M. William Phelps

At this time, Kyle was struggling to differentiate fantasy from reality.

He'd long suffered from mental illness and had been in and out of group homes.

The underworld game was a place where he could be that knight in shining armor he'd always aspired to be, and also the kind of bomb he'd long been for his younger sister in the face of a difficult father.

When Clara asked Kyle to play The Underworld, a game that had names and places mirroring actual life, he wasn't totally sure anymore what was real and what was fantasy.

What was clear was how Kyle desperately wanted to be the kind of Prince Charming to swoop in and save the princess, the guy who helped people in need, the hero.

When he met Clara, Kyle already had the samurai sword he bought the day after he was emancipated.

She knew he wore that sword on his hip 24-7 and was eager to use it.

Befriending Clara and the others, Kyle told me, solidified his purpose in life.

He said not long after they met, Clara took him out to dinner one night.

Not fast food, but an entree at a sit-down restaurant.

During dinner, she'd bend his ear about her troubles.

Then her steak arrived at the table.

And something weird happened.

Poison, she whispered to Kyle after the waiter left.

My father is a scientist.

It would be easy for him to poison me.

She had such a hold on Kyle and the others that they actually took her seriously.

At one point in November, just weeks before the murder, Clara convinced Kyle to sleep in his tent on the Schwartz property because, according to him, she was scared the OG was going to do something to her that weekend.

With Kyle now designated as her protector in the underworld, he also needed to be there in case Clara called on him.

Kyle went along with the game.