♪
NARRATOR: Fifteen-year-old Candice Parchment
was obsessed with her diary.
It held her dreams, her secrets.
- She wanted to be a writer.
She would always be documenting her life,
her thoughts, what she wanted to do.
NARRATOR: But on April 28th, 2010,
Candice goes missing.
♪
Everyone at her high school in shock.
♪
MY'LIK HAMLETT: There's so many rumors.
Speculation that came from nothing.
♪
NARRATOR: Weeks go by. Months.
Then...
MY'LIK: The detectives knocked on the door
and they told me they found the human remains of Candice.
♪
NARRATOR: But...
♪
[telephone ringing] ...a voice from the grave.
♪
MY'LIK: He said, "I found Candice's diary."
NARRATOR: And the truth is awful.
♪
♪ theme music playing ♪
MAN 1: She solved her own murder from beyond the grave.
MAN 2: The fitness app on the phone,
it was overwhelming evidence.
♪ I've been haunted by the visions ♪
♪ That I've seen with my own eyes ♪
♪ And the only way to find you ♪
♪ Is to go beneath the lies ♪
♪
MAN: She did help catch this killer.
♪
NARRATOR: I want to tell you a story,
and it's far from a fairytale.
It's a story that takes place in 2010,
just outside Atlanta.
A little place you probably never heard of,
called Forest Park.
♪
MY'LIK: When I moved to Forest Park,
it was a nice suburb.
Not too much crime.
♪
NARRATOR: It's a nice place.
That's why My'Lik and everyone at Forest Park High...
[school bell ringing]
...couldn't believe it when their friend,
fifteen-year-old Candice Parchment,
goes missing.
♪
Within six hours, Candice's mother gets concerned
and contacts the police.
MY'LIK: The last time I remember seeing Candice,
she had a bag of Hot Cheetos.
She put a few of 'em in my mouth.
She had fed me.
We were in school. Everything was happy.
That was the last day I-I-I ever seen her.
MAN: This is Captain Gandee interview,
color mark.
CAPTAIN RICHARD GANDEE: I was the commander
of the major felony unit of the Clayton County Police Department.
♪
On April 28th in 2010,
Candice goes missing.
And her mom reports this to Clayton County Police
and they file an incident report.
NARRATOR: Candice's friends and family
get more and more worried as time passes.
MY'LIK: I was contacting her
and she wasn't responding and stuff like that.
[chimes]
I would post Facebook messages and put it on her wall
and just, "Tell me something, let me know you're okay."
[chimes]
♪
"Just let me know you're okay."
And nothing. Nothing.
♪
NARRATOR: Candice just disappears,
and her absence is felt.
♪ vocalizing ♪
You see, everyone liked Candice.
♪
Candice is clever, bright eyes, big smile.
The kind of girl that attracts attention at Forest Park High School.
The kinda girl that might make other girls jealous.
♪
MY'LIK: First time I met Candice
was actually in the gym class.
I was really interested in knowing like, "Okay, what makes this girl stand out?
What makes everyone wanna be around her?"
She explained to me her family was from Jamaica
and that they had recently migrated here to Georgia.
♪
We hit it off right then and there.
♪
She wanted to be a writer.
Journalism, poetry, or music.
Me, personally, music is in my blood.
I was daily recording music.
Candice was one of my biggest fans even then,
so she became a great friend of mine.
♪
She would always be jotting down in this composition book,
documenting her life so to speak,
everything that she seen, her thoughts, what she wanted to do.
♪ Got the world on my fingertips ♪
Candice would always say,
"We came to America to make a better opportunity for us.
"I'm gonna take care of my family.
I'm gonna be somebody."
♪
NARRATOR: I wish I could say Candice got what she wanted.
But this ain't that kinda story.
♪ ominous music playing ♪
♪
When Candice goes missing on April 28th, 2010,
her loved ones worry that law enforcement doesn't share their concern.
