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There are few stories that are as difficult to comprehend as the one I'm about to share with you today.
How anyone could allow something like this to happen is just beyond me.
This episode is not going to be gratuitously violent.
However, it is going to be highly disturbing.
As such, viewer discretion is advised.
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Okay, let's get into today's story.
It begins here.
From the director of It comes It.
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Set in 1960s Derry, Maine, the new HBO original series is streaming Sundays at 9 p.m. on HBO Max.
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Rachel Berkheimer was born on January 16th 1984 in Everett Washington, which is a city that is located 25 miles north of Seattle and sits on the banks of the Puget Sound, which is a large inlet of the Pacific Ocean.
At the time of her birth, Rachel's parents, Bill and Denise, already had one child, a daughter named Megan, and so when Rachel arrived, they decided their family was complete.
Initially there was some concern that Rachel could have some health issues, because by the time she was two and a half years old she still was not talking, and so her parents were concerned she could be deaf.
But shortly after they went to a specialist about her hearing, Rachel would say her first words and then, from that point onward, her parents could not get her to be quiet.
As a youngster, Rachel had a huge imagination.
In preschool she would pretend her fingers were imaginary friends and she would speak to them during class, often getting in trouble because of this.
She also had a prized collection of troll dolls who she gave very intricate backstories to.
By the time Rachel was in grade school, she had developed a keen sense of humor.
Specifically, she had the gift of mimicry.
She could basically become any of her friends or her family members, and everyone thought it was really funny.
In addition to her bubbly personality, Rachel was also a very gifted athlete who was always one of the very best players on her basketball soccer, volleyball or track team.
All this despite growing to be only 4 foot 11 inches tall.
Speaking of her smaller stature, even though she was not self-conscious about it, Rachel did wear 4-inch platform shoes virtually everywhere she went, including just going out to the mailbox.
In high school, unsurprisingly, Rachel became very popular.
Her father joked that he was her answering machine because her many, many friends would call the house day and night looking for her.
But despite this abundance of friends, Rachel took all of her relationships very seriously.
She never forgot anybody's birthday, and she would even sometimes send out these random cards that weren't even on birthdays to her friends and to her family members, just telling them how much she loved them.
By 2001, when Rachel was 17 years old and in her third year of high school, it just seemed like she was this amazing person who was destined to live a totally charmed life.
However, this would not last.
Of all of her friends, Rachel's best friend was an 18-year-old boy named Corey Haynes.
She had met him when they were young and they had quickly become soulmates, at least according to their families.
However, their relationship was not a romantic one.
It was more of a brother-sister style relationship.
They spent nearly all of their time together, and in the rare times they were not together, they could always be found speaking on the phone.
In the summer, following Rachel's third year of high school, Corey was riding in a car with three other students from his and Rachel's school.
Rachel was not with them.
And at some point, the driver of the vehicle lost control of it and started to flip off the road.
And when it finally came to a stop 100 feet away from the road, Corey and one of the other student passengers, a 17 year old named Levi Whiting, were both unfortunately deceased.
When Rachel heard the news about this crash, she fell apart.
Not only was Corey literally her best friend in the world, but she was also very close with Levi as well.
And so over the rest of that awful summer, Rachel spent most of her time crying in her bedroom looking at pictures of her and Corey and and her and Levi.
Her older sister Megan would say that Rachel was just beyond heartbroken.
It was like all of the joy and happiness that normally characterized her was just gone.
Finally, that summer did come to an end and it was time for Rachel to return to Marysville Pilchuck High School to begin her fourth and final year.
Her family hoped that finally being around some other students again would help heal her and help her move on.
But unbelievably, over the course of that school year, four more students, all of whom were friends with rachel, would die.
There was a suicide, there was a drowning, a hit and run and an accidental shooting.
It was like the school was cursed by the second half of that school year Rachel, like many other students at the school, had become deeply depressed.
