MARLEE: No, most prisoners will be here on smaller charges: drug trafficking, petty theft, that kind of thing. Murder is rare here, and sentiment on the island is that this is very much an outside crime, perpetrated by an outsider.
CLARA: Thanks, Marlee, and we’ll be checking back in with Marlee tomorrow for all the latest breaking news in the investigation. Now, after the break, shocking new photos of Anna in prison, and we chat with her friend, Akshay Kundra, who discovered Elise’s body that night. We’ll be right back.
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CLARA: Welcome back. I’m Clara Rose, with a special Elise Warren murder edition of the Clara Rose Show. We’ve seen the shocking crime-scene photos and evidence against Anna, Elise’s former friend, now the authorities on Aruba have released photos of the murder suspect in prison. I’m joined by Dr. Martin Holt, a specialist in psychopathic killers, and the author of the true crime book, Beautiful Evil: The Kayla Criss Story. Now, Martin, let’s take a look at these photos just released. I guess there’s been speculation about Anna’s treatment in prison, and this is the Aruban authorities’ attempt to counter those concerns. . . . Well, she looks just fine to me.
MARTIN: Indeed. These are candid photos of Anna about her daily routine in the prison. She looks relaxed, some might even say carefree. She takes a walk in the exercise yard, sits for lunch. In some of these shots, you can even see her smiling, which—
CLARA: I don’t know about you, but that seems kind of off to me.
MARTIN: Exactly. In any normal person, you’d see signs of stress, fear, exhaustion. Let’s remember, she’s lost her best friend to a brutal murder; now she’s locked up awaiting trial. If that were you or me, we’d be a wreck, but Anna looks like this is just an ordinary day at the mall.
CLARA: And that’s a warning sign to you?
MARTIN: Absolutely. What you have to understand is that psychopaths, and sociopaths, their brains are wired differently. They lack empathy, they lack understanding, they don’t care about causing pain and suffering. They are essentially incapable of reacting to situations the way a normal person would.
CLARA: And Anna, here, this isn’t a normal reaction to being locked up in prison.
MARTIN: Not at all. And if we look back, to the photo of Anna on the balcony just hours after Elise’s body was discovered, again, she looks happy, totally unconcerned.
CLARA: Yes, that photo. I don’t know about you, but that gives me the creeps. I think, when we saw that photo, we all thought, “Hang on, something isn’t right here.” It was the first sign.
MARTIN: Right, and these warning signs, they’re always there, but the tragedy is that we don’t notice until it’s too late.
CLARA: Thanks, Martin; that’s Martin Holt there, author of Beautiful Evil: The Kayla Criss Story, in stores now. And joining me in the studio after the break, someone who can talk to us about these early warning signs, who was there on the island for the murder, classmate and friend Akshay Kundra. Don’t go anywhere.
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CLARA: I’m Clara Rose, welcome back. Tonight: the Elise Warren murder, the truth about prime suspect, accused murderer Anna Chevalier. Before the break, we talked to acclaimed psychologist and true crime author Martin Holt about Anna’s psychopathic tendencies; now I’m joined here in the studio by a friend and classmate of the suspect, Akshay Kundra. Welcome back, Akshay.
AKSHAY: I’m happy to be here, Clara.
CLARA: We just heard disturbing reports from Dr. Holt about these new photos and Anna’s state of mind. Were the warning signs there for you?
AKSHAY: Sure. I mean, looking back, it’s a tragedy we didn’t see this coming.
CLARA: But why not? If the warning signs were there, then why didn’t anyone say anything? Why was this unstable, possibly violent girl allowed to just walk around—I mean, even you yourself considered her a friend.
AKSHAY: We all did. And this is one of those things . . . in hindsight, it’s clear, but in the moment . . . You’ve got to understand, Anna is a really smart girl—she would have known how to keep all of this under wraps. On the surface, she seemed like just an ordinary girl. We trusted her—you know, she was our friend.
CLARA: She was Elise’s friend.
AKSHAY: Right. And that’s something we’re all going to have to live with, that we never saw—I mean, she was obsessed with Elise, that was clear.
CLARA: Tell us about this obsession.
AKSHAY: They were always together; you couldn’t get them apart. She was new to our school, junior year, and she just kind of latched on to Elise. She took her away from all of her other friends, and I think Elise found it suffocating, you know, and eventually she started pulling away, trying to get some distance. That’s when we started hanging out, that summer—it was like she needed other people around, to keep Anna at arm’s length.
CLARA: Because Elise was a good girl, is what I’m hearing. Straight As, drama club, student government, and then Anna comes along . . .
AKSHAY: Yeah, she pretty much cut Elise off from all of that. She was a bad influence, we all knew that. They were drinking; I know that Anna took pills sometimes—
CLARA: You saw this? Drug use?
AKSHAY: Yes, a couple of times, but I know it happened more. And Elise went along with it; I guess she felt the pressure, or maybe she was worried about what Anna would do.
CLARA: Did she ever seem scared to you? Scared of what Anna would do if she ended the friendship?
AKSHAY: I . . . I mean, no, not as such, but I don’t know what was going on inside. Maybe she didn’t feel like she could tell us, or maybe she never thought Anna would do something like this.
CLARA: To all appearances, Anna seemed normal.
AKSHAY: Right.
CLARA: And in the days leading up to the murder, how did the girls seem to you? We’ve heard a lot about this supposed affair. Tate Dempsey—son of prominent Boston investment banker, Richard Dempsey—we’ve heard he was hooking up with Elise behind the accused’s back. Is this what drove Anna to the edge, you think?
AKSHAY: Yeah. I mean, to find out something like that . . .
CLARA: But according to the police investigation, they wonder if Anna knew all along—if, instead of this being a crime of passion,—which, in case you don’t know, can be used as a defense, you know, temporary insanity—well, they’re saying, maybe this wasn’t a shock. Maybe Anna knew, for who knows how long, and maybe she planned it. Maybe she came to Aruba with the full intent of getting Elise alone, away from the rest of you, and killing her.