Annie Elise

And even though it was Curtis who had pulled the trigger and actually shot and killed Emma, prosecutors argued that Suri and Alexander's actions are what caused the chain of events that led to her death, so because of that, they could be held responsible for it.

And at the time, the whole thing was kind of treated as a very disturbing but isolated incident.

A disgruntled landlord against their tenant, that kind of dispute.

Just again, very siloed and isolated.

But then, just a few weeks later, something even more insane happened in the Zizian Circle.

On New Year's Eve in 2022, the Philadelphia suburb of Chester Heights in Pennsylvania was filled with people who were all getting ready to ring in the new year with their family and their friends.

And inside one of the homes in that suburb was Richard and Rita Zajko, a retired couple living in their 70s who had lived in that home for decades.

Neighbors described them as warm, very private.

Rita was very friendly, very active in the community, and Richard was always fixing something, kind of keeping their home nice and ready, and nearby rental properties also in good shape, and just really kind people.

Richard and Rita had adopted their only daughter, Michelle, as a baby back in the early 90s.

And for most of Michelle's childhood, she was just like the apple of their eye.

They absolutely doted on her, adored her, and loved her.

But as Michelle grew up, her relationship with her parents became more complicated.

See, Michelle was super creative and very, very smart, but she was also a little offbeat.

In high school, she called herself an art nerd.

But at home, things were very tense, so much so that at one point, Michelle wrote that her parents had forced her to eat meat.

and had forced her to dye her hair, which were both things that were apparently completely against her values.

So to Michelle's family, it was nothing more, you know, than teen rebellion, a teen acting out and trying to find her own place in the world.

But at the time, the friends who knew Michelle said that they started to feel her pull away.

Then after high school, she went on to university, which family was hopeful she would find herself, that she would kind of regulate back to the Michelle that they knew, they loved.