The trauma of losing so many people close to her had just crushed her spirit.
When her grades, which were normally quite good, began to decline dramatically, Her parents pulled her from the high school and enrolled her in an alternative high school.
They also began sending her to grief counseling.
But not long after joining this alternative high school did Rachel drop out, so she did not get her high school diploma.
Her parents were not happy about this decision, but they did understand their child's life had been completely disrupted in a catastrophic way over the past year.
I mean the trauma she had experienced already, as this young person, was more than what most adults would experience in their entire lifetime.
And so they honored their daughter's decision to drop out and they just gave her some space to try to figure out what she wanted to do next.
After dropping out of school in the spring of 2002, Rachel got a job at a local pizza and pasta shop in town, but after only a couple of months she quit.
She did pick up some hours babysitting that summer, but for the most part she spent her time just sitting in her room alone and sad.
Then one day her father looked at the family's phone bill and saw it was significantly higher than normal.
When he reviewed all of the individual charges, he saw there was one that really stood out to him.
There were dozens and dozens of collect calls that had been placed from an inmate at a correctional facility.
When he confronted his daughter about these calls, she would tell him that yes, she was speaking to an inmate at a correctional facility.
And his name was John Anderson.
He was 20 years old.
He went by Diggy.
That was his nickname.
And that she and Diggy were in this sort of new romantic relationship.
She told her father that she had met Diggy a year earlier at a high school party.
This was before he was sent to jail on drug and burglary charges.
And he had been very interested in her at the time, but she wasn't interested in him.
Despite the rejection, though, Diggy continued to pursue Rachel well after this party.
But it wasn't until a year later, when she had dropped out of high school, that she finally decided to give him a shot.
Rachel would tell her father that Diggy, despite being a convicted criminal, was very misunderstood.
He was actually a very nice guy who just had a troubled past, and that was why he kept getting in trouble with the law.
Her father did not approve and was very worried about his daughter, but he wanted to be supportive and felt like he didn't really know the whole situation.
And so he just told her, you know, please just be careful.
Not long after this father-daughter talk, Diggy got out of prison, and so Rachel, who had spent the better part of the last year shut up in her room, was now suddenly going out all the time to see him and his group of friends.
It's important to understand here that Diggy and his group of friends were in reality just a group of petty criminals and drug dealers for the most part.
However, they thought of themselves as a full-fledged organized criminal gang and they were very proud of it.
And they even referred to themselves as the Northwest Mafia.
And Diggy was very clearly their leader.
Quickly it became apparent to Rachel's family that a big part of quote spending time with Diggy and the Northwest Mafia was partying and doing drugs and drinking alcohol.
And so naturally, the parents were very concerned for their daughter, who they felt was really starting to go down the wrong path in life.
So over the next couple of months Rachel's parents and her sister all tried to gently convince Rachel to stop spending so much time with Diggy and his crew, because they were a totally bad influence on her.
But Rachel was adamant that Diggy and his crew was making her happy and that right now that was what she needed.
That she needed to be around them, that they were really just awesome people and that you gotta trust her.
And her family, they didn't trust her.
They felt like you know, maybe she's going through a phase where she wants to date you know a bad boy.
They didn't really get it, but they also didn't have a way of getting through to her.
It seemed like she was just convinced this is what she needed to be doing now, and so they just were kind of at a loss.
Then one day it seemed like everything had just magically fallen into place.
It was on a sunny morning in late July of that year.
Rachel's father was outside working on his garden when his daughter Rachel suddenly appeared looking happier than she had in a long time.
Bill smiled back at her and was like, what's going on?
Why are you so happy?
And she would tell him that she had a plan.
She was going back to school and she was going to become a medical technician.
And she was just absolutely beaming as she's telling him this news.
When she was asked what had brought about this incredible change, she explained that she had recently made a new friend who was encouraging her to do this.
She said his name was Maurice Rivas.
He was 18 years old, like she was, and he was a part of the Northwest Mafia.
