Teen Blogger Plots Mother’s Murder

The Watermans were another regular family living on Prince of Wales Island, in the state of Alaska. The biggest town on the island is Craig and that is where Carl and Lauri Water raised their children. It's a small community where everyone looks out for each other.

The Watermans were a close family, their son had recently gone away to university and Lauri, Carl and their daughter Rachelle led regular lives. A Christian family, they were regular churchgoers. Lauri also supported the church by volunteering in community projects. Lauri in particular was much loved and well-known in the town as she was heavily involved in town life.

Daughter Rachelle did well in all subjects at school and was reasonably popular. Not only did she have good grades, but she was also good at sports and a good singer too.

In her teenage years, Rachelle became a little rebellious and even adopted a goth style with dark clothes, piercings, studs and spikes. Rachelle became interested in Wicca and witchcraft which was a little troubling to her Christian parents. That aside though, the family were relatively calm and close.

Almost overnight, the family home went from peaceful to tense when Rachelle started dating older men. Lauri tried to reason with her daughter and express the fears she had around these men who were obviously preying on those troubling teenage years when children are finding themselves and are very vulnerable.

Not long after, the 16-year-old Rachelle started dating 24-year-old Jason, who was her school janitor.

Rachelle's parents tried everything they could to protect their daughter. They grounded her but she snuck out to meet Jason and his friend, Brian. Brian had himself dated Rachelle and she considered Jason and Brian to be her best friends.

Jason ArrantAs the age of consent is 16 in Alaska, there was little that Rachelle's parents could do to protect her from these older men. Arguments became common in the home.

Perhaps as a coping mechanism, or a way to vent her emotions, Rachelle began blogging. Her blog was called My Crappy Life. A lot of the content revolved around Rachelle's hatred of her town, her mother and her school.

"I am nothing,"

"I am not who I was created to be. I have become who they wanted me to be,"

Rachelle wrote on her blog.

Around the same time, Rachelle confided in her friends that Lauri had become abusive.

Rachelle said that her Mom tried to starve her in order to force her to lose weight. Lauri was also accused of physical abuse, including pushing Rachelle down the stairs. Rachelle wrote:

"well I'm grounded, last ngiht my mom went psycho bitch on me and cast me out. So I went to crash at someone's house then she freaked, wanted me home incase I told someone. Wee for loving parental units. I even got to fly…down the stairs…."

Friends struggled to believe Rachelle as she was blase about her accusations and friends felt that they weren't hearing the truth. Rachelle's friends also had misgivings as they knew Lauri, many for years, and had never seen a temper in her. Friends urged Rachelle to tell the police, but she never did.

On Nov 14th 2004, Lauri was home alone.

Rachelle was playing an away game of volleyball with her team and her Dad, Carl, had driven her and spent the weekend. When Carl and Rachelle returned home, they found Lauri absent and the family vehicle not on the drive. This wasn't odd in itself, although Lauri was usually home to welcome them back after an away game and there was no note left about where Lauri had gone.

Carl noticed that there was an empty wine bottle in the kitchen. Again, not unusual, even though Lauri didn't drink herself.

Carl also noticed that the house was messy, which wasn't usual. The family had a lovely home, which was clean and tidy pretty much all of the time.

When Carl went upstairs, he noticed that the master bed was unmade, and various items were out of place.

With all of the small red flags, Carl was concerned and immediately got back in his vehicle to go and search for his wife. Rachelle accompanied her father.

Failing to find Lauri after a drive around and contacting a few friends, Carl called the police.

Police immediately launched a search. Going missing was entirely out of character for Lauri, who was a dedicated wife, mother and member of the community. The possible explanations for her absence were troubling.

In spite of her missing mother and the police search, Rachelle went to school as normal.

Carl stayed at home talking to the police. Police searched the Waterman home and uncovered more red flags: torn latex gloves were found in the bedroom.

Family and friends joined in the search for Lauri.

It wasn't long before they found something…

Forty miles from the Waterman house, police found a burnt-out vehicle. The vehicle was confirmed as Lauri Waterman's. Tragically, when the flames were extinguished, torched human remains were found in the back seat of the car.

As they waited for the body to be identified, police began speaking to people known to Lauri and the family. Police quickly ruled out Carl and Rachelle but interviewed them about Lauri, who she was as a person, who her friends were and her usual routine.

