How i Died S1 E11: Ties that Bind

Transcript: How i Died S1 E11: Ties that Bind

This transcript is adapted from the episode’s original script, so the final audio may differ slightly.

Jon: Another one! That brings the total to 37 case files between 1989 and 2015 that are missing pages or have some sort of redacted information on them. Who knows how many files are completely missing. And any mention of any employee actually working at Springfield was nearly wiped clean. I couldn’t even mind a single note on the two additional men who died in the accident along with Mike Melba. That’s 37 mysterious deaths that have gone unaccounted for. How in the hell do records for that many people just go missing? And another thing. All the files have the same signature on the pages actually included. Even on non-pathology related pages. It looked familiar to me, but I couldn’t make it out, so I did some more digging. The signature lines up with more recent case files between mid 2017 and early 2018. It turns out that the last pathologist who worked in this position was named Roger Benhoff. The signature on all of those documents looks like an R. B. And some sort of squiggle. My theory is that the last pathologist was either involved in, or enticed to sign these old cases as some sort of cover up. But I can’t find any record of what happened to him, or where he went after Springfield. I don’t have a good feeling about this.

Crowley: (distance) Jon..

Jon: Oh, good timing. Crowley, look, I’ve been compiling data on… What’s wrong? What’s that face for?

[Click]

Jon: Could you say that again?

Sheriff: It’s not really something I enjoyed sayin.

Jon: It’s for the recording.

Sheriff: I don’t understand why you keep these things.

Jon: It’s for the medical records. It’s much easier to record the procedure-

Sheriff: Whatever You say.

Jon: Do… You mind starting over then?

Sheriff: Fine. Amy Hawthorne, 19 years old. Found dead in the Springfield community college swimming pool at approximately 11:45 this evening.

Jon: Who found her?

Sheriff: I was getting to that… You know, these "notes" notes of yours would go a lot smoother if you just let people talk instead of asking them questions mid thought.

Jon: And you say you never let the work affect your mood.

Sheriff: Yeah, well. This is an especially shitty day.

Jon: Well, if you let me turn my recorder on before you started speaking…

Sheriff: The campus groundskeeper found her. Says he saw something in the pool when he went to lock the doors. Found her face down in the water.

Jon: Damn.

Sheriff: You can say that again.

Jon: Any leads?

Sheriff: You let me worry about that.

Jon: Come on, Crowley. I need to know what I’m looking for.

Sheriff: *You’re* looking for evidence. I shouldn’t have to tell you that.

Jon: You know what I mean.

Sheriff: We’re looking into the boyfriend, but I need proof before I can arrest him.

[Ghost sound]

Amy: I was murdered.

Jon: You’re thinking homicide?

Sheriff: I’m thinking what I’m thinking. What’s it to you?

Jon: It helps if I know what I’m looking for…

Sheriff: Miss Hawthorne was an up and coming speed swimmer for the college team. I don’t believe she’d drown accidentally.

Jon: Ah. So we need to figure out how she ended up in the pool in all her clothes…

Sheriff: Yep.

Jon: Why the boyfriend?

Sheriff: (walking away) In my experience, this kind of thing is always from someone you trust.

[Walking. Door opens and closes.]

[Amy crying]

Jon: As mentioned, the victim is fully clothed; soaked clothing. We’ll be doing an external examination before testing the water in her lungs, which I’m sure we’ll find.

Amy: External exam?

Jon: Yes. It’s standard in these cases.

Amy: You can hear me?

Jon: That question is getting old.

Amy: Am I a ghost?

Jon: Yes.

Amy: Good.

Jon: Why is that good?

Amy: I’m fine with that.

Jon: Interesting. Not many people are okay with being dead?

Amy: Hmph.

Jon: Did you drown yourself?

Amy: No.

Jon: Do you remember what happened?

Amy: Yes.

Jon: Uhh… Okay… Do you want to give me a little more info than that?

Amy: No.

Jon: Alright then. I’m going go just have to figure it out on my own.

Amy: W-wait. What are you doing?

Jon: I’m doing a oing a physical exam.

Amy: No! You don’t have my permission.

Jon: No offense, but you’re dead. I don’t need your permission to do my job.

Amy: Stop.

Jon: Victim shows bruising around the collar bone. Scratch marks on the arms and upper chest.

Amy: Don’t you touch me! (Screams then sobs)

Jon: Amy?

Amy: (in distance, repeating) You don’t have my permission. You don’t have my permission.

Jon: Amy, listen. I’m not going to touch you. You just need to talk to me, okay?

Amy: I’m not talking to you. You’re all the same.

Jon: Amy, who hurt you? Who did this to you?

Amy: Please just let me disappear. Let me disappear.