She told her dad that she had previously interacted with him when she first started seeing Diggy a few months earlier, but she had never really had a real conversation with him.
She'd only just kind of waved and said hi whenever they were at gatherings together.
But a few days earlier, when she was at a Northwest Mafia party, she and Maurice just kind of happened to find themselves alone, and so they struck up a friendly conversation and, And during that talk Maurice confided in Rachel that he was actually really unhappy and he wanted to leave the Northwest Mafia and he wanted to go back to school, since he had actually dropped out of high school as well.
And when Rachel heard him say this, she had an epiphany.
She realized she felt exactly the way he did.
She didn't like being in the Northwest Mafia.
She didn't even know why she was in the northwest mafia, she didn't know why she was seeing diggy, and it was like it all clicked for her, and so she confided in maurice, this guy who she barely knew.
She said you know what, i feel the same way.
I don't want to spend time with these people, i want to go back to school.
And so this random conversation they had at this party really immediately bonded them together.
It was like they both had been harboring this deep, dark secret, but now only with each other.
They could discuss it openly, and it was very liberating for them.
And so, by the end of this first real conversation they had had, The pair had promised each other that they were going to get out of the Northwest Mafia.
They were going to go back to school.
They were going to clean up their acts.
They were going to fix their lives and they were going to do it together.
They were going to support each other and have each other's back.
Rachel would even joke with her father that they were already talking about, when they went back to school, that they would go to senior prom together, although she assured her dad that their relationship was totally platonic.
This was not a romantic thing, bill.
Her father had no idea what to say.
This was literally the best case scenario.
It was the thing her family had been hoping for over these last several months, and it seemed like it was finally happening, And so he told Rachel he was so proud of her.
He gave her a big hug and said look, if you need anything, you know, just let me know.
And Rachel smiled and she gave him a hug back and then she turned around and skipped back inside the house.
And sure enough, over the next two months, Rachel did act very differently.
She started very intentionally getting her life back together.
She started spending more time at home with her family and she started going to church with her mom.
And she also began reconnecting with some of her older high school friends who had always been a positive influence on her.
And so by September of that year, Rachel did seem like she was more or less back to her old happy self.
Except there was one element of her life, of her old life, so to speak, that she was not able to shake.
And that was her relationship with Diggy.
She just could not end it.
She had tried to, but apparently he didn't want to break up.
And so they fell into this sort of weird on and off again relationship that kept Rachel periodically going back to these Northwest Mafia gatherings.
Her family was obviously unhappy about this particular detail, but they did feel confident that, given her recent changes, that she would eventually break it off for good with Diggy.
And so, until that happened, they were actually quietly grateful that her new friend Maurice, was also still spending time with the Northwest Mafia.
He too was kind of struggling to fully break contact with them.
And so the family was thinking, well, you know, yeah, they do need to leave.
But for the time being, when they're at these gatherings, at least they'll have each other.
On September 23rd of that year, Rachel was invited to a Northwest Mafia get together, and she did agree to go.
Before she left her house, she did not give her family very much information about what she was doing or where she was going.
All they knew was that apparently she was going out to see some friends.
And so that night, when Rachel did not come back home, her family was definitely concerned about her, but they assumed she must have made plans to stay out at this friend or friend's house for the night.
And since she didn't have a cell phone, they couldn't call her to confirm that.
And so they just had to wait until the next day to see if she would show up again.
But the next day arrived and Rachel did not show up again.
And when her family began calling around to her various friends' houses, both old and new, no one seemed to know where she was.
For a couple of days the family continued to call around town and even drove around town putting up posters, you know, asking people to come forward if they had seen her.
But there was no sign of her.
And so finally, on September 27th, the family went to police and they officially reported Rachel missing.
The police immediately jumped into action, sending out units to scour all corners of Everett, Washington and the surrounding areas.
They also began questioning virtually anyone who was even remotely affiliated with Rachel, in hopes they might know something.