- The police officers told Candice's family, friends,
"Girls like this always do things like this.
Girls like this always run away."
♪
Like, girls like what? What do you mean, girls like what?
I would love to know.
Feel free to contact me and let me know what that meant.
♪
NARRATOR: But on the day she goes missing,
there is hope.
♪
- And later that day, Candice's mother received a text message
from Candice's phone.
♪
The next day, Candice's mom gets another text.
♪
NARRATOR: But these texts,
they don't really seem like Candice to those who know her.
♪
MY'LIK: Her mom never believed it.
Like, "Nah, there's no way my daughter's in Tennessee."
What would make you think that this young girl ran away,
sent one text message to her mom saying, "I'm in Tennessee,"
took no clothes, took any necessary items?
She's 15 years old, doesn't have any money,
doesn't have any job.
It doesn't too much work like that.
♪
NARRATOR: But maybe there's a way to clear that up.
If Candice ran 200 miles away to Tennessee,
her phone records would show that's where the text was sent from.
But no.
Over a month goes by
before investigators follow up on the text.
CAPTAIN GANDEE: On June 2nd, 2010,
a detective files a subpoena request for Kansas phone records.
And we didn't ever did hear anything back
from the phone company.
NARRATOR: They'll need to follow up
on the phone records.
Meanwhile, new cases continue to pour in.
- When Candice was reported missing,
we were averaging probably 30 to 40 runaway reports a month.
And just trying to manage runaways being located
and clearing them and taking new reports.
This takes time and a lot of money.
♪ Dead in the water I circle the truth ♪
NARRATOR: Seven months go by since she's been gone,
and it feels like forever.
And then, a call comes in.
♪
[line beeps]
OPERATOR: 9-1-1, what's your emergency?
MAN: [over phone] I'm not sure, but I think
we might have found something,
something human.
♪
NARRATOR: It's November 24th, 2010.
A body is found.
♪
In Candice Parchment's neighborhood,
just a few hundred yards from her house.
♪
Remember when I said this isn't a fairy tale?
It's true.
But there are good people in the story.
MAN: Ashley Melvin. Take one.
DETECTIVE ASHLEY MELVIN: My full name is Ashley Melvin.
I was a homicide detective in Clayton County.
In November 2010, I was the new kid.
Captain said, "Hey, rookie, you're up.
Found a body in the woods."
[echoing] ...body in the woods.
[siren wailing in distance]
I jumped in my car and I head to Forest Park.
It was on Sylvia Drive.
I was nervous, and, uh,
yeah, I did have butterflies in my stomach.
[police radio chatter] [siren wails]
I was directed toward the wooden path,
just to the left of the dumpster.
And it's a little cut through.
♪
Start going through the wooden path.
♪
You could tell people have been using it for years probably.
♪
Patrol officers were there standing by with the crime scene tape.
[police radio chatter echoing]
♪
And I looked down,
and there was... th-there was a body.
♪
Not in a conventional sense of a body.
It was a skeleton.
♪
This is literally the first time I've actually seen a skeleton.
♪
Just seeing someone's bones, this-this was a person.
♪
[camera shutter clicks]
NARRATOR: The body is so decomposed,
but investigators are hopeful
that there will be some obvious marker,
some clue to tell them who this is.
[camera shutter clicks]
DETECTIVE MELVIN: We don't have any ID.
There was no wallet. There was no purse.
There was nothing to signify who the body was.
[camera shutter clicks]
CAPTAIN GANDEE: We did find a earring
and the jacket was still there.
Was kinda like a snakeskin.
[camera shutter clicks]
The T-shirt was a Stay Fresh T-shirt.
[camera shutter clicks]
♪
NARRATOR: Investigators use the clothing
to try to identify the body.
CAPTAIN GANDEE: We started checking the social media.
♪
We found a picture that matched the jacket that we found.
I mean, it was almost a perfect match.
