IA: Yes, sadly, we do, but wait . . . that makes no sense, what you just said. If Melody were a boy and not a girl, maybe, but . . . are you saying Annette Chapa thinks people will be more likely to believe in the Revilles’ guilt if she can persuade them that a gay Jeff Reville—who would presumably desire men, or boys—would kidnap a little girl? How does that work?
BJ: It’s simple. There’s a lot of closed-minded people out there—disgusting bigots who equate homosexuality with pedophilia, and pedophilia with the snatching and harming of children. Plus, Jeff Reville is categorically not gay, so . . . you gotta wonder why Annette Chapa would choose that moment—with her daughter missing, and her and Naldo apparently distraught—to indulge in such malicious and groundless gossip. And going back to the many photos of Emory Chapa dead and all dressed up like a doll on the family mantelpiece where photos of Melody should have been . . . can you explain the terrifying false equivalence employed by Annette Chapa when talking about her two daughters? I’ve watched every interview she’s given, at least twenty times. Have you?
IA: Well, I—
BJ: Answer: no, you have not. That’s okay. Not everyone’s as obsessive as me. Every single interview that woman has given, almost—since being told she needs to act like she thinks Melody might still be alive—she’s talked about how Melody should be back at home where she belongs, how she should be with her mommy and daddy who love her so much. Staggeringly, she talks about Emory—Emory who never lived, who died in utero—in exactly the same terms! “Emory should be here now with me and Naldo, to give us love and support.” For pity’s sake, what mother would wish her tragically deceased baby back to life to comfort her after the loss of her other child? Who cares that poor Emory would then have to be in pieces over her missing younger sister, right? As long as she’s there to make her mother feel better! Do you honestly not see how unwholesome and dysfunctional that is? In another interview Annette said, “Emory should have been with Melody the day she disappeared. Kristie should have been dropping off two little girls at that school, not one. If Emory had been there like she should have, she’d have seen what happened to Melody.” Then she corrected herself and said, “What I mean is, Emory would never have let anything happen to Melody.”
IA: What do you mean, “she corrected herself”? To cover up what, exactly?
BJ: To give the impression that the fantasy that had just leapt into her mind was one where the focus was on saving Melody. But it wasn’t. It was all about Emory—Emory being alive, going to school, as she should be. As she would be if she hadn’t died. That she might have saved her sister was clearly an afterthought. This is what I mean by false equivalence. In Annette Chapa’s twisted world, the loss of a child you’ve known and raised for seven years is on the same level as the loss of a baby in the late stages of pregnancy. I know I’ll be called a monster for saying this, and I’m not in any way trying to minimize the agony of late-stage miscarriage or stillbirth, but come on! What mother in Annette Chapa’s situation—what innocent mother—would choose to talk on live television for even a second about the baby she lost eight years ago when she could spend all her airtime talking about Melody? She feels the two losses as comparable—that’s my point.
IA: I see that. But I’m afraid that you and I, as women who have never lost a baby during the third trimester—
BJ: Oh, please. Ask a dozen women who have lost babies late in pregnancy and then gone on to have healthy children who get abducted, or harmed in some way. Ask them if Annette Chapa’s reaction—constantly putting forward the loss of Emory, taking attention away from Melody—is normal. Or I can save you the trouble: it ain’t. It’s light-years away from normal. And how about Naldo Chapa opening the door to Melody’s bedroom and saying to Larry Beadman, “This should have been Emory’s room. We decorated it for Emory, before we lost her.” Word for word, first words out of his mouth. That, in my view, says it all. Annette and Naldo Chapa couldn’t forgive Melody for not being Emory.
IA: Wow. I’m sorry, but you simply cannot say that.
BJ: I just did, didn’t I?
The doorbell of my casita rings, and it’s like being pulled from one world to another. I push the iPad away from me, as if I’ve been caught breaking a resort rule.
As a friendly, freckle-faced young man talks to me about the weather and where I’d like him to put my breakfast tray, all I want to do is ask him about Melody. Did he follow the story on the news? Does he think Annette and Naldo Chapa are guilty?
I sign for my eggs florentine and let him go without interrogating him. He looks about twenty-two, and was probably busy in 2010 with the American equivalent of GCSE exams, not glued to TV news and talk shows.