But despite this really aggressive initial push by police, it led to nothing.
Then out of nowhere, someone very unexpected came forward and gave the police a huge tip.
And this tip would ultimately lead police to discover the truly unbelievable story of what happened to Rachel.
The following is that story.
After leaving her house on the afternoon of September 23rd, the day she told her family she was going to see friends, Rachel made the short drive over to 16 year old Nathan Lovelace's house.
He was going to be the host for that evening's get together with the Northwest Mafia.
When she arrived Nathan, along with Rachel's good friend Maurice, and a 17 year old named Matthew Durham, were sitting in the living room, and while they waited for more friends of theirs to arrive, Nathan's father suddenly came home.
Apparently, he had gotten off work early And so, not wanting to hang out around the prying eyes of a parent, Latria decided it would be better if they just left and spent their night at someone else's house.
And so they made their way over to Kevin Jihad's house.
Kevin was a 32-year-old and he owned his own place.
When they arrived, they found Kevin, along with 22-year-olds John Whitaker and Jeffrey Barth and 20-year-old Tony Williams all sitting around in the living room just kind of joking around.
They're playing video games, they're drinking alcohol, and they're smoking marijuana.
Rachel, along with Maurice, Nathan and Matthew, just took up spots on the couch right near the entrance to the room.
And before long they were joking around and having a good time too.
At 4 pm rachel's on again, off again.
Boyfriend diggy stormed into kevin's living room looking furious.
Without warning.
He punched two of the guys sitting nearest rachel, and then he pulled out a gun and he began aiming it wildly around the room, And this instantly silenced the group because no one knew what he was on about.
And Rachel, who's sitting right near the door, she does not want to be part of this.
And she's thinking, this has nothing to do with me.
And so she decides she's going to get up and kind of slip out and let them deal with Diggy and whatever is going on in here.
And so she stands up, trying to be as quiet and small as she can, and she begins edging towards the door.
But in order to fully leave the living room and escape this situation, she would need to walk right past Diggy, who was standing in the doorway.
And as she got closer to him, about to make that move out of the room, Diggy seemed to notice her and he put his gun down and he turned to face her.
And then he turned his whole body so he was squared up with Rachel as if he was getting ready to fight her.
And then Rachel just kind of tried to make herself as small and as timid as she possibly could and she tried to just slip past him.
But right as she did, Diggy reached out with his left hand and he grabbed her scalp.
He grabbed her hair and then he wound up and he blasted her in the face with his right hand.
And then with his left, he kind of chucked her back into the room she had just tried to escape from.
And then the worst night of Rachel's life would begin.
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They sat there idly doing nothing while Rachel screamed for their help.
When her screams got so loud, Diggy was concerned.
The neighbors would hear her.
One of the idle onlookers in the room, 20-year-old Toni Williams, simply turned the music up to drown her screams out.
After a few horrible, violent minutes, Diggy told the others to stop, at which point he reached down and he grabbed Rachel's hair again and dragged her out of the room, and then he dragged her across the kitchen floor and through a door that led into the garage.
Once she was inside the garage, he jammed a dirty sock into her mouth and he covered her mouth over with duct tape, and then he bound her wrists and her body with rope and then, once he was certain she could neither make any noise or go anywhere, pushed her over.
So she was laying on her side, all bound up, and then he just left.
He went back into the house and back into the living room with the others.
What Rachel was not aware of was this entire night was a setup.
Diggy was furious with her, most likely due to a combination of rage that she had tried to break up with him and just jealousy that she was now showing affection to other men in the group, such as Maurice and a few others.
And so Diggy had ordered the other members of the Northwest Mafia to help put her in her place.
It was unclear exactly what he meant by this, but all of the Mafia members knew this meant physically harming Rachel in some way, and they agreed to it.
Originally, the plan had been to lure her to Nathan's house under the false pretenses of just a normal night hanging out with some friends.
