Brent loved to feed his baby girl and change her diapers. As she got older, he sang to her: “I am stuck on Chelsea, like Chelsea’s stuck on me,” to which she sang back, “I am stuck on Daddy, like Daddy’s stuck on me,” eliciting a hug and a laugh between them.
As Brent changed jobs in the banking industry, the family moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and then Naperville, Illinois, where they stayed for ten years. They returned to Poway in 2007, when property records show that the Kings bought a house on a one-acre lot on Butterfield Trail.
Chelsea entered Poway High School as a freshman, discussing heady topics with her father such as the power of words, critical thinking and the presence of God in nature. They laughed together about God’s sense of humor in making the platypus, and agreed that a tree, which gave far more than it took, was one of his most perfect creations.
In March 2010, Chelsea was a popular senior with a 4.2 grade point average, whose Advanced Placement courses outnumbered her regular classes. She served as a peer counselor, played on the volleyball team, and ran cross-country. She also enjoyed writing poetry, including a poem called “My Great Balancing Act,” an homage to Dr. Seuss that would prove prophetic: “Today is my day, my mountain is waiting, and I’m on my way.”
An environmentalist at heart, Chelsea was also a vegetarian, known to bring her lunch in a green recycling bag, determined to make a difference.
“She was all about making the world a better place, so for her it was like an animal shouldn’t have to die for me to eat,” one of her teachers said.
In the fifth grade, she’d decided to take up the French horn, refusing to be deterred by her music instructor’s caution about how difficult the instrument was to learn.
“You sure you want to try that one, Chelsea?” the teacher asked.
“Yeah, the more challenging, the better for me,” she replied.
Chelsea proved her determination by practicing until she was good enough to audition and win a coveted spot in the San Diego Youth Symphony for its 2009 to 2010 season, performing, no less, with its two most advanced ensembles. She was one of three French horn players in the Symphony Orchestra, which included about 150 students. She was also one of two horn players in the Philharmonia, a chamber orchestra of about eighty students.
Although Chelsea still slept with a stuffed creature she’d taken to bed since she was a child, she was also a sophisticated thinker who inspired others with her achievements, posting quotes on her bathroom wall: “They can because they think they can,” from Virgil, and “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams,” by Eleanor Roosevelt.
Admired and respected by her peers, this five-feet-five-inch, 120-pound achiever was the female role model the other girls wanted to emulate, and the adults could see her promise and potential as well. She was the kind of daughter parents dreamed of having—a fact that was never overlooked by her own, who cherished her.
“We are blessed,” they would tell each other at least once a week.
Chelsea had a strong spirit, a love for life and her family, and a strong mind all her own. Inseparable from her thirteen-year-old brother, Tyler, the two were best friends, looking out for one another, and rarely, if ever, fighting the way many siblings did. She made sure he did his homework, didn’t stay up too late or play too much PlayStation. He, in turn, wanted to know her friends, and ensure that the boyfriend passed muster.
Given her grades and all her extracurricular activities, this bright and well-rounded teenager was viewed as such a strong candidate by the eleven colleges to which she applied that, ultimately, they all accepted her.
Chelsea usually went for a jog after school in Poway, but on February 25 she decided to run on the trails at the Rancho Bernardo Community Park, apparently scouting out the area for an environmental cleanup project she and her friends had planned for that Saturday. It was not for class credit or recognition, but rather to increase awareness.
Driving from Poway into neighboring Rancho Bernardo, the environs changed, but only subtly. It still looked lush, green and open, and it was still largely a family-oriented white community, but the area, known as “RB” to the locals, was home to more strip malls, senior communities and franchise restaurants. It felt a bit more urban.
As the nation’s eighth largest city, San Diego was a metropolis where 1.2 million people lived across 324 square miles of vastly differing geography, carved into subregions by urban planners. Each had its own unique population and distinct character—east toward the desert, west to the coast, south to the border into Mexico, and north past Poway, RB, and Escondido, leading to Riverside and Orange Counties.
Chelsea King, one of the most dependable daughters around, followed a regular schedule like clockwork. She had left the house that morning at six-fifteen for a peer counseling appointment. She was last seen leaving school when classes ended at two o’clock to go for her usual run. She was always home by five-thirty in the evening.
Brent, a mortgage banking executive, and his wife, Kelly, a medical assistant for a dermatologist, arrived home separately around six o’clock. When Kelly didn’t see Chelsea’s 1997 black BMW 528i in the driveway, she assumed that Chelsea had called Brent to let him know where she was.
“Have you heard from Chelsea?” Kelly asked.
“No, I thought you had,” Brent replied.
It was starting to get dark, and because this was such unusual behavior for their daughter, Kelly tried calling Chelsea’s cell phone, but she kept getting voice mail. Something told her to keep trying, so she called Chelsea’s friends, but they didn’t know where she was either. Chelsea had been at school, they said, and had missed no classes.
When there was still no sign of her by 6:49 P.M., Brent called AT&T, their cell phone provider, which was able to locate Chelsea’s cell phone near the Rancho Bernardo Community Park, using technology that determines the cell tower where the phone signal is “pinging.” Brent hopped into his car and sped over there.
In the parking lot, he saw her car sitting next to the tennis courts, one hundred feet from the trailhead. Peering through the windows, he noticed her purse and discarded school clothes lying on the seats, as if she’d changed before going for a run. He took off down the nearest trail, and yelled her name, but all he heard were the sounds of the night.
The sun had set at 5:43 P.M. and the sky was already dark over Lake Hodges, which was circled by a trail network in a fifty-acre section of the expansive San Dieguito River Valley. The perfect respite for those seeking solitude and self-reflection, these trails were used by only a small number of people at one time, often running or hiking a good distance from each other. Thick groves of Arundo reeds, which resembled bamboo, grew as tall as fifteen feet high in and around the shores of the lake and its fingerlike tributaries. Under the murky water, whose level rose with each rainfall, the trees and brush sent their roots deep into the soil.
Chelsea could run for eight miles at a time, so she could be anywhere out there in the dark, lying in the brush with a sprained ankle—or worse—with no way to call for help. She’d also fainted during a recent run, so Kelly wasted no time in calling the Poway sheriff’s station to report their daughter missing at 7:18 P.M.
A storm was coming in.
Chapter 3
When John Gardner still hadn’t shown up for dinner by seven-thirty his stepfather, Kevin, sent him a text message, berating him for putting his mother through all this grief: Why are you doing this to your mom?