Scaly leather,
uh, rhinestones.
♪
- The body that was recovered that day
was Candice Parchment.
♪
[police radio chatter]
NARRATOR: News of the tragic discovery
soon reaches Candice's loved ones.
- I broke down in tears.
I couldn't believe it.
♪ Close your eyes ♪
She was just stuffed underneath the mattress, you know.
♪ It just keeps crashing down ♪
♪
- We went to her mother's house.
♪ Shut it all the way ♪
She asked, "Did you find my baby?"
♪ Don't let me drown ♪
♪ I tried to... ♪
Yeah, that was tough.
♪ Oh, I tried to ♪
♪ But I can't find you ♪
I made a promise to Candice's mother.
I said, "I don't know what took place,
"but I'm gonna find out what happened.
"And if someone did it to your daughter,
I'm gonna find out who did it."
♪ I can't find you ♪
♪ But I can't find my peace of mind ♪
♪
NARRATOR: And the first thing investigators have to do
is figure out the cause of death.
CAPTAIN GANDEE: So the medical examiner
ruled the death as a stab wound to the chest.
The manner of death was determined to be a homicide.
♪
- So now I know I have my first homicide.
And... it's scary.
♪
NARRATOR: Who would want to kill a sweet girl like Candice?
Investigators take to the streets
to hunt down her killer.
- We have teams out doing the canvassing.
Did anybody see anything?
- But no one knew anything.
[school bell rings]
NARRATOR: Then, they turn to her school,
Forest Park High.
Candice was popular.
She had many friends.
Any of them could know something, anything,
and any of them could have been capable of anything.
Even My'Lik.
- The detectives questioned me.
They asked for my phone, trying to see what text messages
in between us.
I believe they were looking at me as though
I might have perpetrated the event or something.
♪
NARRATOR: Could one of Candice's closest friends
somehow be involved in her death?
♪
NARRATOR: My'Lik Hamlett is now a person of interest
in Candice Parchment's murder.
♪
DETECTIVE MELVIN: And what we were doing is called victimology.
And that's learning the habits,
the social workings of the victim.
♪
- "You wasting your time looking at my phone,
"trying to see what text messages in between us.
You wanna see what we talking about."
NARRATOR: As investigators continue
to look at My'Lik and other friends...
- Literally, no one knew anything.
NARRATOR: ...everyone is a potential suspect.
MY'LIK: There are so many rumors.
She ran away with a trucker.
♪
She was in Tennessee.
♪
NARRATOR: But some of those rumors were a little too real
and hit a little too close to home.
♪
MY'LIK: There was a rumor
that there was a serial killer in the area
picking up people.
♪
NARRATOR: Monica Ambriz disappeared
on October 16th, 2010,
just outside Atlanta.
The girl was 17.
They found her ten days later in an abandoned building.
Stabbed.
And Detective Melvin and his fellow investigators
start to see similarities
between Monica and Candice's cases.
DETECTIVE MELVIN: The victim is similar to Candice.
♪
Young girls, same vicinity, both stabbed in the chest.
NARRATOR: There's one person investigators think
could have killed the two young girls.
DETECTIVE MELVIN: Artemio Hernandez.
He killed Monica...
a 17-year-old girl,
just a few weeks earlier in the same area,
approximately two miles away.
He did a lot of things.
And if Candice was his first victim,
then we had a serial killer in our midst in Forest Park.
♪
NARRATOR: Artemio Hernandez.
Armed robbery, rape, murder.
Did he kill Candice? Stab her?
Just like he did to Monica?
♪
[telephone ringing]
With the prime suspect in their sights, investigators launch a plan.
They put a request in to DeKalb County Jail
to interview Hernandez.
And while they wait for the request to come through,
their focus shifts back to Forest Park High
and to Candice's friends,
like My'Lik.
♪
MY'LIK: "I didn't do anything wrong.
