rented the cheapest room she could find.
But, after smoking some meth that morning, she was in no mood to sit around the room. She’d heard that Tijuana, the first town across the border into Mexico, was a fun place for college students to party. And, since she’d just turned eighteen, she could drink legally—all night if she wanted to. So she hopped back on the trolley and took it to San Ysidro, the last stop on the U.S. side of the border. She followed the signs to the pedestrian crossing and joined the throng of people walking over the bridge, their noses stinging from the fumes that emanated from the long lines of stop-and-go traffic heading into Mexico. It would be only a few minutes before she could lose herself in another country, another culture, another reality.
Greg de Villers, his brothers Jerome and Bertrand, and Aaron Wallo were walking across the bridge that same evening. Their trip to “TJ” was intended to be a rite of passage for Bertrand, who came down with Wallo from Palm Springs to visit. At fourteen, Bertrand had never been drunk before.
Night had fallen by the time the de Villers crew was walking along the dirty sidewalk leading to the intertwining metal bars that made up the first of two turnstiles at the border crossing. A loud clanking sounded repeatedly as a stream of tourists and Mexican day laborers pushed through the worn gate.
Kristin was walking sideways near the turnstile when she bumped into Greg. She dropped her brown leather jacket, and they both went to pick it up, which sparked a conversation. Since Kristin was alone, she was happy to tag along with his group, and Greg was happy to have her. She thought Greg seemed like a really nice guy, and it was obvious that he was attracted to her. They walked along the dimly lit sidewalk, past a long mural caked with the same dark layer of car-exhaust dust that seems to cover much of Tijuana.
They passed the money exchange booth as they approached the second turnstile and the bright yellow taxi sign, its edges lined with the same tiny blinking lights found on strip-club marquees. As soon as they pushed through the turnstile, they were surrounded by taxi drivers offering to take them into the city. They got into one of the cabs and asked to be dropped off at the most popular tourist destination, a street called Avenida Revolución, which is lined with bars and dance clubs. The taxi driver drove fast, which was a little nerve-wracking given that there were no seat belts in his car.
For some Americans, Tijuana is a place to stock up on prescription drugs, which are far cheaper and easier to obtain without a prescription than in the United States. It’s as easy as walking into a pharmacy and asking the clerk behind the counter for a drug of choice. The clerks don’t ask for a prescription, nor do they tell buyers that purchasing medications without one could get them arrested at the border. Kristin would take advantage of this opportunity in the years to come, buying muscle relaxants, diet pills, and other drugs.
For students or young members of the U.S. military stationed in San Diego, Tijuana is more of an escape destination, where they can act crazier than is acceptable back home. In essence, Tijuana is a bombardment of the senses. Everything is bright, loud, aggressive, and sometimes a little surreal. The neon lights flash across buildings so rapidly a person can almost hear them, making him feel as if he were starring in his own cartoon.
As tourists walk down Avenida Revolución, they are accosted every few feet by vendors whose arms are covered with hanging necklaces. Barefoot children with grimy faces thrust out empty paper cups, begging for money. Or they sell small, individually wrapped packets of chewing gum squares, eight for $1. Mothers with two or three toddlers in tow sell handwoven bracelets or crepe-paper flowers in brilliant colors. Men sitting on benches call out “something else,” code words for drugs.
Over the years, the stores that line Avenida Revolución have offered little variation in the goods they sell: hand-carved onyx chess sets, velvet paintings, ceramic pots, figurines, leather wallets and belts, pocket knives, and white cotton dresses with floral embroidery.
Outside the nightclubs, clusters of young men hand out free drink tickets, trying to entice passersby to enter their steep black stairwells. “This is the place,” they say. “Come inside.”
The de Villers crew strolled along Avenida Revolución and went into several of these bars that night, at least one of which had a second-floor balcony overlooking the street. They ordered tequila shots and beers, while the bass beat of the dance music pounded the night air, and smoke machines belched out streams of gray fog. It soon became clear that Greg and Kristin were together.
Sometime between midnight and 2 A.M., the group walked back over the pedestrian bridge to San Ysidro and their car. Greg invited Kristin to stay with him and his crew at the two-bedroom apartment he shared with Jerome and a roommate in the La Jolla Del Sol complex. Kristin felt safe with Greg. She sensed no permanence in the situation, and she didn’t want to go back to an empty motel room. So she accepted his offer.
Greg and Kristin shared the same bed, and they had sex. There was no mention of Teddy Maya. Greg was smitten, and it appeared to be mutual.
“Greg wasn’t the type to bring women home for one-night stands,” said Chris Wren, Greg’s roommate.
The next morning, Bertrand woke up on the couch with a plastic trash bin next to him in case he got sick. The whole crew got up late and went out for something to eat before Bertrand and Wallo drove back to Palm Springs.
Then Greg asked Wren to move out of the bedroom they shared and into the other bedroom with Jerome. Kristin was going to stay for a while.
Kristin’s parents checked in with her teachers and learned that she’d missed her finals. When she hadn’t turned up by the day after Christmas, they filed a missing person’s report with the campus police. They also contacted the Claremont Police Department.
George Dynes, a Claremont police officer, wrote in his report that Maya had seen Kristin on the morning of December 26. She had a 104-degree fever and “was depressed and suicidal.” Ralph Rossum told Dynes that his daughter might “try and hurt or kill herself.”
“The parents are worried about the safety of their eighteen-year-old daughter. According to people that the parents have contacted, their daughter has been very depressed lately,” Dynes wrote.
Dynes also filled out another form, recording the Rossums’ report of a “voluntary missing adult.” He put Kristin in the “at risk” category, stating she was “depressed and suicidal,” with a destination unknown. He described her as being five feet two inches, 105 pounds, with green eyes and chin-length blond hair, wearing a brown leather jacket.
Constance feared that Kristin might have fallen prey to foul play. She and Ralph were both devastated by the cold fact that their daughter likely had relapsed. When Kristin was on drugs, she became self-destructive. And this time, they had no idea where she’d gone or what she was doing.
A couple of times in the weeks after Kristin ran away, Constance answered the phone and heard a mewing on the other end of the line. She figured it was Kristin making those quiet sobbing sounds, but her daughter wouldn’t say anything. She would just hang up. She knew she’d ruined her family’s Christmas.
In early January, Kristin sent her parents a letter saying she was very sorry for running away like she did. The letter had no return address or phone number but carried a San Diego postmark. Soon afterwards, Kristin called her parents.
“Thank God you’re safe,” Constance told her.
Kristin said she’d been staying with some nice people in San Diego. She hadn’t wanted to call until she was ready to prove that she was serious about getting herself together. If the family wanted to see her, she wanted to come home for a visit.
“Mom,
