Mystery In Cape Cod

A celebrated fashion editor is murdered in her Massachusetts cottage. A secret love life and a puzzling death. This story had everything, old money, New York Fashion, and fatal attraction. A surprise ending that no one expected. And while many consider the case closed after the cops get their man, many others wonder if we will ever know what really happened that fateful night.

Police in Turo Massachusetts near the tip of Cape Cod get an emergency 911 phone call from local children's author Tim Arnold who said he was returning a flashlight to fashion editor Crista Worthington when he stumbled upon a horrific scene. He said the rear door had been kicked in and when he walked into the home he made a gruesome discovery. Crista Worthington is laid out half naked on the floor. Clinging to her body is her 2 1/2 half year old Daughter Ava. He said he called out to Crista after picking up the baby but she wasn't responsive.

Tim says he couldn't find a telephone in the cottage so he ran back to his own house to call for help. The scene inside is like nothing this small town police has ever seen before. Even for people who do this kind of work for a living this scene was particularly outrageous. 46 year old single Mother and former fashion model Crista Worthington lies dead on her kitchen floor. She is badly bruised and beaten with a single stab wound in her chest. With respect to the condition of the body, most people believe it was a sexual assault. Police estimate she was killed two days earlier.

Crista was in the house for upwards of two full days and the Daughter was locked in there with her for that entire period of time. Ava is unharmed but clearly traumatized. Ava's fingerprints were on her Mothers torso and there was a washcloth found where Ava had tried to wash her mother down. She told the police when they arrived that her Mommy was "dirty" referring to all the blood. After speaking with the little girl it is believed that she didn't actually witness anything. As the body is taken to the morg the seaside community reels with it's first homicide in more than 30 years.

In a place known for its rugged beauty and quaint charm the only thing now on people's minds now is murder. It was just the sort of big city crime that people in Turo pay big bucks to escape from. It's hard to imagine this idyllic place as the setting for such a horrible crime. The crime just didn't make sense for Crista had no enemies so everyone was asking what possible motive would anyone have to murder her? The Massachusetts State police send crime scene technicians to scour the cottage. But the first responders created problems. By this time the crime scene had been completely corrupted by 14 or 15 paramedics who had been in and out of the house before the cops arrived and the general feeling was that no one knew how to investigate a crime of this magnitude in this small town.

In spite of the contamination inside, Investigators find some evidence outside the house. There appeared to be signs of a scuffle and some personal items of Crista's such as a hair beret and her eyeglasses. And there were drag marks which led up to the door which looked like someone had been dragged by someone carrying her by holding her under her arms with her feet dragging on the ground. It appeared that Crista had been attacked outside her home and then dragged inside where she was killed. There was a cell phone on a table inside the house with the number 9 still on the screen where it looked liked Crista had been trying to call 911 for help but by that time she was beaten to the point of helplessness.

Investigators don't find the murder weapon but they do find a critical clue from Crista's body. They did a lot of DNA tests and soon realized that Crista had had sex close to her time of death. They had DNA from the semen and based on it's location of the DNA their is strong suspicion that whoever left the DNA was probably the killer. The DNA could be an invaluable clue in identifying Crista's killer or one of the last people to see her alive. But it won't be of any use until police can track down a suspect. Everyone thought for sure that it must be someone who knew her. With fewer than 2000 people living in Turo during the winter residents fear that the killer could be right next door. In the days after the murder everyone has started locking their doors so it definitely had a ripple effect through the community.

Officials hold a press conference to calm jittery nerves. But police can do little to curb the fear or the media frenzy surrounding the murder. Crista had written articles for slick magazines like W, Elle, and Harper's Bazaar. People from all over the world were deeply disturbed by her murder and the secrets Investigators were about to uncover. A week after Crista Worthington was found murdered in her Cape Cod beach house, family and friends hold a memorial service. Friends remember a woman who had had it all. She was unconditionally happy and there was nothing left for her to hope for. By all accounts Crista lived a charmed life. She had a very glamorous job which allowed her to travel all over the world to places like Paris and New York. She dated many different men but Crista seemed to be looking for something a little out of reach.

Crista had moved to Turo just four years before her murder. It was a far cry from the French Riviera but here in her cottage by the dunes she had finally found contentment. Turo was her home and her roots and it clearly occupied a central place in her heart. Turo was her ancestral domain and there was a street named after her family's name. She had relatives throughout the area and everyone in town knew her by name. Crista grew up the only Daughter of Gloria, a painter, and Toppy, a State prosecutor. They lived in the Boston suburb of Hingam but every summer they packed up for the Cape where there name was well known among the vacationing elite. The Worthington's had been coming to Turo for generations. The Worthington family was one of the, if not the, most important family name in that area of the Cape.