Y'all are looking in the wrong place. I love this girl."
♪
NARRATOR: But after doing a thorough investigation,
the detectives don't find anything incriminating
and My'Lik is removed as a person of interest.
♪
- I never took offense to it 'cause I, you know,
I knew what she meant to me.
So, I never took offense to it.
♪ It's all I ever wanted ♪
♪ How could I run from you ♪
♪ If all I ever wanted was you? ♪
♪
NARRATOR: In August 2011,
sixteen months after Candice's disappearance,
detectives receive authorization
to speak with convicted murderer Artemio Hernandez.
- Hernandez is one of the guys that if he did something,
he would tell you.
We made arrangements to speak with him in the DeKalb County Jail.
MAN: [over PA] 23-20. 23-20. You have a visitor.
DETECTIVE MELVIN: This is the big time.
Hey, I'm gonna crack this thing wide open.
I get there and we sit down and we build a rapport with him.
He wants to talk to us.
I laid it out, like, this is what we got.
Did you kill this girl?
♪
I showed Hernandez pictures of Candice.
And he looked at the pictures and he said,
"I never seen her before."
He said, "I didn't do it.
I did the other ones. I didn't do that one."
♪
That took the wind out my sails.
♪
The guy who we just knew was the killer said, "It wasn't me."
And I got nothing to say that he was.
In the back of our minds, we still kept his name in there.
But at this point in time,
we didn't have any proof that he was related to the case.
♪
NARRATOR: More time goes by.
No leads.
But then, investigators identify another person of interest.
♪
There's another guy, another guy who's done bad things.
♪
- And looking at suspects, one person came into the immediate radar.
NARRATOR: A young guy named Trey Jenkins.
♪
Before Candice went missing,
detectives learned that Trey brought two young girls,
one 17, one 18, to his house and raped them.
♪
And police find that this same guy
has a connection to Candice Parchment.
♪
- We did some interviews and we did some background on him
and we determined that somehow or another Candice knew this guy.
They had some communications and he had been arrested
for some sexual assault-related crimes.
♪
NARRATOR: There's a possibility investigators can't ignore.
Did Trey assault Candice?
Did he escalate from rape to murder?
♪
- He's suspect number one at this point in time.
So we looked at him, attempted interviews.
We had to make arrangements to communicate with this individual.
[line ringing]
NARRATOR: But can detectives place Trey at the scene of the crime?
It's a lot of work. [knock on door]
[telephone ringing] Phone calls,
endless files...
pounding the pavement.
And after all that?
♪
- Ultimately we determined that he was not in the area
the whole time she was missing.
He likely had some words with her,
but was not the person who she met in the woods that night
or took her to the woods that night.
♪
So he was eliminated.
♪
So now with Candice's case, I'm back to square one.
It's not looking good.
It stinks, 'cause I got nothing.
♪
♪ You should be treated like royalty... ♪
NARRATOR: It's been almost a year since they found Candice.
There's only a couple of months left in 2011.
Detectives are frustrated.
They still got a whole lot of nothing.
And Candice's loved ones?
Maybe they'll never get answers.
How do you make peace with something if you don't even know what happened?
If Candice was still with us in 2011,
she probably would've wanted to see the new Harry Potter movie.
She would've been dancing to Rihanna's new album.
Instead... she's a memory.
A memory of joy for some, pain for others...
and a haunting figure for investigators.
♪ Hard to break a habit ♪
♪ When it's hard to break a heart ♪
NARRATOR: They work hard to find any leads.
And then one day...
[telephone ringing]
Our detective gets a call that changes
everything.
♪
DETECTIVE MELVIN: On October 18th, 2011,
I get a frantic phone call
as I am leaving the police station for the day.
It's Candice's mom.
And she's like, "Detective Melvin, Detective Melvin.
I found something."
And I have to calm her down.
Like, "Slow down, tell me what you found."
She says, "I found Candice's diary. I have to give it to you."
