In the Fall of 1993, Donald Brooks and David Bowman of Gastonia, NC, believing that
their girlfriends Jill and Jamie Bias had stolen drug money from them, took
the sisters to a remote spot across the South Carolina border (where they had
already dug graves for the girls) and slit their throats. When captured, the
men said the girls were "calm" and "didn't resist," although Jill "cried." David
Bowman also said that he believed that Jamie was "ready to die," that she
constantly talked about dying, about being murdered, and about being dead. This
story is loosely based on that incident (the names have not been changed).
His face concealing his anger, Don pulled the car into the curb in front of the Bias house. "Keep it cool for now," he warned as he and David climbed out. "We don't want no trouble here."
It was Jill who answered his knock. Fresh-faced nineteen-year-old innocence, she smiled appealingly. "Donnie!" she exclaimed. "What's up?"
He hesitated for a moment; by that time, her sister Jamie--much more mature-looking girl at twenty-three--had come up behind her. "Dave and I need to talk to you two," he said, his voice level.
Jill tipped her head. Her eyes were brilliant blue in the Carolina sunshine; there was a bridge of freckles across her nose and cheeks. "Yeah? What about?"
"We'll talk in the car," he said. "Come on."
The girls glanced at each other, but, saying nothing, they got their coats and came-- Jill, as was customary, seated herself in the front seat beside Don, her steady boyfriend since August. Don slid behind the wheel; as soon as Jamie and David had crawled into the back, he pulled away from the curb.
"What's going on, guys?" Jamie asked.
David drew out the .38 they'd borrowed and pointed it generally in her direction. "It's about," he answered coldly, "the eight grand you two bitches stole from us!"
As Don turned the car down a lonely country road that led toward the South Carolina state line, Jamie stared at David for a long moment. "We didn't steal your money!" she protested. "What the fuck are you talking about?"
"There ain't no use in that," Don answered. He stared fixedly ahead at the road. "We know better. We ain't stupid. You know what we're talking about--the eight grand we got for that load of snow we took from Atlanta to Charlotte. It was in our strongbox night before last, when you two stayed over. Now it's gone."
"But, Donnie..." Jill started to argue.
"Just shut up," he told her. "It ain't no good."
She watched his profile for several long seconds. "What're you going to do?" she asked.
"Whattaya think?" he replied, glancing at her and waving a hand toward the uninhabited countryside. "Whattaya think?"
"Tell 'em, Don," David urged from the backseat.
Slowing down, Don again looked over at Jill. "It's payback time," he said. "You're going to tell us where that money is, or we're going to fucking kill you both!"
"We can't tell you where the money is!" Jill cried. "We don't know, we didn't take it!"
"Then you're gonna die," he told her flatly. "You don't steal from us and get away with it. We're going to take you out in the woods and kill you. You understand that?"
She stared for a moment, tears appearing in her eyes, but she said nothing more. After a few minutes, she laid her head over on Don's shoulder; he moved as if he might push her off, but in the end did not. Finally, after another mile or so, he stopped the car, cut the engine; everyone got out. The two girls walked quietly with the men through some thin woods, the trees leafless for the coming winter. When they came to a small clearing, they saw the pair of ominous-looking holes Don had dug some days before. They exchanged glances.
"Are those our graves?" Jill asked, her voice little-girl but amazing calm considering her question.
He didn't answer; David didn't either. "Get your coats off," David snarled, aiming the revolver at them.
Again the girls looked at each other. "Do it, Jill," Jamie advised, slipping her own coat over her shoulders and dropping it. Jill followed suite; David then commanded them to cross their hands behind their backs and Jamie instantly complied. Watching her, following her example, Jill did the same.
Stepping behind them, Don started wrapping duct tape around their wrists, crossing over both vertically and horizontally, securing their hands tightly. While Don bound them, both girls remained still and silent, watching David.
When he was finished, Don came around and stood in front of Jill. "Bitch," he muttered. "Bitch thief." He grabbed her shirt, jerked; buttons sprayed. After shoving the shirt back over her shoulders and tearing it free from her arms, he undid her pants and pushed them and her panties down together. Shivering in the cool autumn air but cooperating with him, she lifted each foot, stepped out of her clothes. She looked over at her sister; while Don had been stripping her, David had done the same to the equally unresisting Jamie. Jamie said nothing; she merely shook her head.
