Written In Blood

The Twenty Dollars Murder

t/w for murder, guns, drugs, not proofread

a photo of Chrissy, taken by Grace, four days before her death
March 6th, 1977 - August 28th, 1993

a photo of Grace, taken by Raina, two days before the murder
February 6th, 1977 - September 28th, 1993

a photo of Raina, taken by Grace, the day before the murder
May 1st, 1977 - present

a photo of August, taken by Chrissy, three days before the murder
August 10th, 1977 - present

The Murder of Christina Wright, or, The Twenty Dollars Murder, was an act of betrayal between two lifelong friends.

Grace Lola Shepard and Christina "Chrissy" Hera Wright were lifelong friends, their mothers having planned to have their kids around the same time, due to them also being friends for years. The girls grew up best friends and also grew up with Raina Carla Almeida and August May Reynolds. In 1993, Grace began dating Raina and Chrissy began dating August.

All of the girls came from households that weren't particularly pleasant. Grace's mother ended up dying when she was six and afterwards, she moved in with her father, who was emotionally abusive. Then, there was Chrissy. Her parents divorced when she was seven, her father seemingly vanished, and her mother fell into drugs. Raina was the oldest of ten siblings and had a father who was abusive, to both his children and his wife. She had been born in Portugal but moved to the US when she was six. August, on the one end, was a transgender woman, her parents letting her transition from male to female, even during that time period, but as she got into her teens, her father died and her mother developed an alcohol addiction and subsequently became abusive.

In August of 1993, the girls came up with a plan to run away. So, on August 13th, 1993, all four girls left their NYC homes, got in Grace's car, and just left.

"We smoked, we drank, we sang, we danced," August said in a 2021 documentary. All interviews will be from this documentary unless stated otherwise. "It was a perfect fantasy, almost."

"There was also a lot of sex, that too." Raina said in her interview. "Sometimes, Grace and I, or August and Chrissy, would disappear and come back looking somewhat disheveled but very pleased."

Apparently, Grace would repeatedly ask girls in the group, but mainly Chrissy, if they had twenty dollars. She'd then take the twenty dollars and use it on...well, who knows?

Both Raina and August have said they firmly believe it was alcohol or drugs, which does seem the most likely.

Throughout the course of the trip, in which they never came up with a set destination, things seemed to get progressively heated between Grace and Chrissy. Raina and August described multiple times where the two girls got into arguments, Grace oftentimes pulling over and one of them stomping out of the car for a bit. A few times the altercations got physical but never particularly bad. The main thing they argued over at first was Grace's constant asking for money, but, overtime, it just become, quote, "petty bullshit".

"It was weird watching them fight like this," August said. "For as long as we could remember, they'd been like sisters. Sure, they fought, but it was never like this. Never. They'd grown up all their lives together, it was hard for me and Ray to believe that they would just throw all sixteen years worth of friendship out the window like that."

On the night of August 28th, 1993, they were in the basement of an abandoned building, Chrissy and Grace in yet another argument, that mostly just consisted of Grace begging Chrissy for money. Chrissy was yelling, Grace was yelling and it ended with Grace pulling out a gun, backing Chrissy up against the wall and shouting "I know you have twenty dollars!" Before shooting and killing her.

"I checked out," August said. "I don't remember much, aside from Grace telling me and Raina to help her with the body."

Grace, Raina and August then dumped Chrissy's body by a lake and left to go off to wherever they were going next.

The following morning, Chrissy's body would be found by an anonymous man. He'd report it to police and her body would be quickly identified. Chrissy, as well as the other three girls, had been reported missing.

"I, um, I remember the fear that struck me when I heard they found Chrissy dead," Gwen, Grace's half-sister, said in her interview. "I was scared for Grace and the rest of the girls. The police's main theory was of course that they had run away, it didn't seem unlikely, I'm sure Grace would've asked me to come if I hadn't spent the past week before they left at my boyfriend's. But, anyway, I was terrified what had happened to them if that's how they found Chrissy."

August 30th, Grace, Raina and August were at a restaurant when they saw on the TVs a reporter talking about Chrissy's murder.

"Those past two days, we'd just been kind of following Grace around," Raina said. "Me and August, both in a daze. And then, we saw Grace panic, ushering us out of the restaurant, and then we came back to, it seemed."

"We kept threatening to turn Grace in," August said. "Now, not once did she ever threaten or try to shoot us. Finally, we convinced her."

September 7th, three days before Chrissy's funeral, the girls arrived back in New York City, went into a police station, and Grace admitted to killing Chrissy. She was arrested.

Grace Shepard would hang herself in her cell on September 27th, 1993, at the age of sixteen years old.

Grace Shepard and Christina Wright, best friends born one month apart, best friends dead one month apart.

Shortly following this, Raina and August would be legally emancipated.

Today?

Raina Almeida is a primary school teacher in Porto, Portugal. As of 2021, she's been married to Lucia Almeida and is a mother to two girls. One has the middle name Chrissy, the other, Grace.

August Reynolds is an adolescent therapist, specializing with transgender children. As of 2021, she's married to Hailey Reynolds and the pair have no children, but have two dogs, Scruffy and Tom.