Cemetery Plot

Kelly's parents, a bit naïve about their daughter's cunning side, believed her when she said the deep-voiced man on the phone was "just a friend." She put off telling them more because she knew they would not be pleased about the age difference.

One midsummer afternoon, Kelly's father discovered Byron and Kelly alone in the basement. He ordered Byron out of the house, told him never to come back and forbade Kelly to date him. Mrs. Moffet agreed. Kelly whined to her parents, "You don't even know him!"

Kelly's parents relented only after the girl ran away for a week to live with Byron in Justin's condo. Her parents had heard no word from her, and when a neighbor discovered Kelly's school backpack in the bushes, the Moffets feared she was dead. Her mother later called it the worst week of her life. A private investigator soon found Kelly alive and well, and the runaway returned home with a chic haircut, telling her parents, "All I want is to be able to see Byron."

Byron later described the foursome's lives in a series of bizarre, Victorian-style letters to an imaginary "Mr. White" on his Web site. One letter expressed the bliss of the group's carefree life that summer:

Dear Friend White,

My life has become a beautiful dream of love and friendship. The four of us (being Justin, Anastasia, Kelly and myself) are doing fabulously. Kelly has agreed to give me her hand in marriage and Justin's love for Anastasia has flourished in our happy home. I am filled with such gaiety at our present states -- we all share the household duties and continue to make regular group outings to the tavern. I've never dreamed of friendships so pure and open as ours....

But Justin and Anastasia began to argue frequently, and he confided to family and friends that he no longer loved her. ("Our two favorite lovebirds seem to have reached an impasse in their amorous affair," Byron wrote to Mr. White.) Justin felt terrible about it and didn't want to hurt Anastasia. Some days, he would change his mind and want to get back together. She moved out of his condo and back to Independence with her father and stepmom. Abandoning plans to join Justin at UMKC, Anastasia looked for a job -- perhaps a government position -- where she could work for a year before entering college. Yet Justin and Anastasia continued to go out with Byron and Kelly during intermittent reconciliations.

Justin, at times depressed, began abusing drugs. One night he dropped too much acid and convinced himself that little fish people were talking to him from a tank under his condo. "He was like that for several days," a friend remembers.

Anastasia would alternate between optimism and despair. She always wanted to talk to Justin, demanding constant updates on the status of their relationship. Byron became so annoyed with her that he recorded a mean message on his pager. "If this is anyone but Anastasia, leave a message," he began. "If it's Anastasia, don't even bother because we don't want to talk to you."

Bad blood had existed between former classmates Anastasia and Byron in the past, before Byron dropped out of Lincoln Prep.

Among their mutual friends, Byron had always been polite and sweet to Anastasia. But he was becoming "weird" and "preoccupied with death," one friend told her mother. Some friends said Byron was vicious about Anastasia behind her back, calling her "really annoying" and a "bitch." But as she and Byron got reacquainted at the end of Anastasia's senior year, Anastasia put that behind her. They were friendly again until Byron began to resent Anastasia's demands for his roommate's attention.

Just before Anastasia disappeared on October 22, 1997, she was hopeful that she and Justin would reconcile yet again. Her stepmom agreed to give her a ride to Mount Washington Cemetery, near the western city limit of Independence, and was so busy with house renovations and a small child that she barely paused to wonder why Justin wasn't coming to the house to get Anastasia when the family lived just three miles from the cemetery.

Anastasia arrived at the cemetery gate at about 4:20 p.m. Forty minutes later, the cemetery's elderly caretaker noticed the girl sitting alone near a mausoleum. By twilight, Anastasia had tired of waiting and walked to a Dairy Queen pay phone to call Justin. He said he was on his way and was bringing Byron and Kelly.

When they finally pulled up at the DQ, Anastasia was livid. Having waiting almost three hours, she immediately lit into Justin. He drove them back to Mount Washington Cemetery so they could take a walk and talk, but they saw the headlights of the caretaker's car and changed their plans. As they drove off, the caretaker jotted down their license number, as he usually did with cars full of teen-agers.

Calling from work at about 6 p.m., Anastasia's father became worried when he learned his daughter was on a date in a cemetery. He persuaded his wife, Diane Marshall, to look for Anastasia.