And then, at some point, Nathan Matthew and her close friend Maurice would abduct her and bring her to Diggy for whatever else he had planned for her.
But Nathan's dad had come home early before they could enact their plan.
And so when that happened, Nathan had to sneak off and privately call Diggy and ask what to do next.
And Diggy, who was totally frustrated by this, just said, you know what?
Bring her to Kevin's house and we will all deal with her when she gets here.
So when Rachel sat down on the couch in Kevin's house next to Maurice and her other friends who she thought she was just enjoying a fun night out with, in reality they were all acting.
They were trying to act like this was just another night and kind of get her off guard guard so that when Diggy came storming into the room pretending to be mad which was the sign they would all attack her.
But now that the plan had worked and Rachel had fallen into their trap and had gotten badly beaten up and was restrained and helpless in the garage, Diggy didn't have a plan for what they were going to do next.
So, instead of doing anything, the eight guys who had just beaten up and restrained Rachel just simply went back to doing drugs and drinking and playing video games in the living room.
Then, a few hours later, at 9 pm, Kevin's girlfriend Trissa Connor.
She came home and when she did, she entered the house through the garage.
And when she saw Rachel laying on the ground restrained, badly beaten up her left eye is totally swollen She ran over to her because one she actually didn't know who Rachel was.
So this is just a random girl in her garage that's beaten up and restrained.
And so she runs over to her.
She rips the tape off of her mouth.
She pulls the sock out.
And right away, Rachel is... pleading with her to let her go.
She won't tell anyone.
And Trissa is totally confused because she really has no clue what's going on.
She was not a part of the plan to harm this girl.
And so Trissa just instinctively runs into the house.
She does not make any contact with the guys in the living room.
She goes straight into the kitchen and she gets a knife.
And then she runs back into the garage and she begins cutting through all of Rachel's restraints to free her.
But before she could finish the job, Diggy apparently had heard the commotion of Trissa coming in and heard her running around the house.
And so Diggy comes storming into the garage.
He sees what Trissa is doing.
He runs over and he grabs her hands and he physically stops her from freeing Rachel.
And then he threatens Trissa that he's going to harm her if she lets Rachel go.
And so Trissa.
I don't want this in my house.
What are you doing?
I don't want this girl in my house.
You know what?
I'm going to call the cops if you don't get rid of her.
Meaning, I don't care what you do with her, but I don't want this in my house.
I don't want to be involved with whatever this is.
And then she promptly begins to leave Rachel alone with Diggy.
She starts walking away and Rachel, she's heartbroken.
This was her way out.
She was about to be let go.
And now Trissa is leaving her behind.
And so Rachel's begging her to come back.
Please, you gotta let me go.
But Trissa didn't listen.
She walked into the house and shut the door behind her.
And then Diggy, who was still in the garage, he just immediately turned around.
He tied Rachel back up.
He stuffed the sock back in her mouth.
He taped her shut.
And then he went right back into the house and shut the door, leaving Rachel all alone again.
But a few minutes later, Diggy would come back, this time with John Whitaker.
And the two of them would show up with this black duffel bag, this huge bag.
And they walk over to Rachel, who's now whimpering in the corner.
She'd kind of pushed herself to the side.
And they lifted her up and they forced her small body into this black bag.
And then they zipped it shut.
And while they did this, Matthew Durham, who had been in the living room.
He had gone outside and gotten his red Jeep and he had backed it up to the closed garage door.
And then, once Diggy and John had Rachel secured in this bag, They opened the garage door up and they put her in the back of the Jeep and they shut the Jeep's back door.
And then Diggy ordered John, along with Matthew and Rachel's friend Maurice, who had just come outside, to just go drive around town with Rachel in the trunk until he Diggy, figured out what they were going to do next.
And so the trio hopped in the red Jeep and did what their leader told them to do.
They began driving around Everett with Rachel in the trunk.