Crista's grandfather was one of the towns largest employers and one of it's biggest landowners. The patriarch of the Worthington family, John Sr, was a major player in the fish market business and during the depression he bought up lots of land around Turo. While Crista's Grandfather was earning money hand over fist, her Grandmother, Tiny launched a cutting edge clothing line hewn from real Cape Cod fish nets. Crista's love of fashion was born. After graduating Vassar, the young journalist landed a plum job at Womens's Wear daily. Soon she was off to Paris and the runways of Dior and Eve St. Lorant. She was a very glamorous girl and a phenomenon wherever she went. Crista was on the guest list of all the swankiest events from fashion shows to polo matches to formal balls with European royalty.

It was said that Crista had the Rolodex to die for. All the major fashion stars of that moment were taking her phone calls. Freelance writing assignments took Crista to London then on to Manhattan where champagne continued to flow. It was the dynasty era and the was big money flashing itself all over the place. Crista may have hobnobbed with celebrities but she always seemed to be a free spirit. Though she had closets full of Couture designs she was most at home in jeans and a sweatshirt and her hair in a mess mostly because she was on a deadline and didn't have time to clean herself up. But when she did clean herself she cleaned up very nicely and was a beautiful woman. By the time Crista was in her late 30's life in the fast lane had lost it's appeal. She yearned for a more substantial existence. She was looking for what mattered in life.

She told friends that what mattered the most to her was starting a family of her own. She realized that she had spent her life not thinking of herself as becoming a Mom and that was weighing on her a lot. She decided to get busy to have a child. The more she thought about having a child the more she considered going it alone. She got involved in an organization called single mothers by choice and she was looking into having artificial insemination to have a baby. She even brought home little biographies of donors and tape recordings of donor's voices. Then she learned two things that led to her big life change. First, the Doctors told her she couldn't have children and then her Mother was diagnosed with cancer. Crista returned to New England to be closer to her Mother. Eventually she moved into West Wing, the old family cottage in Turo.

It soon became her permanent address. It is felt that she just wanted to move into the next phase of her life and that involved moving back to where her roots were. Turo, in the off season, can be a bleak and lonely place especially for a woman used to fabulous parties and fresh croissants. Come labor day the fancy people pack up leaving behind the trawlers, the fish, and the locals. It is very peaceful in Turo and for the time in her life it was exactly right for the former fashion writer. It was there during the summer of 1998 that Crista had an affair with a man named Tony Jacket, a local fisherman and the town's shellfish constable. Tony has a reputation for loving women and he likes women's company. It surprised no one that Tony and Crista had a relationship and all of her friends knew about it. Miraculously, Crista became pregnant.

It was really her dreams coming true. It was also a dream that she had no hope of coming true and was a remarkable thing. It was not, however, a remarkable thing for Tony as he was a married man with six children. He was in a state of shock because Crista had assured him she was unable to get pregnant. Crista was ecstatic about her pregnancy. Tony, on the other hand, had no intention of getting a divorce. If you talk to her acquaintances and they will tell you that Crista was a nice girl who had bad taste in men. Crista really didn't want Tony involved with Ava and said she would take care of things and everything would be fine and he would not have to acknowledge anything. The arrangement seemed to work. But after a year and a half of raising her Daughter alone, Crista wanted Ava to have something more.

After a period of time Crista decided she wanted Tony involved after all. Tony was forced to tell his wife about the affair and about the baby. Tony did not know how his wife would take the news and was prepared to move on if he had to. But his marriage survived and eventually Ava was even welcomed into the Jacket family. So for about a year the Jacket family and Ava interacted because it was in the best interest of Ava and everything was just fine. Crista wanted health insurance and Tony put her on his policy. They never went to court because Crista didn't want to go to court. Investigators now wonder if Tony now harbored any resentment against Crista for all the trouble she had put him through. And when they learn about her million dollar inheritance suspicion grows even deeper. On the surface it gives him a motive.

The child had a large inheritance, he was the Father of the child and there were some questions there. Police question Tony but he strongly denies having anything to do with the murder. Old flames are always high on the suspect list but Tony wasn't the only ex in the spotlight. Investigators were also interested in another man with access to Crista's cottage and her bedroom. While police continue to investigate Tony Jacket, the father of Crista's baby, another suspect emerges. Tim Arnold, the man who found Crista and called police, had been much more than just a neighbor. Tim is an interesting guy. He is an illustrator who writes children's books who lives right behind and within walking distance of Crista's cottage. When she was living in Turo in the cold winter they became friends. Soon afterwards they became lovers.

