JONAH LENOX: I did some shots of Jameson in Sugarfoot’s kitchen before the service. I didn’t want to go. Addison was my girl. I didn’t know the other Addison Stone, the one who the whole town was showing up for. But I put on a tie, even if it was a thousand degrees in the shade. I wore my purple stocking hat she’d given me. That hat—I’d run into a burning building to get that hat.
WILMA PLANO, mortician at the Allens-Plano Funeral Home and Crematorium: I’ve been preparing the deceased here in Peacedale for thirty-five years. I’ve readied old folks, children, sometimes teeny babies, bless their teeny baby hearts. Most everyone in my trade knows there’s only one trick to this job: make it look like they’re sleeping. But in all my years, I never saw such life in a dead girl’s face. She had a glow. Like she was playing a prank on the world, like any minute she might just sit up and laugh. I couldn’t shake the thought once it came in my head. Scared the daylights out of me, if you want to know the truth. I thought I couldn’t be spooked by anything. Turns out I was wrong.
HAILEY REISS, reporter for The Times: I was assigned to cover Addison Stone’s funeral. It was a real scoop, because at that point, her death was clouded with rumors, with some fingers pointing to it as a final Zach Frat prank, other fingers pointing to a quarrel with Lincoln Reed and that whole love triangle. Accident, suicide—you name it, people were gossiping. There was plenty of facts-don’t-add-up mystery around that night. So I wanted to see who turned up and who didn’t: the friends, the enemies, the general freak show … I wanted to get the money quote from Lincoln Reed—who never showed.
Addison Stone was—and still is—hot print.
My editor also wanted us to capture some images. Like maybe a shot of Lincoln looking guilty? Devastated? Or Carine Fratepietro hugging Addison’s mom? Or that exotic giant Gil Cheba, all wasted and strung out? Or one of those Lutz brothers drinking lemonade on a country porch swing?
The Times thought it was all our own bright idea to run the funeral as a style piece—but as soon as I got to the Sheraton, I saw the press. New York Post, Vanity Fair, New York, Daily Beast, Gawker, TMZ, People, Star, ArtRightNow. And I saw Julie Jernigan, who ended up writing that now-classic story for Art & Artist. So yeah, everyone. We were all vying for our place on Reddit. But they made us check our cameras. It seemed like every local cop was there only to enforce Addison’s privacy for just one day. You’ll never see any of those pictures, because they didn’t let anyone take any.
Addison’s funeral was different from what I expected. Here we all were to cover it, the spectacle of celebrity death—too young, too beautiful, too talented, too soon—who wouldn’t want to report that funeral?
But you know what else? It was really f**king sad. Addison’s people, they all loved this girl. You could feel it, too. The massive electric surge of mourning.
OFFICER SEAMUS RIORDAN, South Kingstown Police: I’ve been on the force fifteen years and never saw anything like this. We were called in, six squad cars, at about 11:15 A.M.—and we’d been briefed. Demonstration was brewing around a funeral for a girl who was some big deal. Nah, I didn’t recognize her name. Jon Bon Jovi, LeBron James, now that’s some famous folks. But plenty of other people must have known about this dead kid, because next thing we’ve got is a traffic jam off Columbia all the way to Peacedale First Congregational.
Plus the crowd. Kids sitting on the roofs of cars. Kids stacking wreaths on fire hydrants and purple-chalking messages onto sidewalks and telephone poles. Kids wrapping trees in toilet paper.
We had the pepper spray, the Tasers, all that. Any situation, it’s best to be prepared. But then we came to realize they were just fans. Harmless. They’d been denied access into the church and just wanted to be part of something. Like the outdoor concert at our Johnnycake Festival over in Pawtucket is how I always describe it. We didn’t need backup—and when it did turn violent, it was a family dispute at the reception, and none of us were there, anyway.
I went and checked out her gravesite a few days later. Had to see it for myself, by myself. All the flowers were blooming in the summer sunshine. It was real pretty. You wanna know something? You could still feel that girl’s spirit. You could still feel all that love around her.
Gravesite of Addison Stone, St. Martin-in-the-Fields cemetery, Peacedale, Rhode Island, courtesy of Adele Griffin.
CHARLIE STONE, brother: I’m younger than Addison by sixteen months. Her only sibling. For the record, I hate talking about my sister’s funeral. But of course I remember every single thing about it. Mom and Dad and I were in the front pew. Then our cousins, Maddy and Morgan; Aunt Jen and Uncle Len; Gam-Gam, who’s my grandmother on Dad’s side; and our Bristol grandparents, Gran and Pop O’Hare. I wanted to nuke the open casket idea. My parents were slightly insane on that point. They were so proud of Addison’s looks. An open casket was the one thing Mom and Dad could agree on.
Mom dressed Addison all wrong. I couldn’t stop thinking how Addison would have been ripped that this was her last outfit. White button-down shirt and a long black skirt she used to wear for, like, choir recitals in ninth grade. Black booties that she hadn’t even taken with her to New York. They’d been in the hall closet for two years, and then Mom’s sending her to meet St. Peter in them? Jesus H. Christ.
I kept my butt in the pew. I’ve got happier memories of my sister than her dead face on a lace pillow. It wasn’t till I was alone that I saw through the open door all those other people. That’s when I got it that Addison’s funeral was big. Bigger than homecoming. And these kids were so respectful. Just sitting on the roofs of cars or spread out on blankets on the grass. I couldn’t stop feeling their … presence, I guess. Like a humming on the walls of the church. Was this whole swoosh-swoosh-swoosh surround-sound group-worship heartbeat how it felt to be Addison? And I wondered if she could feel it then, too.
LUCY LIM: I looked at her. I had to. I needed to know that girl who was so wildly alive was really gone. I could still feel all those burning, smoking wires in her mind. So what struck me hardest was the calm in Addy’s face. No more fear, no more panic. Her eyes closed and her eyelashes curled up like a doll’s. The pink in her cheek and the shine in her hair. Nothing raggedy or burnt out. Just my own Addy enjoying one of her naps.
MAUREEN STONE, mother: I say it to myself. I am the mother of a child who has died. I’m in the club nobody wants to join. Lord knows, for months I couldn’t even pull it through my brain. My daughter was gone. My daughter is dead.