And this whole time, Rachel could clearly hear anything that was said inside of the vehicle.
But apparently during this initial drive around The trio didn't talk, so it's unclear if she understood who was actually with her.
But eventually, during this drive around, one of the three young men in the Jeep got a call from Diggy who told them he had his plan, so come pick him up.
At this point the trio decide, for whatever reason, to just dump Rachel somewhere, basically stash her somewhere in her bag and go pick up Diggy.
And then, once they had Diggy, they would go back, they would get Rachel and then they would figure out what they were going to do.
They'd hear the plan that Diggy had in store.
And so Matthew drove the red Jeep about 10 miles north of Everett to a quiet cul-de-sac in this suburban neighborhood.
And then, once the Jeep was stopped, Matthew and Maurice got out and they went around to the back of the Jeep.
They opened it up and they pulled Rachel out of the trunk and they walked her over and put her behind some big tree on someone's front property.
Now it's nighttime.
This was not a well lit up area.
And so they thought, by putting her behind this tree, she'd be out of sight of the road and no one would see her.
And they also decided that one of them would need to stay back and guard her to make sure she didn't escape or that nobody did accidentally find her.
And they decided Maurice would be the one who would stay back and do that.
And so, after Rachel has been planted behind this tree, Maurice made his way over and he sat down next to her.
And then Matthew and John, they just drove off in the Jeep to go get Diggy.
And so, once the Jeep had driven off Rachel, who could clearly hear their discussions and she could hear the Jeep pulling off she knows she is now alone with her good friend Maurice.
And so this is her opportunity to plead with him to help her.
And so as soon as she hears that Jeep is gone, she starts screaming through her gag on her mouth to try to get his attention.
And it worked.
Maurice quickly unzipped the bag and pulled her gag off, but he didn't untie her.
And right away, I mean, Rachel, she is so upset.
She's frantic.
And she says to Maurice, they're going to kill me if you don't get me out of here.
You have to free me.
And Maurice was just very nonchalant.
And he said, yeah.
I think you're making a big deal about this.
You're going to be fine.
Just go along with it.
It's not a big deal.
But Rachel couldn't believe what she was hearing.
And so she's saying, Maurice, don't you get it?
They are going to kill me.
This is the chance.
Let me out.
Save me.
You're supposed to be my friend.
Let me go.
But Maurice just continued to do nothing.
He just kept telling her it wasn't a big deal.
She was blowing this up out of proportion.
And then, at some point Rachel, after quite a bit of time had passed, and now she's thinking you know, Diggy and the others, they're going to be back soon.
And so she says to Maurice, you know what?
If they're going to kill me, I just don't want to be drowned.
I'm terrified of being drowned.
At least make them shoot me.
Make it quick.
And at this, Maurice just doesn't say anything.
And instead, he reaches down and he grabs the sock and he puts it in Rachel's mouth.
He puts the tape over her mouth, and then he presses her down into the bag and zips it shut, and then he waits for Diggy and the others to come back.
And, sure enough, just a couple of minutes later Matthew, John and Diggy returned in the Jeep to the cul-de-sac.
They got out and they lifted Rachel up inside of the bag and they brought her back over and put her in the trunk of the Jeep, which now contained four new shovels.
And then once the trunk was shut, all four men piled inside as well.
And then Diggy told Matthew to head out to a particular off-roading spot he was familiar with.
It was about 30 miles to the northeast.
And over the course of this hour-long drive, Rachel could hear everything being said inside of this Jeep.
And she would have heard all the details of exactly what Diggy had planned for her.
And so she knows what's going to happen to her.
But she can't do anything about it.
She's just bound in the back of this Jeep.
And so, around midnight, they reached their destination, this off-roading site, which was basically this thick forest at the foot of a mountain, near a small pond.
And once they parked, the men got out, leaving Rachel in the trunk with the trunk shut.