Tarin: she’s the one I should ask, if I want to indulge my new obsession. I try to persuade myself that I want to talk to her, and fail.
Eating my breakfast, which is delicious and not accompanied by guacamole, I stare at the phone and will it to ring. Come on, Riyonna. Hurry up.
I reach for the iPad, telling myself I can’t keep doing this all day, I can’t read everything.
Just one more.
This clip looks interesting: “Mallory Tondini on Justice with Bonnie, September 2, 2010—the interview that changed everything in the Melody Chapa case.” I’m also tempted by “Dr. Ingrid Allwood’s Melody Chapa theory will blow your mind!”
Mallory Tondini: I’ve heard that name before. I think Tarin mentioned her. And what theory did the apparently cautious Dr. Allwood eventually put forward?
I click on the Allwood link first and expect to see an article or blog, but I find myself looking at a chat room instead. Or chat forum—I’m not sure what to call it. There’s a grid of boxes going down the page and in each box a different person has left a comment, many responding to comments higher up in the thread. There’s a quote from Ingrid Allwood at the top: three paragraphs. This must be the mind-blowing theory. I’m about to start reading it when my eye is drawn to a name I recognize lower down the grid: McNair. There’s a comment from a Lilith McNair.
Is she Swallowtail’s Mrs. McNair, the old lady who turns up every year, selects a child at random and decides they’re Melody Chapa?
And then . . . what? This year she happened to get lucky and find the real Melody at the very resort where formerly she had only found fake Melodies? Crazy.
I can’t decide if the Lilith McNair on the chat forum is bound to be the same woman or if it’s too much of a coincidence . . . until I read her comment and all my doubts vanish.
It’s her. She’s written some long-winded nonsense about a “spiritual seer,” a close friend of hers who had a vision of Melody walking through a field full of flowers—red and yellow poppies. Melody was happy, she claims—beaming and joyful. Dr. Allwood’s theory must be wrong because if she were right, Melody would not have looked happy in the psychic vision. Her soul would not be at peace.
I laugh out loud. Mrs. McNair’s cousin Isaac also gets a mention here, as does his lymphoma. That must be what killed him. I wonder if he and Mrs. McNair were close and if somehow that’s what started off her obsession with Melody Chapa.
Hard to see why it would—a cousin dying of an illness is very different from a little girl murdered by her parents.
In her comment, Mrs. McNair explains that in the seer’s vision, Cousin Isaac was frolicking in the poppies, too, with Melody. So this must be a special flowery field for dead people.
Then Mrs. McNair puts forward her own theory: that Melody was killed by Mallory Tondini. Having made this claim, she ends her comment, “Think about it. You’ll see I’m right.”
That wouldn’t explain why Melody’s soul would be at peace in the vision. And I’m an idiot for thinking anything coming from Mrs. McNair could ever make sense.
Who the hell is this Mallory Tondini? I can’t wait any longer to find out. I close down the chat forum and click on the link to her interview on the Bonnie Juno show. So this is what the show’s set looks like: a black and silver studio wi
th two red chairs and JUSTICE WITH BONNIE emblazoned across a large screen behind them. Bonnie Juno’s sitting in one of the chairs, wearing high-heeled black boots and a silver dress. I assume the woman in the other chair is Mallory Tondini. She looks about thirty and has a large forehead and an unusually high hairline. Her long dark hair is held back by some sort of clip on one side and hangs loose on the other. She’s wearing clothes that are so dark and undefined, it’s impossible to see what they are, but it’s not only clothes that are covering her.
Captions in square and rectangular boxes and strips of all colors—blue, red, gray, yellow—take up most of the bottom half of the screen. All the writing is white, and some of it’s in capitals: “Are Melody Chapa’s parents facing imminent arrest?,” “BREAKING NEWS: STARTLING NEW EVIDENCE IN MELODY MURDER CASE,” “Help us to find Melody! Have you seen her? Call this number . . .”
How can they get away with calling it a murder case and at the same time asking viewers to help find Melody as if she’s alive? The contradictions in this case are dizzying.
