Sex. Murder. Mystery(29)

Stuck in Paradise, California, and bitter as a peach pit, Lorri Nelson blamed her mother for ruining her family. If only Julie Nelson had been more of what her husband had wanted in a woman. Prettier, sexier, more fun…all the things Sharon was, all the things Perry had been denied. While the ex-Mrs. Nelson cried her evenings away, she got little real compassion from her youngest daughter.

Later, Lorri would berate herself for the way she treated her mother.

“I was young and selfish. I blamed her over things over which she had no control. Here she was working in a new job, trying to get on her feet and she had a daughter who made it clear that I wanted to be with my dad—not her. I’m sure I hurt her very much.”

In the spring of 1978, Lorri’s nonstop prayers were finally answered. She was getting out of Paradise and going home to Colorado. Her folks agreed that she should spend the summer back in Rocky Ford. When fall came, she would enroll in Campion Seventh-Day Adventist Academy in Loveland, Colorado. She’d be with her father again.

For Lorri and her father, the happy times returned. When Perry laid out the itinerary for a summer vacation, Lorri could hardly wait to go. But even if the trip hadn’t included such destinations as New York City, Niagara Falls, Washington, D.C., and Colonial Williamsburg, Lorri would have been enthusiastic just the same. Traveling with her father, Sharon and baby Danny would be a blast.

Sharon was so much fun. She’d make up silly little road songs, she’d join in when they had their “Big Mac Attacks” and sought the famed Golden Arches of the hamburger chain. When a state line marker came into view, Sharon, Lorri and Perry would stretch their limbs to the very front of the motor home to see who could lay claim to be the first one in the new state.

When they stopped at Sharon’s parents’ house in Maryland to show off the new grandson, everyone had a great time.

“They were really nice people,” Lorri said later of Josephine and Morris Douglas. The elderly couple did not appear to be as controlling as Sharon had portrayed during her monologue about her youth.

“I was expecting them to be a lot more strict, but they seemed very kind.”

The first time Lorri Nelson ever drank enough to get drunk was New Year’s Eve, 1978. She was fifteen. Her drinking partners were Sharon, Perry and a would-be boyfriend named Luke. Sharon started things off telling the teens that it was better for them to drink at home than off on the road somewhere. She poured sickly sweet tumblers of Tom Collins mixer and vodka, as well as flutes of champagne, as if the kids could drink like an adult with poor judgment. As the midnight hour approached, Lorri munched on dried-out Christmas fudge as she watched the walls begin to move.

Sharon made it seem so fun… until the booze got the best of Lorri.

“I was never so sick in my life,” Lorri said later. “I think that’s what my father had in mind when he let me drink, though it was Sharon that was really pushing. Back then, I thought it was cool.”

It was shortly thereafter that Sharon started buying alcohol for Lorri.

“Don’t tell your father.” She flashed a conspiratorial smile. “He’d go through the roof. He’s loosening up, but not that much.”

Sharon showed Lorri how she could hide peppermint schnapps in a mouthwash bottle so she could drink whenever she wanted back at the academy in Loveland.

“I thought she was great,” Lorri said later. “I thought she was a buddy. I really, really liked Sharon.”

In reality, Sharon was no one’s buddy. It wasn’t until many years later that Lorri discovered just how wrong she had been when she had thought of her stepmother as a friend. Lorri met up with Campion Academy’s girls’’ dean in Bozeman, Montana. The dean had sent word she wanted to see how this hellacious young girl—the former thorn in her side—had turned out. By that time, Lorri’s life was proof positive that people really could turn their lives around. She decided to go.

“I felt so sorry for you,” the woman began. “With what you had going on at home and what your stepmother was doing behind your back.”

Lorri was startled by the remark.

“I don’t understand. What was Sharon doing?”

“She kept calling up telling us to search your room. She said she had reason to believe that you were smuggling alcohol into the dorm.”

Lorri’s heart dropped. She could feel her face grow warm. Sharon had set her up. Sharon had tried to destroy her. No wonder her father had sometimes seemed aloof. It had been Sharon. Sharon had said something ugly to him as well.

Lorri’s mind flashed to the image of Sharon sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and smiling. Smoke curled from the ashy end of a thin, long cigarette.