"Last chance," Don said, looking at each of them in turn. "You wanta live, tell us where our money is." Reaching into his pocket, he drew out a folding knife, opened it, snapped the long blade into place. "If you don't you know what's gonna happen!"
"Don, we ca't tell you!" Jill cried. "We don't know! We didn't take it, Donnie!"
Don stared at them coldly, first at one, then the other. "Kneel down," he told Jill.
Tears welled up in Jill's eyes again. "Donnie, I love you," she sobbed. "We didn't steal your money, we didn't..." He didn't respond. Following his instructions without being asked again, she knelt. Jill was very slender, her ribs easily visible, her breasts small; with her knees widely spread and her wrists tightly bound, she looked very vulnerable, very childlike, very helpless. Tipping her head back up, she continued to watch him.
He bent down and laid his left hand on her bare shoulder. "Now you're gonna learn," he said coldly, "what happens when you steal from me!"
"Donnie, I didn't!" she wept. "I don't understand why you won't believe me... I thought you loved me!"
"I do," he told her while he toyed with the knife. His eyes scanned down over her naked body. She was still crying but she wasn't struggling, she remained very calm. "I do love you, Jill," he went on, his eyes and his voice now soft. "Shit, you know that."
She blinked away her tears and nodded. "Yeah," she admitted. "I guess I do know that." She glanced at his knife, then lifted her chin. "Kiss me first, Donnie," she pleaded. "A last kiss, before you do it..."
He did, pressing his lips against hers for a long moment; she closed her eyes and kissed him back, passionately. Then, just as his lips left hers, he stabbed her, plunging the blade into and through her right breast, burying half of it. Jill stiffened and gasped, but she didn't scream and she didn't even try to pull away; she just stared at him with wide eyes.
He snatched the blade out, and, still holding her shoulder, plunged it into her chest again; it went in with a tearing "thunk!" as he drove it between her ribs under her breast this time.
"Oh," she sobbed. "Oh, Donnie, oh, God...!" Completely passive, completely unresisting, Jill quivered and cried as the knife tore into her soft little body again and again, as her slight breasts received puncture after puncture, as her blood, steaming a little in the cool air, began covering her belly and thighs. She coughed, blood ran from her mouth; Don stabbed her again, piercing her left breast this time.
And, this time, he did not draw the knife out. Leaving it standing in her chest, he pulled a straight razor from his pocket and opened it. He grabbed her hair and pulled her head back. Still she offered no resistance at all, not even when he laid the edge of the razor against her throat.
"This is what happens," he told her, "to thieves. What's gotta happen." Pressing down hard, he drew the razor across, slitting her throat, listening to the crunch as it severed her windpipe.
Blood gushed out, painting her body red and spraying on the ground some feet away. Jill began bouncing, fighting for air. Don ripped his knife out of her breast and stepped away from her; she fell onto her side, her legs kicking, her hands and feet twitching. Standing close, both men watched her; she looked up at them, too, her mouth opening and closing as she squirmed and struggled to breathe. After a few moments, her body began to relax; her eyes began to glaze. She spasmed a few times, her legs stretching out hard and quivering; a few seconds later, all her movements had ceased. Her eyes, still wide open, stared sightlessly.
Then, as one, the men turned to look at Jamie. She'd remained silent the whole time, watching her sister die. She moved her gaze from one to the other but she said nothing.
"Gimme your knife, Don," David said, breaking the silence. Don complied; as David took it, Jamie, without being asked, knelt down. She looked quite peaceful, gazing up at him steadily as he bent over her and wound his fingers in her long hair.
He drew the knife back. "You've made a big mistake," he told her. "A big mistake."
"We didn't take your money, Dave," she said, speaking for the first time since they'd exited the car. Her voice was soft and her tone level, but her eyes looked bright, excited.
"You're a liar, too." he responded. "You're a liar and you're going to die!"
"I'm not lying. But I guess it doesn't matter; you're going to kill me anyway." Unexpectedly, she smiled up at him. "I think," she told him, "that I always knew you would, sooner or later. Maybe that's why I fell in love with you, Dave."