I came to Arizona to try and sort my head out. Thinking too much about Melody Chapa isn’t helping. At all.
I make a decision: I’ll watch this one last clip and then that’s it—no more of this mind-bending true crime story for me. Dead or alive, Melody’s nothing to do with me, and I can’t afford to think about her anymore. I’ve got a more important mystery to focus on: What’s going to happen next in my own life? What’s going to happen to my marriage and my family?
Only I know this mystery exists. Only I care about solving it.
BJ: So, those of you who follow this show know that I promised you a special guest tonight. And here she is. Welcome, Mallory Tondini.
MT: Thank you, Bonnie.
BJ: Speak up if you wanna be heard, sweetheart. How d’you feel about being live on Justice with Bonnie?
MT: A little overwhelmed.
BJ: Well, please know you’re very welcome here—in fact, I can’t remember when I was last so delighted to welcome a guest to my show. Ladies and gentlemen, what you’re about to hear Ms. Tondini say is going to change everything—and I bet I don’t need to tell you this, but I’m referring of course to the tragic case of poor little Melody Chapa. Wait—did I say it would change everything? Correction: Ms. Tondini’s testimony already has changed everything. Why don’t you tell us where you spent this morning, Ms. Tondini—and with whom?
MT: Please, call me Mallory. I . . . uh . . . I spent the morning with Detective Lawrence Beadman—
BJ: That’s Larry Beadman, lead detective in the Melody Chapa case.
MT: Yes.
BJ: And in a moment, we’re going to hear what happened when Mallory spoke to Detective Beadman, but first I need to give you all a bit of background. As I’m sure the whole world knows—and I’ve never spoken about it publicly until now—I had a breakdown in June that caused me to be absent from this show for two months. There were many contributing factors, my obsessive, driven nature for one—mea culpa on that score. Then there was my despair at the refusal of detectives to take seriously my strong suspicion that Annette and Naldo Chapa were monsters, and wholly responsible for whatever had happened to sweet little Melody. There was my vile ex-husband, Raoul Juno, who chose a moment when he knew I was suffering extreme professional stress and public vilification to reveal to the world certain matters that were deeply embarrassing to me and that I would have preferred to remain private. The final straw that led to my breakdown was being arrested for disturbing the peace when all I was trying to do was extract an apology from my former spouse—an apology he still owes me for his despicable behavior. I’m sorry for crying, Mallory. I apologize to the viewers at home, also. The last thing I want is to make this about me and my personal heartaches.
MT: It’s . . . Do you want to . . .
BJ: No, I’m fine to keep going. This is important. In my darkest hours after the breakdown, when I lay in bed unable to get up or speak to anyone or do anything productive . . . well, I had a lot of time to think. I went over every painful event of the previous few months, torturing myself with the memories. One of those memories was a discussion I had on live television with the extremely dubious Ingrid Allwood. That conversation sickened me at the time and continued to sicken me long after it was over. Lying in my bed, I kept replaying it—as if I could somehow make it come out differently, make Allwood see sense. In my head, I pleaded with her: “Can you honestly claim that a mother who is innocent of murder and truly regrets the loss of her daughter—would that mother use interview after interview to say that, eight years ago, she had also lost another daughter? Would she talk about the two losses as if they were comparable? Wouldn’t she be solely focused on Melody at that point?” Now, you all know what answer I’d give to that question, but that’s not the point of what I’m trying to say. The point, ladies and gentlemen, is the number eight. Eight years ago. That’s when Annette Chapa lost her first baby, Emory. Eight years ago. When I realized what that meant, I sat bolt upright in bed. Suddenly, I saw it. Hand on heart, I believe that the Lord granted me that insight to save me. Without it, I might have stayed in bed forever. Thank you, Lord. Now, you all at home, you don’t know what I mean by any of this yet and you don’t know how it relates to Mallory here, but you very soon will. Mallory, why don’t you tell us where you live and work, and what your job is?
MT: I live in Philadelphia, and I work for the Perinatal Bereavement Program at the Hahnemann University Hospital in Philadelphia.
BJ: So you work with women who suffer late-stage pregnancy loss, correct? You offer a counseling program?
MT: I do.
BJ: And that’s how you came to be acquainted with the Chapa family?
