While They Slept
An Inquiry into the Murder of a Family
I
BEFORE He wanted to marry her. Billy Gilley wanted to fuck his sister. He viewed himself as her white knight, and their parents as the oppressors he was going to save them from.
Thad Guyer
in a conversation with the author,
June 22, 2005
When it comes to family, it would seem I suffer from a malediction.
Billy Gilley
in a letter to Jody dated
January 1, 2005
On the morning of Thursday, April 26, 1984, Jody Gilley went to her neighbor Kathy Ackerson's before school. As was her habit, she went out the kitchen door and cut across the field that separated their two homes. Jody and Kathy had gotten to know each other the previous year, on the bus to and from Medford High, where they were now sophomores. They didn't socialize during the school day; Jody hung with a straighter crowd than Kathy, who by her own admission was something of a stoner. As Jody describes it, she and Kathy weren't best friends, but they liked each other and were frequently in each other ...
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