Stephanie Young

We wanted to preserve her intention and emotionality.

We started by asking her why she reached out to us.

Before Laura was publicly identified, Emily saw the headline about a former bachelor being in a paternity dispute with an anonymous woman.

Immediately, Emily reached out to her childhood friend to check on her.

When I started reporting almost a year ago, one of my first steps was to visit Clayton Eckert in person.

We sat down at his house in Arizona and talked for a long time.

He told me the whole story and gave me the LO file.

Back then, I had no idea what I was in for.

Now that I've become fully immersed, and so have all of you, I return for another conversation with Clayton.

I want to revisit the pivotal moments in his story and ask some outstanding questions of my own

So Clayton, you and I have talked a lot over the last year.

We've done hours of interviews and a lot of new information has come out since we first started this process.

New indictments, a lot of new information along the way with the investigation report.

So I kind of want to go back to the very beginning of this story.

When Laura first reached out to you, knowing what we know now, what do you see differently?

I cannot stress enough to you that Laura was one of the most normal girls that I've ever met and interacted with, up until she snapped and the darkness washed over her.

It did seem pretty normal until it wasn't, until you rejected her.

Yes, exactly.

But until that point, there was nothing.

She was intelligent.