So Candice's mom comes to the police department.
♪
Months and months and months of dead ends have come to this.
Like this, it's all or nothing.
♪
And I crack it open.
♪
And I start reading.
♪
NARRATOR: There's one entry,
one dark secret...
that catches Detective Melvin's attention.
♪
- This is from Candice's diary dated January 5th, 2010,
that she titled "A frightening experience."
♪
"I snuck out of the house to go meet with two friends.
Both were guys."
- "I went walking down the road.
It was dark."
♪
DETECTIVE MELVIN: "There's an abandoned house
"where one of my schoolmates used to live.
Jermaine and Marshae set me up to go to the house."
MY'LIK: "So at that moment I wasn't thinking."
DETECTIVE MELVIN: "In the house, it was dark.
Only light I had was my phone light."
♪
[scream echoes]
MY'LIK: "Jermaine hit me with a rake
in the head."
DETECTIVE MELVIN: "At first I thought it was an accident.
It wasn't."
MY'LIK: "Marshae was blocking the door
"so I couldn't get out.
"I tried to make up excuses, but they didn't care.
"Jermaine grabbed me and choked me.
"I was struggling for air.
"'Please let me go,' I said.
"I tried to get away.
"My pants unzipped.
Really, I was scared."
[ringing]
♪
DETECTIVE MELVIN: "The boys, you know who,
"tried to take my phone.
"I put up a fight.
"They couldn't get it.
A few minutes later, we seen a car light in front of the abandoned house."
- "I was so excited yet scared.
"They let me go.
"They panicked and begged me not to tell.
♪
Well, diary, this night has scared me to death."
♪ Now's the time to ♪
♪ Stand and fight through ♪
♪ All the pain and misery ♪
♪ We will stand tall ♪
Hmm.
♪ When the rain falls ♪
- Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
For sure, for sure.
Yeah, it's the first time I read that.
I didn't know the details of all this.
It's sad situation right here.
♪ Now's the time to stand and fight ♪
NARRATOR: Two names-- Marshae and Jermaine.
But who are they?
The investigators know whose door to knock on.
MY'LIK: And they asked me about Marshae.
Me and Marshae we probably met in 2008.
The thing that brought us together was music.
He liked to produce music and make instrumentals and beats.
♪ electronic music playing ♪
And I like to sing and rap.
So naturally we came together.
This is someone I trusted.
My mind was going a million miles an hour.
♪
- I went to our jail system.
On a, on a hunch.
Typing "Marshae."
♪
And I find a name, Marshae Hickman.
He's in jail for a burglary.
He'd been there for several months.
But during the time that Candice disappeared, he was free.
He was roaming around.
And he lives on Sylvia Drive,
right in the area where we found Candice's body.
♪
NARRATOR: So Marshae actually went
to Forest Park High with Candice
and Jermaine ran in his circle of friends.
For authorities, this arouses some troubling suspicions.
CHIEF BILL DIXON: My name is Bill Dixon.
I was the deputy chief assistant district attorney
in Clayton County.
If she began talking about the rape at school,
the motive for killing, uh, Candice could be shut her up.
♪
NARRATOR: But that's just a theory.
Investigators need to know for sure
if the assault Candice wrote about in her diary
is actually connected to her murder.
Luckily, they have access to the one person who'd know.
Marshae Hickman is currently locked up.
- I was able to arrange for Marshae to come and talk to me.
[beeps]
We did question Marshae about the sexual assault
and what we found in Candice's diary.
"Tell me when the last time you saw Candice."
"Oh, well I was playing basketball
in a cul-de-sac at 415 Sylvia Drive,"
where she was last seen alive.
"And she was walking home.
♪
There was this guy following her."
♪
Marshae tells me it was a Hispanic guy.
"It was dark.
"He was creepy looking.
Then she went in the woods and I guess she went home."