"You're a crazy bitch, too!" David exclaimed.
Her smile broadened; her eyes sparkled. "Maybe. But I really got off on watching Don do Jill!" She pushed her torso forward a little; her chest heaved. "I've dreamed about this moment," she went on. "When we were screwing, I'd dream about it. I always knew you'd do me with a knife, too..." She shuddered, took a deep breath. "Do me, Dave," she begged. "Like Don did Jill. Kiss me and then do me!"
"Fuck you!" he hissed. But, after a glance at Don, he did bend down to her, he did kiss her, and he even reached down to fondle her breast with his free hand. After a rather long time, he broke it, he stared into her eyes for a second; then, still watching her face and still caressing her breast, he drove the knife into her belly, above her navel. But he was not holding her, and she was knocked backward by the blow. The knife didn't go in at all, it merely inflicted a small scratch.
She looked down at it, then back up at David. "Is that the best you can do, Dave?" she demanded challengingly. "Maybe you ought to let Donnie do it!"
He made a snarling sound. Reaching out, he grabbed her hair at the side and pulled her face close to his own. Their eyes were locked together, the tips of their noses separated by less than an inch. Holding her like this, he plunged the blade deep into her belly.
She grunted loudly, her eyes and mouth both flying open. David snatched the knife out and drove it in again, very close to the same spot. Her blood began to run out freely. "How does that feel, bitch?" David demanded as he ground the blade on into her. "How do you like that?"
She blinked several times. "Yes," she murmured, glancing down at the blade that was still piercing her. "Yes, God, oh God, oh yes...!" She looked back up at him, her eyes wild. "Do it, Dave, oh God do it to me...!"
"You got it, bitch," he replied. He snicked the blade free. "Here's one more for you!" As he spoke he pounded the knife back in, down lower this time, the blade passing through her pubic hair. She grunted loudly; blood surged from the wound and bloody urine gushed from between her legs.
She stared at it for a few moments, then looked up at him again. Her face was twisted with pain. "Do it again," she urged. "Again! Do it to me again, Dave!"
Moving around to her side, still holding her by her hair, David started stabbing her again, repeatedly, in and around her breasts, his hand snapping forward and back in a steady rhythm. Jamie gasped, closed her eyes, and opened her mouth each time the blade sank in. Like her sister she did not scream, she did not beg, she did not struggle. Unlike Jill, she didn't cry. As the blade flashed in and out of her chest, the silence of the winter woods was broken only by her gasps and by the heavy ripping "thunk!" of the blade as it tore into her body.
After stabbing her more than a dozen times, David stepped back. Jamie, still on her knees, trembled violently; blood streamed down her body and ran from her mouth as well. "Finish it," she mumbled, her voice thick. "I'm still alive, finish it, finish me off..."
Don offered David the bloodstained razor. "You should," he said simply.
"Yeah," David agreed. Grabbing Jamie's hair again, he pulled her face up and kissed her. "Once more for old times' sake," he said, stabbing the knife into her side. Following Don's example he left it there and took the razor from his friend. "Throw your head back," he commanded, waving it in front of Jamie's face. She did as he said; he looked only a little surprised. Grabbing her hair again, he laid the edge against her taut throat.
Then, moving the blade much more slowly than Don had--and putting much less pressure on it--he began cutting. She went rigid, her fingers pushing straight out as the razor moved steadily on, sinking into her throat. Blood squirted out; Jamie opened her eyes widely and opened her mouth, too; she seemed to be trying to speak but she merely spouted out blood. Reaching the end of his cut, he put the razor carefully back into the slit he'd already made and cut deeper, severing her windpipe along with the major vessels in her throat.
Releasing her, David let her fall; the two men watched while she twitched and bled and, at last, died. Then they began dragging the bodies toward the waiting graves. After the bodies were in place, they gathered up the girls' clothing and tossed it in after them.
But when David picked up Jamie's coat, he hesitated. Reaching into an inside pocket, he withdrew a thick envelope; opening it, he took out a handful of hundred-dollar bills. With expressions of bewilderment on their faces, the two men looked at each other, then down at Jamie's half-covered corpse.
"She always was," David observed, "a weird one..."