Tim and Crista had dated for nearly a year after she had ended the affair with Tony and even lived together in West Wing for four months. During that time Arnold grew extremely close to Ava. He became very attached to Ava some might even say he was too attached to her. But after a year Crista ended the relationship. They were both needy persons at first but as time wore on he began to suffocate her a little bit and she asked him to leave. Arnold was crushed. Two writers finding love down the lane. It must have been bliss at first. When a romance is in full blossom having your love interest right next door can be awfully convenient but when the bloom is off the rose it can be torture. Investigators had to wonder if the stage was set for murder. The essential fact was that Crista rejected Tim and it was hypothesized that as a scorned lover he also had motive.

Tim's story of finding the body also raises suspicions. He had mentioned a detail about Crista's murder that he shouldn't have known. he told police that she had been stabbed and at the time the police didn't even know that as the wound wasn't visible according to Detectives so only the killer and the police would know that fact. Digging deeper Investigators find a history of suspicious behavior. There were suggestions that Tim was kind of stalking her after their breakup and would sometimes show up at her house unannounced and was just taking things a little too far. Arnold denies killing Crista but Investigators go at him hard. As police turn up the heat on Arnold he claims it would be physically impossible for him to have killed Crista because he has a unique brain disorder that leaves him weak and dizzy.

It was apparently bad enough that she feared that when he picked up the baby he might drop her because of his condition. In the week after Crista's murder police question Arnold and Jacket repeatedly. They take DNA samples from both men but neither are a match. Investigators will have to expand their search. Detective's wonder of Crista could have had a secret new boyfriend but it doesn't seem likely. Crista told her friend about any love interests she had essentially from day one. But maybe the killer wasn't an old flame after all. Through interviews from friends and family Investigators find trouble back on the mainland. Her father was seeing a woman who raised Investigator's interest. The woman had been involved with the law before. Years ago Crista's Father had been an assistant State's attorney in Massachusetts held in high regard by his peers.

Now the 73 year old widower isn't quite living up to the Worthington name. Investigator's learn that he has been supporting 29 year old Beth Porter a woman with a history of prostitution and drug charges. It had been going on for months before Crista's death. It looks like he was a sugar daddy. The situation with Toppy and Beth porter was yet another chapter in a story that had a lot of characters and twists and turns. The revelation is deeply embarrassing to the Worthington's. Friends tell investigators that Crista had been livid about the affair and tried to put a stop it. She couldn't believe that her dad was involved with a woman who was so beneath him, was so young, and she believed was incredibly manipulative. Crista even went so far as to hire a private Investigator to trap the Father to show that he was incompetent and have him put away. Had Crista's plan succeeded, Beth porter's money train would have come to a screeching halt.

This case had a list of suspects worthy of an Agatha Cristy Novel. First their was the philandering shellfish constable, then there was the disabled children's author, and now the ex hooker with an axe to grind. The public was eating it up with a spoon and there were plenty more chapters to come. Beth Porter seems to be the best lead the police have come up with to date as here is someone with a clear motive. Detectives head to Quincy a tough working class suburb of Boston to question Beth Porter and a male friend of hers named Edward Hall. Both deny any involvement in the murder. The police spend an inordinate amount of time investigating Porter and Hall but no arrests are made and they refocus their efforts back in the Turo area. Several weeks later police question Tony Jacket's son-in-law, Keith Amado, simply because he knew Crista.

They put a lot of pressure on him to confess, slamming their fists on the desk and using all their cop tricks, he starts sweating and he suddenly realizes this is no longer a friendly conversation. But when his DNA doesn't match either they are back at square one. Police cast an even wider net, questioning anyone who ever knew Crista or had ever been at her cottage, including the UPS man, any maintenance people, the garbage man, and the like. Police also travel to New York City to question her old friends and colleagues. The only reason for the trip is that they were running out of leads and had nowhere else to turn. Then friends of Crista's posted a $25,000 reward for information. But the plan failed and as the one year anniversary passed the money went unclaimed the case went as cold as Nantucket in the winter. And to add to the family's burden a custody battle was breaking out over Crista's Daughter Ava.

