Finding my birth family was supposed to complete me, but it destroyed me instead.

Confrontation and Freedom

The next morning, Ellaner called and told me to meet her at the police station. She wanted me there for Gregory’s interview. I could watch through the one-way glass while she questioned him.

I got there early and a uniformed cop led me to a small dark room with a window looking into the interrogation room. Gregory was already sitting at the metal table with a man in a suit next to him, his lawyer, probably. Ellaner came in and sat across from them.

She started asking Gregory about his relationship with my father back in the ‘9s. Gregory said they worked together at the warehouse, but weren’t really friends, just co-workers who sometimes grabbed drinks after shifts.

Ellaner showed him the photograph and asked him to explain it. Gregory barely looked at it before saying he didn’t remember when it was taken or who else was in the picture.

His voice stayed calm, but I could see his hands clenched together on the table. His jaw was tight. He was lying and his body knew it, even if his words didn’t show it.

Ellaner asked more questions about where he was on specific dates when women disappeared. Gregory’s lawyer interrupted and said his client didn’t have to answer questions about events from almost 30 years ago without proper notice.

The lawyer stood up and said they were done talking. Ellaner tried to ask one more question, but the lawyer put his hand on Gregory’s shoulder and guided him toward the door.

Right before they left, Gregory stopped and looked directly at the one-way glass. He couldn’t see me, but somehow I knew he was looking right at where I stood. His eyes were cold and empty.

My heart started racing and I stepped back from the window even though I knew he couldn’t actually see through it. He smiled just a little bit before his lawyer pulled him out of the room.

I felt pure terror run through my whole body because in that moment I understood something. Gregory knew I was watching. He knew I was the reason police had brought him in and he was telling me without words that this wasn’t over.

I left the police station feeling sick to my stomach and called Ellaner from my car to ask what we should do next. She told me to meet her at Victoria’s office in an hour because they needed to talk to me about something important.

When I got there that evening, both sisters were waiting with serious expressions on their faces. Ellaner told me that Gregory’s son, Raymond, had been asking questions around town about me over the past few days.

He saw all the news coverage weeks ago when my face was everywhere, and now he was confused about why police brought his father in for questioning about the Westside Strangler case. Raymond apparently told a friend he didn’t understand what his dad had to do with any of it, and that friend mentioned it to someone who knew Victoria.

Victoria leaned forward and said we needed to approach Raymond very carefully because he might not know anything about his father’s past. If we could convince him to help us, he might be able to provide information or even evidence from inside the house that we couldn’t get any other way.

She explained that Raymond might have access to old documents, photos, or could watch Gregory’s current activities without raising suspicion. I felt my stomach twist at the idea of dragging Gregory’s son into this mess.

I told them I knew exactly what it felt like to discover your parent was connected to horrible crimes and I didn’t want to put someone else through that kind of pain. Ellaner looked at me and said Raymond might already be in danger if Gregory suspected his son was asking too many questions or getting suspicious.

She pointed out that Gregory just got released after police questioning and he would be watching everyone around him closely now, including his own family. If Raymond kept digging on his own without knowing how dangerous his father really was, something bad could happen to him.

Victoria said she could make contact with Raymond through a business person they both knew. Someone who could arrange a meeting at a place where no one would recognize us.

I thought about it for a long time before finally agreeing to attend the meeting because Raymond deserved to hear the truth from someone who understood what he was facing. We couldn’t just leave him stumbling around in the dark asking questions that might get him hurt.

2 days later, Victoria called to say she’d set up the meeting for the next afternoon at a diner about 40 minutes outside town. I drove there feeling nervous about what I was going to say to this man whose whole life was about to change.

Raymond was already sitting in a back booth when we arrived, looking confused and a little bit angry like he thought this might be some kind of trap. He was probably in his late 20s with the same build as Gregory, but a kinder face.

Victoria made quick introductions and then I pulled out the old photograph and slid it across the table toward him. I explained who I was and pointed to the man on the left side of the photo, telling Raymond that was my biological father, the Westside Strangler.

Then I pointed to the second man in the picture and told him that was his father, Gregory, and that my birthother said these men worked together to murder 11 women back in the 1990s.