Jon: When I was a kid, my dad used to hurt my mom.

Amy: Stop it. You don’t know.

Jon: I didn’t find out for a long time after. I don’t think I really understood it.

Amy: You don’t know anything.

Jon: One night, when I was maybe five or six, I found them in their room in the middle of the night. I wandered in and saw him on top of her with his hand on her mouth. I’ll never forget the way she looked at me.

Amy: Stop it.

Jon: She was terrified, but not for herself. It was like she was scared for me, being there. Seeing that as a kid. She tried to push him off of her, and I ran back to my room and held my ears. …After that, I didn’t see her for a day or two.

Amy: Where… Did she leave?

Jon: I thought so. Or looking back at it, I could have imagined that she just didn’t want me to see what she looked like. But then, she just showed back up like nothing was wrong.

Amy: She was pretending.

Jon: I thought so. She just seemed so happy to see me. And then my father was even more moody than usual. That’s when he started beating me. Just a little at first, and then it got worse over the next few months.

Amy: Why didn’t anyone stop it? Why didn’t your mom stop it?

Jon: I wondered that too. I yelled at her. I cried with her and she talked to me. It wasn’t until much later that he wss finally arrested.

Amy: You can’t just try to connect with me by telling me something like that…

Jon: I’m not trying to trick or manipulate you. I don’t even know what it’s like to go through what you must have gone through.

Amy: You don’t know anything. Nothing happened.

Jon: But I watched it happen to someone I love. I watched it take away the person I loved. And I finally watched the police as they took him away. And that was what made my mom happy. When he was finally out of my life.

Amy: Nothing will make me happy.

Jon: Maybe not, but I’m telling you right now that these people, the ones who hurt others, don’t stop at one person. They don’t stop when their victim is gone. They move on to the next one until someone stops the pattern. … You can help stop the pattern.

Amy: Nothing happened. I died. That’s it.

Jon: I can clearly see defensive wounds on your chest and stomach. I know what I’ll find if I look any lower.

Amy: …You think he’d hurt someone else?

Jon: I do. Was it your boyfriend?

Amy: No.

Jon: A relative?

Amy: No.

Jon: Come on, Amy. Please…

Amy: I don’t want to think about it. Okay?

Jon: Don’t let what happened to you happen to anyone else.

Amy: It was Coach Matthews.

Jon: Coach?

Amy: Yeah. Our swim team coach. …at first, he’d just talk to me after the meets. Then he came into the locker room one day while I was changing, and I yelled. It stopped for a while, and then…

Jon: What, Amy? What then?

Amy: Then he asked if I was fucking my boyfriend. And said if I was just giving it up, why not give it to him too?

Jon: He raped you.

Amy: Do you need me to say it? Yes. He fucking raped me. And I thought that was as bad as it would get. But after… He said he wanted to go to dinner…. I told him to piss off and that I’d be going to the cops.

Jon: And it escalated…

Amy: And that’s how I ended up in the pool.

Jon: Jesus.

Amy: Are you happy now?

Jon: Of course not. I’m not happy. This terrible thing still happened to you, by someone that you trusted.

Amy: Yeah, well.

Jon: He’ll be locked away.

Amy: Is that supposed to make me feel better?

Jon: I don’t know. It certainly helps.

Amy: Does it? You might feel better. But I’m still dead. I’m the one whose life is over because of this asshole, and you get to go on living.

Jon: And that’s not fair.

Amy: No. It’s not.

Jon: I know. But-

Amy: Just don’t. No buts. It’s over.

Jon: I’m sorry.

Amy: I don’t want pity.

Jon: It’s not pity.

Amy: Then what is it?

Jon: It’s… Sadness that the world lost someone genuinly good.

Amy: You don’t even know me.

Jon: I know that you weren’t afraid when you were alive. And that you shouldn’t be afraid now.

Amy: I’m not afraid.

Jon: Good.

Amy: What happened with your mom?

Jon: Heh. It wasn’t until I was put in foster care that I realized.

Amy: Realized what…?

Jon: My dad had killed her that night. The night I walked in to the bedroom and saw her. He killed her, and threw her body away. And then she showed back up to me.

Amy: She was a ghost, too…

Jon: The first one I’d ever seen. Or at least remember seeing. And I had no idea. I talked to her for almost a year before I knew and understood that she was dead.

Amy: And so you were really left alone.

Jon: She stuck with me for a while. But then… Yeah. She couldn’t stand it. Being in limbo and not able to do anything, so she left… Anyway. Amy, I have to use a rape kit to record this. I don’t know if you want to look away… Or…

Amy: No… I want to watch. I want him to go to jail.

Jon: He will. Trust me.

[Click]

[End]