And they began walking around the back of the vehicle and started looking on the ground until Diggy said he had found a spot that he really liked, and it was about 10 or 15 feet behind the vehicle.
And so, once this spot was identified, the men walked back to the Jeep.
They opened up the trunk and they left Rachel, but they pulled out their shovels.
Diggy, John and Matthew.
They all took their shovels and walked to this designated spot on the ground and they began digging, but Maurice didn't.
He stayed back at the Jeep, standing right against the trunk with Rachel right behind him.
So again he has this opportunity where in theory, he could help Rachel, but while she whimpered behind him and tried to get his attention and tried to get him to help her, he just ignored her and he pulled out a cigarette and he began smoking.
And he also had a soda that he was drinking.
And so he's just standing there doing nothing.
And at some point, Diggy looks up and notices this.
And he yells at Maurice to come help them.
Get your shovel and start digging.
And so Maurice reluctantly puts a cigarette out, throws a soda can away.
And then he grabbed the last remaining shovel and then he walked away from Rachel and the Jeep over to this site and he began to dig as well.
For the next 30 minutes or so.
Rachel, who's still in the trunk.
The trunk is open.
She's still in the bag.
She's forced to listen to the sound of these four people dig what sounds like a very sizable hole.
And then, when they finally stopped digging, she heard them chuck their shovels aside and start walking back over to her.
And when they reached her they unzipped the bag and they pulled her out and they sat her down on the back of this Jeep.
So she's kind of sitting looking in the direction of this dig site and as they begin cutting off her restraints and removing the tape from her mouth, she gets a clear view of what they had been digging and she knows immediately what it is.
They were digging her grave.
After all the restraints and everything was off of her, Diggy ordered John to start taking all of her clothes and jewelry off.
Rachel knew at this point she was about to die.
There was nothing she could do to stop it.
She was outnumbered.
She was in the middle of nowhere.
She would have been overpowered.
So she knows she's going to die.
And so she had nothing to lose.
And so when John grabbed her and tried to rip her clothes off, she fought back aggressively.
And she looks at Diggy and she says at least allow me the dignity of removing my clothes and jewelry myself.
And so Diggy looks at her and he says, fine.
And so all of the men back up, and then Rachel, in front of these four people who earlier that day she would have considered her friends, she began taking all of her clothes off.
And then, after she had removed all of her clothes and all of her jewelry, she left one ring on her hand and she clutched it with her other hand.
And she looked at Diggy and said, can I please just keep this one?
The ring she was holding onto was a ring that her good friend, Corey Haynes, had given her right before he was killed in that car accident.
And Diggy just says, no.
And he reaches out and he literally pulls it off of her hand.
And so, standing there completely naked and alone and terrified, Rachel was then ordered by Diggy to start walking towards the grave.
And so Rachel, with as much grace as she could muster, stood up straight, took a deep breath and began walking.
And then she finally reached the edge of the grave, at which point Diggy told her to walk down inside.
And so Rachel very carefully turned around and lowered herself down into the grave.
And then she stood up in the middle of the grave with her back to her attackers, at which point Diggy said get on your knees.
And so she did this, and as soon as she was down on her knees, she looked skyward and she pressed her hands together and put them right up against her chest and she began praying.
And as she's looking upward towards the sky, Diggy laughs at her and says don't worry, you'll be up there soon.
And then Diggy pulled his gun out, he aimed it at her back, and he began firing the gun.
And he shot several times into the back of her head, into her back, and then his gun jammed, at which point he cleared the jam, he reloaded his gun and then fired even more shots into her body.
And then he put his gun away and he, along with the other three men who had just witnessed this and participated in this, used their shovels to fill the hole back in covering her up.
Once she was buried, the men rounded up all of her things, along with the shovels and the murder weapon, and they chucked it into the nearby pond.
Diggy made sure to crush the ring Rachel had said was so important to her before he threw it into the water.
Then the men climbed back into the red Jeep and they drove back to Everett.