Raymon’s face went completely white, and he pushed the photo back toward me like it was something poisonous. He said there was no way his father could be involved in anything like that.

His dad ran a construction business and coached little league baseball when Raymond was a kid. I understood the denial because I’d felt the exact same thing when I first learned about my own father.

I told Raymond about getting the DNA test results for my birthday and how my whole life fell apart within 24 hours. I explained that I lost my job and my fiance and all my friends because people thought I had murder in my blood just from being related to a killer.

I said I knew how scary it was to think that your parent could be capable of terrible things. But his father’s past actions didn’t define who Raymond was as a person.

Raymon sat there quietly for a minute looking down at his hands. And then he admitted his father had been acting really strange since my face started appearing in the news coverage.

Gregory had been working late almost every night, making phone calls in his car instead of inside the house, and asking Raymond weird questions about police procedures. Raymon said he’d thought about becoming a cop right after college, so he knew some stuff about how investigations worked.

And apparently, Gregory wanted to know specific details about how long police could hold someone without charges and what kind of evidence they needed for an arrest.

Ellaner asked Raymond if he would be willing to help us by paying attention to his father’s activities and reporting anything suspicious. Raymond looked torn between wanting to protect his family and needing to know the truth about what his father might have done.

He said he couldn’t believe his dad would hurt anyone, but he also couldn’t explain why Gregory was acting so paranoid and secretive lately. Ellaner told him we weren’t asking him to spy on his father or put himself in danger, just to keep his eyes open and let us know if anything seemed off.

Raymond sat there struggling with the decision for what felt like forever. And I could see him trying to balance loyalty to his father against the possibility that Gregory had helped murder 11 women decades ago.

Finally, he said he would help us, but only if we promised to keep his mother out of this as much as possible. He explained that his mom had a serious heart condition and the stress of learning the truth about Gregory could literally kill her.

We all agreed that we would protect Raymond’s mother and only involve her if there was absolutely no other choice. Raymond gave Victoria his phone number and said he would pay closer attention to what his father was doing, but he still didn’t want to believe Gregory was actually guilty of anything.

Over the next week, Raymon called Victoria almost every day with updates about his father’s behavior. Gregory was meeting with someone Raymon didn’t recognize, always at different locations around the city, like they were trying not to be seen together.

On the fifth day, Raymon managed to photograph the man from a distance using his phone while pretending to be looking at something else. He sent the photo to Victoria immediately, and she started running it through facial recognition software and comparing it to old records from the warehouse where my father used to work.

I waited at Victoria’s office while she worked on identifying the mystery man, feeling like we were finally making real progress toward figuring out who all three accompllices were. Victoria kept pulling up different databases and old employment records, cross- refferencing everything with the time period when the murders happened.

After about 3 hours of searching, she finally found a match that made her stop and stare at her computer screen. She turned the monitor toward me and Elellanar so we could see what she’d discovered about the man Gregory had been meeting with in secret.

The screen showed a driver’s license photo from 15 years ago, and Victoria pointed at the name, Sterling Reyes. She pulled up another record showing his date of birth, and I did the math in my head.

He was only 16 when my father got arrested for the murders. Victoria opened another file showing Sterling’s connection to Bronwin Reyes, the accomplice who died in 2003. Brothers.

Ellaner leaned closer to the screen and asked Victoria to pull up everything she could find on Sterling’s activities over the past 25 years. Victoria’s fingers moved across the keyboard, opening database after database.

Sterling had no criminal record. He worked as an accountant. He owned a house in a quiet neighborhood.

But Victoria found something else buried in old property records. Sterling had co-signed the lease on a storage unit with his brother Brunwin back in 1998, just months before my father’s arrest. The unit was still active under Sterling’s name.

Ellaner grabbed her phone and started making calls to get a warrant for that storage unit. I sat there staring at Sterling’s photo on the screen. He looked so normal, just a regular guy with a regular job.

But he’d spent decades protecting the men who helped my father kill 11 women. Victoria found more connections. Sterling had made regular visits to Gregory over the years, always meeting in different places like they were trying to stay under the radar.