"So while you were there
"and you watched this guy follow her into the woods,
did you hear anything? Did you see anything?"
♪
"No, I didn't hear or see anything."
♪
NARRATOR: It's a description
that gives investigators pause.
That description loosely fits another suspect,
someone they spoke to before.
♪
Artemio Hernandez, a known killer.
He denied everything.
But people lie every day.
The question is, is Marshae telling the truth?
♪
There's only one way to find out.
♪
NARRATOR: In his interrogation,
Marshae Hickman claims
that a man was following Candice into the woods
the day she disappeared.
Investigators still have Artemio Hernandez on their radar.
Was he the man Marshae saw?
DETECTIVE MELVIN: I challenged Marshae.
I said, "Well, if this person is following her,
why didn't you walk her in the woods, walk her home?"
"Well, she said she was fine.
She said she had pepper spray."
Marshae is trying to play the dancing game with me
about where he saw Candice.
♪
NARRATOR: But even though he's cast some doubt,
after the interrogation...
Marshae moves to the top of the suspect list.
♪
DETECTIVE MELVIN: Marshae lives in the area.
He's less than a few feet from where the body was found.
He has a history with Candice.
And he is mentioned by Candice as a person who tried to sexually assault her.
♪
NARRATOR: But police need another piece of the puzzle.
They need Jermaine.
DETECTIVE MELVIN: We're making arrangements to get Jermaine
to the police department.
And we're gonna talk to both of them at the same time.
♪
When we talk to Jermaine,
we tell him Marshae's in a room next door.
First thing that comes out of Jermaine's mouth... was,
"Man, Marshae killed that girl."
♪
"How you know he killed her?"
"Because, man, Marshae is crazy."
"I was scared of Marshae."
And then I asked him about the sexual assault.
And of course Jermaine put the blame squarely on Marshae.
It was all Marshae's idea.
NARRATOR: And according to Jermaine,
it all had to do with the assault,
with exactly what Candice wrote in her diary.
DETECTIVE MELVIN: One day, after the sexual assault,
Marshae started freaking out
thinking that Candice was gonna tell people.
♪
Jermaine told us Marshae typed on his phone,
"Hey, we should go kill Candice."
♪
NARRATOR: They were just neighborhood kids.
Marshae and Jermaine from the apartments,
just through the cut.
Seemed harmless... until now.
♪
Police have Jermaine's side of the story,
but what they really need is a confession from Marshae,
or it's all just hearsay.
♪
DETECTIVE MELVIN: So I tell Marshae, "We found her body,
"and we found some DNA on her body.
"And when you were locked up,
"they got your DNA.
You remember that?"
- We can actually make him think that we already have his DNA.
- Marshae thinks we found his DNA on Candice's body.
Then he started talking.
NARRATOR: That's when the truth comes out...
the tragedy.
DETECTIVE MELVIN: Candice was walking home.
Marshae started to admit that he followed Candice into the woods
as she was walking through the cut,
and that he, you know--
"I put my arm around her like this
and I was just holding her and hugging her."
♪
CAPTAIN GANDEE: We have him act out
where he's putting his arm around her neck and actually,
you know, lifting her feet completely off the ground.
- And at some point in time, Candice fell limp.
♪
CAPTAIN GANDEE: We asked, can you say 100% certain
that you are the one that hurt Candice in that cut?
And he admitted yes.
And he also told me that he's 100% sure
that he is the only one that did this.
♪
DETECTIVE MELVIN: Marshae went back several times
throughout the course of months,
checking on Candice's body to ensure that it was still there
and that no one had found it.
NARRATOR: Even with the confession,
Detective Melvin wants to do one more thing
to help bring some peace to Candice's mother.
♪
DETECTIVE MELVIN: We talked to Marshae and I say,
"Hey, do you want the whole world to see you
"as an uncaring monster or do you want to
"show people that you really genuinely feel bad
about the things that you did?"
So he writes a letter.