And on the ride, Diggy would tell them that if they told anyone about what they had just done, he would kill them too.
But just a few days later, after Rachel had been reported missing, the mother of Jeffrey Barth.
Jeffrey was someone who had been at Kevin Jihad's house on the night.
Rachel was abducted and he also played a role in her capture.
His mother, Jeffrey Barth's mother behind his back went to police and told them that she thought her son knew something about Rachel's disappearance.
And so the police, they rushed to Jeffrey and they interviewed him, and he would quickly say oh, I don't know anything, but you should talk to Matthew Durham.
Matthew, if you remember, was the driver the night Rachel was killed.
He also helped dig her grave and he witnessed her murder.
And when police spoke to Matthew, at first he refused to speak and tried to act tough.
But when the police ratcheted up the pressure, he cracked and he told them everything, including where to find Rachel's body.
And as soon as it became clear the police had Rachel's body, every other member of the Northwest Mafia who had been involved in Rachel's murder rushed to speak with the police because they were all trying to save themselves by blaming the other people in the group.
And so that is why we have such a clear picture of exactly what happened to Rachel in her final moments, because those responsible told the police everything.
During their trials, all eight of the accused Northwest Mafia members or smug and did not take responsibility for their actions.
But the worst of all of them by far was Diggy.
During his trial he smiled and he even repeatedly turned around to look at Rachel's family so he could laugh at them and wink at them.
Ultimately, all eight of the accused were found guilty of various charges, ranging from rendering criminal assistance all the way up to first degree murder.
16 year old Nathan Lovelace, whose home was supposed to be the site of the kidnapping, was sentenced to 116 days in jail.
20-year-old Tony Williams, who turned the volume of the music up to drown out Rachel's screams and who also got the duct tape for Diggy when he was restraining Rachel in the garage.
He received slightly more than nine years in prison.
22-year-old Jeffrey Barth, who played a large role in subduing and kidnapping Rachel and whose mother had gone to police and tipped them off about what had happened, he received 10 years in prison.
18-year-old Maurice Rivas, who was Rachel's closest friend in the group and who had pledged to support her and have her back as they got their lives together.
He was sentenced to nearly 26 years in prison for assisting in Rachel's abduction and helping dig her grave.
17-year-old Matthew Durham, who drove the Jeep that carried Rachel to her death and who also helped dig Rachel's grave.
He received 26 years in prison.
32-year-old Kevin Jihad, who was determined to have masterminded the finer details of the abduction and the murder.
He was sentenced to nearly 37 years in prison.
22-year-old John Whitaker was sentenced to life in prison for being directly involved in the entire abduction and murder process.
And 20-year-old John Diggy Anderson, the leader of the Northwest Mafia and Rachel's ex-boyfriend.
He was also sentenced to life in prison for his role in her murder.
Throughout Rachel's horrible ordeal, there were many people who could have stepped in and stopped what was happening to her.
Most notably Trissa Connor, who was Kevin Jihad's girlfriend and who found Rachel tied up in the garage, and Maurice Rivas, who was alone with Rachel in that cul-de-sac and could have easily freed her but didn't.
As a result of these heart-wrenching details, Rachel's family and their legal team worked very hard to pass a bill called SHB 1236.
This bill makes it a criminal offense in America if you do not summon assistance for a person that has suffered substantial bodily harm.
They are hoping this will save at least one person from suffering unnecessarily.
Today, the Berkheimer family is still grieving the loss of their Rachel.
However, her father, Bill, takes solace in a particular photograph the police showed him.
After Rachel's gravesite was discovered and her body was removed from it, The police took a photo of the grave itself and in this photo you can see an imprint in the soil of Rachel's hands where she fell after she was shot.
And it looks like her hands were pressed together near her chest, meaning she was likely praying in her final moments on earth.
And Bill likes to believe that means she was at peace when she finally died.
Thank you for listening to the Mr. Boland podcast.
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