She pulled up old phone records showing calls between Sterling and Gregory going back years. These men had been coordinating their cover up for my entire life.

Ellaner finished her call and told us the warrant would take a few hours. She wanted to keep eyes on Sterling’s house in the meantime to make sure he didn’t run. Victoria kept digging through records while we waited.

She found bank statements showing Sterling had helped Gregory with those suspicious cash deposits after the murders. The conspiracy went deeper than just three men in a photo. It was families protecting each other, covering up evidence, making sure the truth stayed buried.

My phone rang and Raymond’s name appeared on the screen. I answered and heard panic in his voice.

His father found the photos Raymond had been taking of Gregory’s meetings. Gregory saw them on Raymond’s phone and lost it completely.

Raymond was scared. He said Gregory grabbed him and started yelling about betrayal and family loyalty. His mother was crying in the background. Raymond said his father was throwing things in bags and talking about leaving town.

Ellaner heard enough of the conversation to understand what was happening. She got on her radio and sent patrol cars to the Wilkinson house immediately. She told Raymon to get himself and his mother out of the house if he could do it safely.

Raymond said he would try. Ellaner kept the radio connection open while we waited for updates from the patrol cars. It took them 8 minutes to reach the Wilkinson house.

The officers radioed back describing what they found. Gregory was in the driveway loading suitcases into his car. Levvenia was standing in the doorway crying and asking Gregory what was happening.

Raymond was trying to calm his mother down while staying away from his father. The officers approached Gregory and asked him to stop what he was doing. Gregory tried to get in his car anyway.

The officers had to physically prevent him from leaving. Ellaner told them to bring Gregory in for questioning based on the new evidence Victoria had found.

Victoria pulled up the financial records on her screen and sent them to Ellaner’s phone. Old bank statements showing large cash deposits around the times of several murders.

Combined with the photograph, Raymond’s testimony about recent threats and Gregory’s attempt to flee, it was enough to arrest him. The officers put Gregory in handcuffs while Levvenia collapsed on the front steps.

Raymon called me back 20 minutes later. His voice was shaking. He said his mother was in shock and couldn’t stop crying. The officers were still at the house taking Gregory away.

Raymond didn’t know what to tell his mother about why this was happening. I didn’t have good answers for him.

Ellaner focused on Sterling now that Gregory was in custody. She put out alerts to watch for Sterling’s car and his known locations. If Sterling heard about Gregory’s arrest, he would run.

Victoria tracked Sterling’s cell phone location using methods she said were better if Ellaner didn’t know the details about. The phone was moving. Sterling was already on the road heading toward the state border.

Ellaner made more calls, this time to state police at the border checkpoints. She gave them Sterling’s description, his license plate number, and instructions to stop him.

We waited in Victoria’s office for 3 hours. Ellaner paced back and forth. Victoria kept tracking Sterling’s phone as it moved closer to the border.

I sat there feeling like everything was happening too fast. Two days ago, we were just identifying people in an old photo. Now, one accomplice was in custody and the other was running.

Sterling’s phone stopped moving at the border checkpoint. Ellaner’s radio crackled with an update. State police had stopped Sterling’s car. They were searching it.

Ellaner told them what to look for. 5 minutes later, the radio crackled again. Officers found a gun in Sterling’s glove box.

They found something else, too. A folder full of surveillance photos. photos of me walking to Victoria’s office, sitting in my motel room window, getting into Ellaner’s car.

Sterling had been tracking me for weeks. He knew where I was going and who I was meeting with. He’d been planning something.

Ellaner told the officers to arrest Sterling immediately. She listed off charges related to the gun and the stalking evidence. Sterling was in custody within minutes.

Ellaner turned to me and said both remaining accompllices were now locked up. The immediate physical threat was over. I didn’t have to hide in cheap motel anymore.

I didn’t have to look over my shoulder every time I walked outside. The men who wanted to kill me were behind bars. I felt something release in my chest, but I was too exhausted to figure out what emotion it was.

The media picked up the story fast. By the next morning, news websites were running headlines about the Westside Strangler’s accompllices finally being arrested after 25 years.

But this time, the coverage was different. The reporters focused on the investigation and the police work. They talked about Eleanor and the cold case unit. They mentioned DNA evidence and financial records.

