Page 16 of The Truth You Told (Raisa Susanto #2)

KATE TASHIBI (VOICE-OVER): Long before Nathaniel Conrad was known as the Alphabet Man, he made headlines as the Survivor. That’s because little ten-year-old Nate was the only one to make it out alive after Nathaniel Sr. poisoned his wife, his three children, and himself over Sunday dinner.

FIRST RESPONDER ETHAN JACOBS: I was the first person on the scene that morning. The neighbor called us after she hadn’t seen anyone in the family outside for three days. Three days. Do you know what that does to a body? And the two kids ... I’ll never forget that sight for as long as I live.

NEIGHBOR MARIE D’NATA: They were such a lovely family. The two girls could have been twins, and their mother always dressed them in matching skirts and cardigans. They couldn’t have been sweeter. The mother volunteered at every church function you can imagine, and had the best recipe for a yummy peach cobbler. Nate? How would I have described him? Well, now I know better. But I would have said, Dennis the Menace . Mischievous, maybe, but a good boy.

TASHIBI: You were the one who called the police weren’t you?

D’NATA: Oh, yes. Paul, my husband, told me not to, of course. Told me I was being too nosy like usual. My whole family used to tease me about that. They never did once after that, though, mark my words. But the Conrads hadn’t gone to church, which was already unusual. Come Monday morning, and Nathaniel Sr. didn’t go to work. I went over and knocked on their door, but all their lights were out. By Wednesday, I’d had enough. I figured the most the police could do was laugh at me.

TASHIBI: No one laughed at you.

D’NATA: [sniffle] No. No they did not.

TASHIBI (VOICE-OVER): In the chaos that followed the discovery of the family, it took another four hours before anyone realized little Nate was unaccounted for. The sheriff’s department assembled a search party, but they didn’t need to look far. Nate had escaped into an abandoned barn behind the family property. He had a broken leg and was severely dehydrated, but otherwise he was in good shape. Children are resilient like that, the doctors said.

PSYCHOLOGIST HENRI OLIVER: Now, Conrad wasn’t a patient of mine.

TASHIBI: Understood.

OLIVER: Even if Nate was fine physically, the trauma would have caused deep, deep wounds. Since he didn’t return to the house, we can safely assume he realized what had happened, and that someone in his family had killed the rest.

TASHIBI: Looking back now, is there any chance that Nate might have been the one to poison his family that day?

OLIVER: I suppose anything is possible. The only hint of abuse in the family were three hospital visits for the two girls. The fact that the mother never sought care for herself might indicate that it was Nate who was causing the injuries instead of the father.

TASHIBI: Or they were simply childhood accidents.

OLIVER: Yes, we might never know. The fact that he rates highly on the Hare scale that measures psychopathic traits in individuals, though, means we can’t rule anything out. But if it was his father, it’s amazing the young Nathaniel survived. He was a small child to begin with. And then three days outside. He was lucky it was summer. He was lucky he threw up the poison. He was lucky for a lot of reasons.

TASHIBI (VOICE-OVER): Maybe so. But can the same be said for the rest of the world? It’s chilling to think how many lives would have been saved had he been just a little less lucky.