Dead And Buried by Corey Mitchell Read Free Book Online Page A

More and more people were getting tired of his stance, but he insisted that the cases were too disparate.
    “The specifics of all three [including the Smart case] are all different,” Topham stressed. He spoke of how both Kristin and Rachel disappeared after they drank alcohol. He mentionedit appeared as if Aundria had been abducted from her residence. Furthermore, he pointed out that Aundria did not drink.
    “She doesn’t drink. She’s not a partyer.”
    Emotions increased after that statement.
    Instead of focusing on Captain Topham’s backhanded slam of his niece, Peter Morreale spoke of the striking similarities between Rachel and Aundria.
    “It’s remarkable that she was the same size and build as Rachel.” Morreale was convinced that a serial killer had gottenboth Rachel and Aundria. Both girls were college students in San Luis Obispo. Both were intelligent and outgoing people.Both were 5’6” tall. Both girls weighed exactly 120 pounds. Both girls had blond hair. The similarities were too obvious to ignore.
    Morreale also expressed his concern for Aundria Crawford’sfamily and hoped they could still stand after the shock and dismay that go hand in glove with news of a loved one’s disappearance. “Obviously, her family is going through livinghell. We can relate to that.”
    Another family expressed dismay over the disappearance of Aundria Crawford. Denise Smart, mother of Kristin Smart, who disappeared almost three years earlier, stated, “I’m sure everyone there is shocked. It’s hard to believe this happened in one small city, but it could have happened anywhere.”

PART III
    DISCOVERY

ELEVEN
    March 16, 1999
Pismo Beach Athletic Club, Pismo Beach, California
Morning
     
    David Zaragoza jumped on his favorite Lifecycle exercise machine as he did every weekday. He picked up the San Luis Obispo Tribune and scanned the cover of the front section. Staring back at him was the winsome face of the missing Cuesta College student, Aundria Crawford. As Zaragoza pumped away on the Lifecycle, he read the story of how Captain Topham suspected a break-in at her apartment, only ten blocks from downtown San Luis Obispo. Topham also mentioned that he believed Aundria might have been abducted.While Zaragoza’s sweat beaded into his eyes, one person’s face popped into his head. Bizarre stories swirled around in his brain. Something bothered him, but he could not pinpoint it.
    Twenty minutes later, gleaming with sweat, Zaragoza dismountedfrom the exercise machine. He grabbed a towel, wiped his forehead, and took a swig from his water bottle. The routine did not relax him as it usually did. Instead, he was irritable. The Aundria Crawford story nagged at him incessantlyand left him unfocused.
    He took another swig from his water bottle. Suddenly he realized what was bothering him. He grabbed his gear and newspaper and bolted out the door.

    David Zaragoza was a parole officer in San Luis Obispo County. The thirty-seven-year-old family man grew up in Northern California. His father ran a farm, where Zaragoza worked as a kid, but David had bigger dreams for himself. He attended Cal Poly in the early 1980s. He kept his interests in the family line, but he wanted to run a plethora of farms. He was eager to achieve this goal when he signed up for courses and received his degree in agricultural business. Upon graduationZaragoza found the job market to be almost nonexistent, so he applied for a job in the California penal system. He assumed he might find a job in the field of corrections.
    Zaragoza began his run with the California penal system in January 1989. He started out as a state prison guard for three years before he received a promotion to correctional counselor at California Men’s Colony East in San Luis Obispo.
    By April 1992 he advanced yet again to the position of paroleagent, but he went back to being a prison counselor from November 1992 to November 1993. He then returned to his parole position in San Luis