My name appeared in some articles, but Ellaner had managed to keep most of my involvement confidential. The story said an anonymous tip led to the breakthrough. No photos of me, no interviews with people analyzing my face, just facts about the arrests and the evidence against Gregory and Sterling.

I read through article after article from my motel room, and for the first time since the DNA test results came back, the media wasn’t making me the story.

2 days after the arrests, Ellaner called to tell me Raymond wanted to meet at her office. I drove there feeling nervous about seeing him again after everything that happened with his father.

Raymond was waiting in the conference room looking tired and older than the last time we talked. He stood up when I walked in and started apologizing immediately for what his father did, for not seeing the signs earlier, for putting me in danger by taking those photos.

I stopped him and told him he had nothing to apologize for because none of this was his fault or his responsibility. He asked how I managed to deal with finding out about my own father, and I wrote down the name and number of the therapist who helped me process everything in those first awful weeks.

Raymond took the paper and folded it carefully, then me and left, looking like he was carrying a weight he’d never be able to put down completely. The next morning, news broke that Levvenia filed for divorce from Gregory.

Her lawyer released a statement saying she had absolutely no knowledge of her husband’s criminal past and was cooperating fully with investigators. I read the statement on my phone while eating breakfast at a diner and felt genuine sympathy for her.

She was another woman whose life got destroyed by choices these men made decades ago. Another person who built a life with someone without knowing who they really were.

My birthother called that afternoon crying so hard I could barely understand her at first. She kept saying thank you over and over, relieved that the men who threatened me were finally locked up and couldn’t hurt either of us anymore.

Then she apologized again for not going to police 25 years ago when she first suspected my father had help. I told her I understood she was just 17 and scared, that she was protecting herself and protecting me the only way she knew how.

Back then, we talked for almost an hour, the longest conversation we’d ever had, and for the first time, it felt like talking to family instead of talking to a stranger who happened to give birth to me.

Ellaner helped me apply for victim compensation funds. The following week, we sat in her office filling out forms that documented my lost income, the cost of hiding in motel for weeks, the therapy bills that were piling up.

The process was slow and bureaucratic with no guarantee I’d actually receive anything, but it felt good to do something concrete toward rebuilding instead of just surviving dayto-day. Eleanor explained the state had programs for crime victims, even when the crimes happened decades ago, and my situation qualified because the accompllices actively threatened me.

This year, I started looking for a new apartment in a different part of the city where fewer people would recognize my face from the news coverage. I spent days driving around neighborhoods I’d never visited before, looking at rental listings and trying to imagine starting over somewhere completely new.

I wasn’t ready to return to my old neighborhood or my old apartment building where journalists had camped outside for weeks. I needed a place where I could walk to the store without wondering if someone would recognize me and start asking questions or taking photos.

Victoria called me one evening while I was looking at apartment listings online. She asked if I’d be interested in working as a research assistant at her private investigation firm.

She said my attention to detail and my personal understanding of complex cases would make me valuable to her business, that she’d seen how thorough I was during our investigation of the accompllices. I asked if she was just offering out of pity, and she laughed and said she didn’t do pity hires because her business reputation mattered too much.

I accepted the job offer 2 days later after thinking it through carefully. The work would be completely different from my old job, focusing on helping other people find answers instead of the marketing work I used to do.

Victoria started me on cases that had nothing to do with my father or his accompllices, which felt important. I researched insurance fraud for one client and tracked down a missing person for another.

It felt good to use the investigative skills I developed out of necessity over the past months to actually help people instead of just trying to survive.

3 months after the accompllices arrests, I was settling into my new apartment in a quiet neighborhood across town. The media attention had finally faded to almost nothing with only occasional mentions when Gregory and Sterling’s court dates approached.

I was building a life defined by my own choices rather than my father’s crimes, working at Victoria’s firm during the day and slowly furnishing my apartment on weekends. I still had hard days when someone would recognize me or when I’d see a true crime podcast episode about the case pop up in my feed.

But I was no longer just surviving and hiding and waiting for the next bad thing to happen. I was actually living again, making my own decisions, building something new that belonged only to me.