JASON:
A and I were splitting up back then, so I wasn’t really around. But a mutual friend told me Erin took the accident really hard. For example, some people had organized meal deliveries for both A and Erin, but Erin refused to accept it. I guess she just left the baskets on the front porch. Sometimes the girls would come outside and collect them, sometimes Chuck would bring them in when he got home—and he was getting home really late, I guess, like nine, ten o’clock. It didn’t sound like a good situation.
It seems cruel and unimaginably unfair for a woman whose brother died before her eyes and who lost both parents in one night to then have her husband snatched away from her as well, but that is, as we know, exactly what happened.
And that’s when things really went sideways.
Already depressed and prone to bouts of reclusiveness, Erin became despondent after her husband’s death. She and her daughters moved across town into her sister Amelia’s house. She refused to leave the house other than to attend Warren Cave’s trial, and while there she didn’t engage with anyone, declining to even give reporters the courtesy of a “no comment.” Once the trial had concluded, Erin retreated to her sister’s house, and no one outside her immediate family saw her in Elm Park again.
Even friends were shunned. Beverly Dodds White, the high school friend Erin was visiting while her husband was being murdered blocks away, explained to me just how much Erin had changed.
BEVERLY:
Erin and I were close in high school, but we fell out of touch after she got married. We reconnected when I moved back to Elm Park after my divorce. It was October 2002, and, before I’d even finished moving in, I learned I needed emergency oral surgery to remove my wisdom teeth. They said I should have a friend come, and I didn’t know anyone in town besides Erin. I took a chance and gave her a call. I was so grateful she agreed to come with me.
POPPY:
Did you find her as you remembered her?
BEVERLY:
She hadn’t changed a bit. Still very quiet. Of course, that didn’t matter because I couldn’t talk. Still such a kind woman. I was a real wreck post-surgery, zonked on pain medication, slipping in and out of consciousness, but Erin took such good care of me, fetching me ice chips and whatnot.
POPPY:
Did Erin say anything that made you think she or her husband felt threatened? By Warren Cave, or anyone else?
BEVERLY:
I don’t remember her saying anything like that, but I’m afraid that doesn’t mean much. That entire day is a blur for me. Like I said, I was on a lot of pain medication. The only clear memory I have is waking up to the sound of someone pounding on the door, and that was when the police arrived to tell Erin her husband was dead.
POPPY:
What about afterward? Did you and Erin ever discuss Chuck’s murder? Maybe she mentioned something about Melanie or Warren Cave?
BEVERLY:
I only spoke to Erin once after that. A few days later, after I’d recovered, I called to see if there was anything I could do for her. She was completely beside herself. Sobbing, saying it was all her fault, just heartbreaking.
POPPY:
She said it was all her fault?
BEVERLY:
She blamed herself, you know. If she hadn’t been at my house that night, her husband wouldn’t have been alone and he might not have been killed. That was the last time I talked to her. She wouldn’t return any of my other calls. Her husband’s death really just destroyed her.
Beverly’s experience isn’t unique. Erin wouldn’t return anyone’s calls. She stopped leaving the house. It was like she’d disappeared.
And then, one day, she really did.
Pamela Boland, a fellow teacher at the middle school where Amelia teaches, remembers how she learned that Erin was gone.
PAMELA:
It was June. School was out for the summer, but that was the summer they renovated the classrooms in the north wing and expected all the teachers to pitch in. Amelia didn’t show up one morning, which was completely unlike her. She didn’t even call anyone to say she wasn’t coming, and that had me worried. Amelia Kelly has always been one of the most responsible people I know. I figured she must be really ill, and so I swung by her house that afternoon to check on her. Erin was gone. Amelia was completely distraught, saying she was certain her sister had harmed herself. I did my best to console her, but what could I really say? Everyone knew her sister was a few crayons short of a box. Then, a few weeks later, Amelia told me she’d received a letter from Erin saying she had joined something called the Life Force Collective. We looked that up on the internet, and, well, you know what that is.
The infamous Life Force Collective, a cult located in Northern California, promotes a simpler, sun-drenched lifestyle. Little is known about the life that Erin Buhrman—or Sister Anahata, as she was known within the LFC—lived for the last decade. Amelia Kelly never heard from her sister again. Individual LFC members eschew the outside world, and Sister Anahata was no different.
And then, as we all now know, earlier this week, Erin Buhrman’s tragic life came to a tragic end. Her body was found hanging from a tree, an apparent suicide. As far as I am aware, hers is the first instance of an LFC member taking his or her own life. Suicide goes against everything the LFC stands for, and its public relations officer is running himself ragged attempting to dispel any rumors of generalized unrest and depression within the ranks. This man, who calls himself Brother Earnest—that’s Earnest as in the virtue, not as in Hemingway—agreed to join me on a call to discuss Erin Buhrman’s mental state in the days and weeks leading up to her untimely demise. He would not, I was advised, comment on LFC practices, authentic or rumored.
POPPY:
Do you know how Erin Buhrman learned about the Life Force Collective?
EARNEST:
Like many of our brothers and sisters, Sister Anahata was guided to us during a difficult period in her life. She decided to reject the conventional Western lifestyle and embrace a more enlightened approach.
POPPY:
So you don’t know how she found you? Like, on the web or something?
EARNEST:
The Life Force Collective does maintain an internet presence.
POPPY:
Were you around when Erin—excuse me, Sister Anahata—first arrived at the Life Force Collective?
EARNEST:
Yes, I remember her arrival well. Many new members experience a feeling of liberation once they’ve committed to our way of life, but Sister Anahata’s sheer relief was notable. She was one of the most sensitive individuals I have ever met, and the outside world had fractured her spirit. Upon arrival, she was in a dire state.
POPPY:
Did she mention her husband, Chuck Buhrman?