MT: Yes. Annette Chapa was due to have her first baby at the Hahnemann Hospital—
BJ: That’s Emory.
MT: Yes. But she lost the baby, quite late in the pregnancy. In those circumstances, the team I work for offers counseling—
BJ: And did the Chapas take you up on your offer?
MT: Yes, they did.
BJ: All right. Now, in a moment I’m going to share with the viewers at home the realization I had as I lay in bed in a state of emotional and psychological agony, but first, Mallory, I’d like to ask you to give us some concrete facts. Some dates. As someone who works at the Hahnemann Hospital, you’ve been able to verify these dates. So tell us: When would Annette Chapa have had her first baby, little Emory, if that pregnancy had gone to term?
MT: If . . . if she hadn’t died, Emory Chapa would have been born May 10, 2002. A C-section was scheduled for that day.
BJ: And Melody Chapa? She was born, by C-section, at your hospital. When?
MT: January 11, 2003.
BJ: And no one knows this better than you, Mallory, because . . . ?
MT: In a situation like the one the Chapas were in, we offer additional counseling in the event of a second pregnancy. We offer to be with them for the birth, because obviously it can be—
BJ: Of course—and did Annette Chapa want you at the birth of her second daughter?
MT: She did. She and Naldo—we’d grown quite close by this point—they both wanted me to be present for Melody’s birth. And . . . I came on this show to say I don’t think they would ever have harmed their own child. I know they didn’t!
BJ: For the time being, please just answer the questions I ask you. So Melody was born alive and well at the Hahnemann Hospital on January 11, 2003. Which means she was conceived when? When did Annette Chapa become pregnant with her second child?
MT: Well . . . it would have been around April the year before.
BJ: April 2002. Nine months before January 2003. I’m not sure if everybody’s figured out what this means, so let me spell it out: Melody Chapa was conceived in April 2002. Emory Chapa, had she not died tragically in utero, would have been born May 2002. This was the startling realization I had, folks—the one that told me to get on up out of my stinking bed of despair, because I can
never stop doing what I do, not now the Lord has shown me he needs me to do this vital work. What I realized was this: if Emory Chapa hadn’t died, she’d have been still growing inside her mother’s womb in April 2002, almost ready to pop out—which means Annette wouldn’t have been able to conceive Melody. Now I’ll put it more bluntly: if Emory Chapa had not died when she did, Melody Chapa would never have existed at all. Mallory—Mallory Tondini, from the Hahnemann Hospital’s perinatal bereavement team—everything I’ve just said is true, isn’t it? Undeniable?
MT: Yes. It’s true.
BJ: Thank you, Mallory. And you have my greatest respect for agreeing to come on Justice with Bonnie when we disagree about the likely guilt of Naldo and Annette Chapa.
MT: Bonnie, I only agreed to be on the show because Annette Chapa asked me to. She was afraid you’d distort the picture, and she wanted me, as someone who understands her and understands what she’d been through, to try to put the facts in context.
BJ: What she wants is for you to defend her, in spite of the facts. I get it. But let’s not lose our focus on those dates we’ve just gone over, ladies and gentlemen at home. Those dates matter. Boy, do they matter! Let me tell you why. When I replayed the argument I had on live television with Ingrid Allwood in my mind . . . when I heard myself say that the Chapas had lost Emory eight years ago, it suddenly struck me: Melody was seven when she disappeared, when she died. If Emory would have been eight, I thought, that’s not much of an age gap between them. Hardly any at all. “Wait, Bonnie,” I said to myself. “What if Melody couldn’t and wouldn’t have been conceived unless Emory had died?” Think about it, folks. Think about all the times you’ve seen Annette Chapa on your TV saying that Emory should still be here, should be comforting her parents in their hour of pain and need, should have been dropped off at school by Kristie Reville the day Melody disappeared. Think about Naldo Chapa showing Detective Larry Beadman the bedroom of his missing daughter Melody and the first words out of his mouth are “This should have been Emory’s bedroom.” That’s an awful lot of “should” from the Chapa parents. It’s crystal clear, isn’t it? They’re furious that Emory isn’t around anymore because she should be. They desperately want her to be—that much is clear.
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