T. Taylor, 17; Tessa A. Wells, 17; Bethany R. Price, 15; Kristi A. Hamilton, 16; Patrick M. Farrell, 36; Brian A. Parkhurst, 35; Wilhelm Kreuz, 42; and Simon E. Close, 33, all of Philadelphia. Mr. Close was a staff reporter at this paper.

In exchange for the plea, numerous other counts, including kidnapping, aggravated assault, and attempted murder, were dropped, along with the death penalty provision. Chase was sentenced by Municipal Court Judge Liam McManus to a life sentence, without the possibility of parole.

Chase remained silent and impassive at the hearing, during which he was represented by Benjamin W. Priest, a public defender.

Priest said that, considering the horrific nature of the crimes, and the overwhelming evidence against his client, the agreement was the best thing for Chase, a paramedic with the Glenwood Ambulance Group.

“Mr. Chase will now be able to receive the treatment he so desperately needs.”

Investigators revealed that Chase’s wife Katherine, 30, was recently committed to the Ranch House Mental Health Facility at Norristown. They believe that this event may have triggered the spree.

Chase’s so-called signature included leaving a rosary at the scene of each crime, as well as the mutilation of the female victims’ hands.M AY 16, 7:55 A M

There is a principle in sales, that being the Rule of 250.They say that, in one’s lifetime, one becomes acquainted with around 250 people. Make one customer happy, and that just may lead to 250 sales.

The same might be said for hatred.

Make one enemy . . .

It is for this reason, and, perhaps, many others, that I am segregated from

the general population here.

At just before eight I hear them coming. I am brought to the small exercise yard for thirty minutes each day, right around this time.

The officer arrives at my cell. He reaches through the bars and shackles my hands. He is not my usual guard. I have never seen him before.

The guard is not a big man, but he looks to be in great physical shape. He is about my size, my height. I might have known he would be unremarkable in every way but his resolve. In this, we are surely kin.

He calls for an open cell. My door slides, I exit.

Hail Mary, full of grace...

We walk down the corridor. The sound of my chains echoes off the dead walls, steel conversing with steel.

Blessed art thou amongst women...

Every step resonates with a name. Nicole.Tessa. Bethany. Kristi.

And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus...

The pills I take for pain barely mask the agony.They bring them one at a time to my cell, three times a day. I would have taken them all today if I could have.

Holy Mary, mother of God...

This day trembled to life just a few hours ago, a day with which I have been on a collision course for a very long time.

Pray for us sinners...

I stand at the top of the steep iron stairs as Christ stood on Calvary. My cold, gray, solitary Golgotha.

Now...

I feel the hand at the center of my back.

And at the hour of our death...

I close my eyes.

I feel the push.

Amen.

M AY 18, 1:55 PM

Jessica rode to West Philly with John Shepherd. They had been partners for two weeks, and were en route to interview a witness to a double homicide that left the owners of a variety store in South Philly shot, execution style, and dumped in the cellar beneath their store.

The sun was warm and high. The city was finally throwing off the shackles of early spring and embracing the day—windows open, convertible tops down, fruit vendors open for business.

Dr. Summers’s final report on Andrew Chase held a number of interesting findings, not the least of which was the fact that workers at the St. Dominic Cemetery reported that a grave had been dug up on the Wednesday of that week, a plot owned by Andrew Chase. Nothing was removed from the ground—the small casket remained untouched—but Dr. Summers believed that Andrew Chase truly expected the resurrection of his stillborn daughter on Easter Sunday. She theorized that the motivation behind his madness was to offer the lives of five girls as sacrifice to bring his daughter back from the dead. In his twisted reasoning, the five girls he chose had already attempted suicide, had already welcomed death into their lives.

About a year before he killed Tessa, as part of his job, Chase had transported a body from the row house right next to the Tessa Wells crime scene on North Eighth. It was then that he had most likely seen the pillar in the basement.

As Shepherd parked on Bainbridge Street, Jessica’s phone rang. It was Nick Palladino.

“What’s up, Nick?” she asked.

“Hear the news?”

God, she hated conversations that began with that question. She was fairly sure she hadn’t heard any news that would warrant a phone call. “No,” Jessica said. “But give it to me gently, Nick. I haven’t had lunch yet.”

“Andrew Chase is dead.”

At first, the words seemed to carom around in her mind a bit, the way unexpected news, good and bad, tends to do. When Judge McManus had sentenced Chase to life, Jessica had assumed that life would be forty or more years, decades to reflect on the pain and suffering he had inflicted.

Not weeks.

According to Nick, details surrounding Chase’s death were a little sketchy, but Nick heard that Chase had fallen down a long flight of steel steps and had broken his neck.

“A broken neck?” Jessica asked, trying to keep the irony from her voice.

Nick read it. “I know,” he said. “Karma’s a bitch with a bazooka, sometimes, eh?”

That she is, Jessica thought.

That she is.

Frank Wells stood in the doorway to his row house, waiting. He looked small and brittle and terribly pale. He wore the same clothes he’d had on the last time she’d seen him, but now he seemed even more lost in them than he had before.

Tessa’s angel pendant had been found in Andrew Chase’s bedroom dresser and had just cleared the miles of red tape attendant in capital cases such as this. Before she got out of the car, Jessica slipped it out of the evidence bag and into her pocket. She checked her face in the rearview, not so much to see if she looked okay, but rather to make sure she had not been crying.

She had to be strong here one final time.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” Wells asked.