In her will Crista awarded custody of Ava to an old friend, Amyra Chase. But Tony Jacket, Ava's biological Father wants to raise her himself. But a Judge denies him custody after the District Attorney tells the judge that he is still a suspect in Crista's murder. A year and a half high profile who done it continues to make headlines. A book on the murder is released and it quickly becomes a best seller. Crista's shocking death strikes a chord with people across the country. The police are under tremendous pressure to solve this case. Desperate to crack the case police consult with the FBI's behavioral science unit to create a profile of the killer. The FBI tells them that based on their analysis of the crime scene the killer is probably living among them. So the police come up with a new strategy. They decide to do a DNA sweep of all the residents of Turo. Now this is voluntary but if you don't comply your name goes on a special list.

It is a contentious strategy and the ACLU starts raising concerns especially when they find out that police have been trying to coerce confessions out of people. How invasive is it to have a cop size you up while you are eating a lobster roll and saunter over and ask you for a DNA swab? And many people of Turo feel it will lead the investigation in the wrong direction as the cops are so desperate to solve the case that they are going to frame someone rather than losing face. Many other people feel that the Massachusetts State police have already bungled the case. The police, however, justify the sweep saying it has worked in the past. There was a case in England of a serial rapist where the DNA sweep was successful in catching the suspect. Never the less this little fishing expedition stirred up a storm of controversy. In any event, 75 swabs are collected the first day of testing.

Little do the people of Turo know how slow things are really moving. By now police have taken DNA samples from more than 100 men but because of the backlog at the State Crime Lab most are not being tested. While CSI Cape Cod was moving at a snails pace slogging through random DNA samples the real suspect, it would turn out, was living right under their nose. It seemed Justice in Turo was moving no faster than Saturday traffic on the Sagimore Bridge. Three years after Crista Worthington's murder, Investigators finally get the DNA match they have been looking for. He was Crista's garbage and had been spoken to just three months after the crime occurred. The suspect's name is Chris McGowan. When first questioned he told cops he barely knew who Crista was. Two years later cops re interview McGowan and he voluntarily gave a DNA sample but instead of being tested the sample sat on a shelf for more than a year.

People were pretty outraged at that particular revelation. While the Sweep police were out collecting DNA samples from every Joe Blow and his Brother the real suspect had been living among them for three years. The more the Investigators learned about McGowan the more they believed they had found their man. Christopher came to Cape Cod nearly ten years earlier. He moved from Florida where he had had a little trouble with the law and had done some prison time. His rap sheet include charges of grand theft and assault and battery. Even after he had moved to the Cape in the 1990s he was still making trouble. He had had several girlfriends many of whom had taken out restraining orders against him. Armed police raid the run down rooming house where McGowan is living an take him into custody. They then hold a press conference announcing an arrest in the case finally. Detectives interrogate McGowan for six hours.

Initially he sticks to his story saying he doesn't know Crista but when confronted with the DNA match McGowan starts singing a different tune. He then tells police that he had been having an affair with Crista and admits at being at Crista's when she was murdered but he denies killing her. He says a friend Jeremy Frazier is the real murderer. In a story ripe with inconsistencies he says he and Frazier went to Crista's after a night of heavy drinking looking for sex. McGowan told police he and Crista had consensual sex but things went bad when Crista caught Frazier going through her purse and confronted him. According to McGowan the men left the house but Crista followed them outside and that Frazier turned around and punched Crista in the face and then began kicking her or putting the boots to her. Eventually Crista was brought back into the house and he saw Frazier pick up the knife and stab her.

Police investigate Jeremy Frazier but he has an airtight alibi for the night in question, if you can call his father's word airtight. Authorities charge McGowan with first degree murder and aggravated rape. Turo can finally breath a sigh of relief. As the case heads to trial, the story draws the international news coverage once again sparks another book on the murder. Opening arguments begin on October 18th 2006. The prosecution's case rests on two major points, the DNA match and the interview which they consider to be a confession. The defense argues that McGowan had consensual sex with Crista and that a racially prejudiced rush to judgement unfairly pinned the murder on him. After three weeks of testimony the Jury begins a rocky and racially tense deliberation. It ends in deadlock.

One of the jurors calls her boyfriend who just happens to be in jail and they discuss the media's coverage of the trial. The phone call is recorded of course. When the Judge finds out about it he dismisses the Juror. Two days later a verdict is reached. McGowan is found guilty and is sentenced to life in prison without parole. While most people feel the Crista Worthington case is closed there are still many who think that a black man in an all white town was too easy a target and McGowan was in fact framed and no one will ever really know what happened that night in the cottage in Turo. So is an innocent man in prison while the real killer walks free? You be the judge..