♪
- "Dear Mrs. Parchment, I'm sorry for what I've done.
"I ask for you for forgiveness.
"I feel so bad for this tragic accident.
"I was in the wrong state of mind.
"I know that you miss her
"and I wish I could give her back to you.
"Please forgive me.
"I'm glad this is off my chest.
Candice is forever missed."
This guy can't be serious.
Man.
Me, me, me, me.
Yeah, can you forgive me? It's not about you.
This-- Man, this-- Man-- Man, that's ridiculous right here, man.
Sick, twisted individual.
♪
NARRATOR: Even having confessed,
this... isn't over.
♪
CAPTAIN GANDEE: On July 11th, 2012,
Marshae Hickman is indicted for the murder of Candice Parchment.
♪
CHIEF DIXON: When the case first started,
police had skeletal remains and some clothing.
What we had going into the trial was a world of difference.
We had Candice's diary.
The diary was huge.
NARRATOR: And when Candice's diary is read in court,
members of the press can finally see
how important this case really is.
MARCUS GARNER: I was a reporter
for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
When the diary entry was read,
it was hushed in the courtroom.
♪
♪ You got something to hide ♪
♪
♪ Secrets behind these lies ♪
MY'LIK: "I tried to get away. My pants unzipped.
Really, I was scared."
♪ Danger follows behind ♪
GARNER: Candice's words, crying out from the dark,
from so many months before.
Finding justice for herself and for her death.
♪
MY'LIK: "Marshae was blocking the door so I couldn't get out."
GARNER: I've been in a lot of courtrooms,
and that was a moment that it kind of
sent a chill up my bones.
♪ I see trouble ♪
MY'LIK: "Jermaine grabbed me, he choked me.
I was struggling for air."
- People who weren't following this,
I think after this did pay more attention.
MY'LIK: "Well, diary,
this night had scared me to death."
JURY MEMBER: [off screen] We, the jury, find the defendant guilty
of count one malice murder.
NEWSCASTER: The mother of a murdered teenager
says her daughter's own words helped convict her killer.
A jury found Marshae Hickman guilty of several charges,
including murder and attempted rape
of 15-year-old Candice Parchment.
- That diary pinpointed the truth
and landed the right perpetrators in jail.
CAPTAIN GANDEE: Marshae is sentenced to life in prison
without parole, plus 20 years.
Jermaine Robinson, who was a cooperating witness,
pleads guilty to the attempted rape of Candice
and is sentenced to ten years.
♪
NARRATOR: This is a story of a 15-year-old girl
and her diary.
♪
- Candice solved her own murder from beyond the grave.
♪ Show me ♪
♪ Everything is clearer ♪
- It would've just been another cold case had it not been for the resilience
and for the brilliance of our dear friend Candice Parchment.
♪ You ♪
♪ It was always you ♪
- I got to go to see her mother again.
And I got to tell her that I kept my promise.
That I found out who killed her daughter.
♪
NARRATOR: This is a story about how we see the world
and what we choose not to see to make our own lives easier.
♪ And it took some time ♪
♪ Just to realize ♪
MY'LIK: When it was first notified to us
that she was missing, no one took it serious.
She just ran away from home.
You know, it's just so unfortunate
that so many stories like Candice's story happens daily
and it doesn't get the recognition that it deserves.
♪
NARRATOR: But mostly, this is a story about a girl
that lived in a place you've probably never heard of,
a clever girl with bright eyes and a big smile.
It's about why we should all know her name.
It's a story about how Candice Parchment caught her killer.
♪ Running out of time ♪
♪ Running through my mind ♪
♪ I keep running ♪
♪
♪ I don't know where my head is lately ♪
♪ Have I lost my mind? ♪
♪
♪ But I know that I have a secret ♪
♪ And it's only mine ♪
♪
♪ And the only way to find me ♪
♪ Is to go beneath the lies ♪
♪