Page 176 of Girl Between

“I’m okay,” she insisted, soaking up his warmth. “I want to keep going.”

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Two hours later,with bated breath, Dana finally opened the final voice file.

The following isfrom a recorded interview with the District Attorney and Elizabeth Barton:

DA:Please state your name for the record.

Elizabeth: Elizabeth Barton.

DA: Thank you for being here, Miss Barton. I know this is difficult for you to talk about, but if you could take us through your abduction and captivity to the best of your ability, it will help strengthen our case.

Elizabeth: Where do you want me to start?

DA: From the beginning.

Elizabeth: We skipped school to go dress shopping. We bought these white dresses for the Casquette Girl festival. We liked them so much we wore them out of the store. We were dancing around in them in Jackson Square. That’s where he saw us. I knew we shouldn’t have gone with him,but he said he knew a bar that didn’t check IDs. So, we went. We all got in his truck, and that’s the last thing I remember from that day.

DA: What do you remember next?

Elizabeth: It’s fuzzy. He was drugging us, so I was in and out of it. I remember being in the bayou. We were in his boat, but we ran across another boat with two women. They were arguing with Levi. Then there was some kind of storm. When I woke up again, we were in this little cabin over the water with the two women. They were speaking a different language, Creole maybe. I’m not sure, but I know they were trying to help us. We hid out there for a few days, because Amber was really sick. I think she was having a reaction to whatever we’d been drugged with. The women were trying to help her. Burning sage and saying prayers.

DA: Are these the two women?

Elizabeth: Yes, that’s them.

DA: Let the record show that Elizabeth Barton has identified Marta and Tisha Goode. Miss Barton, are you telling me these women had nothing to do with your abduction?

Elizabeth: Correct. They were trying to help us escape Levi Monroe.

DA: The man who abducted you and held you against your will?

Elizabeth: Yes.

DA: What happened to the women?

Elizabeth: He … he found us and he … he killed them. Shot them in front of us and … threw them into the water. Told us to get in the boat or the same thing would happen to us.

DA: And you got in the boat?

Elizabeth: All of us but Sloane. She freaked out. Jumped out into the water and went under. Monroe shot at her and when she didn’t come up … we left. I … I thought she was dead.

DA: What happened next?

Elizabeth: Levi took us to a farmhouse and locked us in the attic with his dead sister, Rebecca. Said we were supposed to be her friends, take care of her. He’d leave for long periods of time. And when he came back, he would feed us and put jewelry on Rebecca. We eventually figured out they were from his victims. So, we made a plan to escape.

DA: Did you escape?

Elizabeth: Yes. But he caught us and dragged us back. That’s when things got worse.

DA: Worse how?

Elizabeth: Less food, more experiments.

DA: Experiments?

Elizabeth: He would practice on us. Testing drugs, restraints, surgical techniques, that kind of stuff.