Rachelle claimed to have a good relationship with Lauri and didn't mention the abuse. Rachelle lied during the interview about who Jason and Brian were too, claiming that they were casual acquaintances. Police had already had the truth from Carl and some other friends, so they knew that Rachelle was lying despite her own solid alibi. Alarm bells rang.

Police began looking into Jason and Brian in more depth.

Brian RadelThey discovered that Jason and Brian were blood brothers were both had sexual relationships with children. Usually, girls of around 15 years old. Brian initially approached Rachelle at a party, but after their relationship fizzled out, Brian introduced Rachelle to Jason.

24-year-old Jason became very possessive of 16-year-old Rachelle and forbid Rachelle to speak to Brian, who was both her ex and his blood brother. Jason emerged as a controlling and abusive man who exerted his authority over his teen girlfriend, Rachelle.

The body from the vehicle was identified as Lauri Waterman.

Jason and Brian were arrested.

Jason immediately accused Brian of murdering Lauri. Police asked Jason to wear a wire and speak to Brian hoping for a recorded confession. Rather stupidly, during the covertly recorded conversation, Jason also managed to implicate himself.

Once charged, both men confessed.

Brian told police that Lauri was abusing Rachelle. According to Brian, Jason regularly told him how Rachelle was being starved, beaten and tortured by Lauri. Having been abused, Brian decided that he and his blood brother needed to intervene and save the teenage girl.

Jason and Brian hatched a plan to murder Lauri. Brian believed that this was in order to save Rachelle.

Jason had ulterior motives and wanted to gain more control over Rachelle. Jason wanted to bring Rachelle out from under her mother's protection so that he was the lone authority in her young life. Jason began to encourage Brian, playing on the abuse Rachelle was apparently enduring and asked Brian to kill Lauri soon.

Brian asked for proof of the abuse from Jason.

His blood brother told him that he had personally witnessed the abuse during a Skype call. Jason claimed to have seen Lauri beat Rachelle with a baseball bat.

With that story in mind, Brian agreed to proceed with the murder.

Various methods of death were explored including car tampering, drive-by shootings etc. A month before the murder, Brian tried to shoot Lauri but forgot a gun element and thus Lauri survived that day. A second attempt was made to break into the home and stab Lauri, but when Brian arrived at the house he discovered it was full of guests and ran away.

After these failed attempts, Jason disclosed to Rachelle that Brian was trying to kill Lauri.

Rachelle begged the men not to try again.

Finally, the third murder attempt succeeded. On the weekend that Rachelle and Carl were out of town for the volleyball game, Brian went to the Waterman house and broke in through the cat flap.

In the house, Lauri heard the break-in and searched the house for an intruder. Brian managed to conceal himself in the home. Brian remained hidden in the house for over an hour. Once Lauri stopped searching and went to bed, Brian emerged and attacked Lauri in her sleep.

Brian bound and gagged Lauri and told her that she had to obey him if she wanted to live. Brian then forced Lauri to drink a bottle of wine. It's believed that the intention behind this was to put Lauri in a car and try to recreate a drunk driver accident in which Lauri died.

Once she'd drunk the wine, Brian drove Lauri out to meet Jason. Clearly, something went wrong with their original plan. Perhaps Lauri couldn't be forced behind the wheel. For whatever reason, the men tried to break Lauri's neck instead but failed multiple times in what must have been a harrowing and horrendous ordeal.

Having failed to break Lauri's neck, the men then bludgeoned Lauri. She survived.

Brian then smothered Lauri to death with his hands.

Once dead, Lauri was placed inside her vehicle which was torched.

Police investigated Rachelle's involvement and the teen denied any knowledge of the plan to kill her mother. Text messages were discovered in which Rachelle told Jason that she and her Dad would be out of town, leaving her mother home alone on a particular weekend. This seems an odd topic for communication. Additionally, Rachelle was described as behaving strangely at school on the day Lauri went missing. Rachelle even suggested to her friends that Lauri was missing because she might have drunk drove and died behind the wheel. This again seems exceedingly odd, especially given that Lauri was teetotal.

All three, Jason, Brian and Rachelle were charged for their involvement.

During the trials, Brian expressed extreme remorse, making clear that he had been misled and wrongly believed that Rachelle's life was in danger. Brian was sentenced to a minimum of 33 years.

Jason continued to blame Brian but did plead guilty. Jason was sentenced to a minimum of 16 years.

Rachelle continued to claim to have no knowledge of the plan. Rachelle was found guilty of criminally negligent homicide and served three years.

Rachelle is now free and recently posted on My Crappy Life - the post was removed.