The Kidnapper's Wife

59. During

Alexis Melissa Sonello

Part One of Recorded Interview

Date: January 11, 2017

Duration: 50 Minutes

Location: Frederick County Sheriff's Office

No. of Pages: 5

Conducted by Officer Brown

Officer Brown: And when Mr. Carter and Anna were in Mr. Carter's office, could you hear them at all?

Alexis Sonello: No. It was very quiet. I even went up to the door because I was going to knock and ask to talk to Anna but then...I don't know, I felt weird about it. Like I was....interrupting something. Anna had been so secretive about the whole thing I thought maybe she would be mad if she knew I'd followed her. So I just stood there a few minutes and then I went out to practice tennis by myself. 

Officer Brown: Did you notice anything else weird about Anna's behavior during that timeframe?

Alexis Sonello: Well, yeah. I mean like I said she'd become really secretive. She wouldn't tell me anything anymore. What she was doing, where she was going. She was always busy, but I don't know with what. And during robotics practice she completely ignored me. She focused all of her attention on Mr. Carter. Sometimes it felt like it was their robot and the rest of us were just slaves to do the boring parts. 

Officer Brown: So Mr. Carter also gave Anna a lot of attention, even in front of you.

Alexis Sonello: Yeah Anna was clearly his favorite. But that's not really unusual. Teachers always have favorites like that. Usually they have more than one, but with the way Anna was sucking up to Mr. Carter, I don't think anyone really thought it was that surprising. What was weirder was the way Anna was acting. Like the rest of us didn't even exist. And not just in robotics club either. She acted like she was suddenly too good for all her old friends all the time.

Officer Brown: In what way? Can you give me an example?

Alexis Sonello: In every way. She would never hang out with us anymore. She called anything we wanted to do "juvenile". It was her new favorite word. Going to the mall was boring. Going to the school football games, which we always used to love, was "so high school". One time I pointed out that she was in high school...had just started in fact, and she told me that she felt like an old soul. She said she was thinking about doing an accelerated program to get her GED so she could get out early and start her "real life". 

Officer Brown: So did you ever find out what she was doing when she wasn't spending time with you?

Alexis Sonello: Yeah. One day Anna's mom called my mom in a panic, because she didn't know where Anna was. My mom called around and asked me to go look. I went out to the places Anna and I used to go even though I knew she wouldn't be at any of them. After a while, my mom called me and said Anna had been at Mr. Carter's house, being "tutored". 

Officer Brown: From the way you said "tutored" I get the impression you don't believe that was what was really happening?

Alexis Sonello: Well...here's the thing. A few weeks into the school year, Anna had been ignoring me a lot, so we were barely even seeing each other, but her mom asked my mom to watch her for a weekend while Anna's parents took her brother to some sort of debate championship. So on that Saturday night, Anna and I walked over to the grocery store to get snacks for our Netflix marathon. While we were there we saw Mr. Carter's wife.

Officer Brown: And you girls recognized her?

Alexis Sonello: Oh yeah. Everyone knows Mr. Carter's wife. She comes by the school a lot to bring him lunch or say hi, and all the guys think she's hot. 

Officer Brown: I see. And how did Anna react to seeing Ms. Carter?

Alexis Sonello: She acted really weird. She started saying how ugly and stupid she was and all these horrible things that didn't even make sense. I asked her why she was being so mean when Ms. Carter had never even done anything to her, and she got really quiet. Then she sort of brushed it off, and said she'd just heard some things when she was at Mr. Carter's for tutoring. She said not everything was as perfect as it seemed and Ms. Carter was actually a...well she called her a lot of bad words that day. 

Alexis Sonello: When we passed Ms. Carter, I said hi, just to be polite, and Ms. Carter greeted us and asked how we were. We made some small talk, but Anna didn't say a word during the entire conversation. In fact, she sort of glared at Ms. Carter. It was really rude. After we walked away I told her I thought she was being rude, and she went off on me. 

Officer Brown: What did she say?

Alexis Sonello: She said I shouldn't insert my nose in things that don't concern me and that I had no idea what the situation was between her and Ms. Carter. I said of course I didn't, she never told me anything anymore, she was like a different person. Then she burst out that just because she had a boyfriend now and I didn't, didn't mean I got to act all possessive and jealous.

Alexis Sonello: I was so surprised that I didn't say anything for a minute, and then I asked her who her boyfriend was. I had no idea what she really meant. I was happy for her. I thought it explained why she'd been distant. But I couldn't understand why she hadn't told me.

Officer Brown: What did she say when you asked her who it was?

Alexis Sonello: She wouldn't tell me. She just said it was someone out of high school, she gave the impression he was in college or something, and she said he was so much cooler than us. She said she couldn't tell me his name because he didn't want his parents to know he was dating a high schooler. But then it was like the flood gates had opened. She gushed about this mysterious boyfriend for the rest of the night, all about how great he was and how they were going to have a life together. 

Officer Brown: A life together after high school?

Alexis Sonello: Well she said she'd been looking into online school programs and she was considering moving out of her parents house and just finishing school online so she could live with this guy. She said she'd looked into how to become emancipated from your parents and she thought she could do it. 

Officer Brown: And what did you say to all that?

Alexis Sonello: I told her it was a horrible idea. She didn't really go into all of that until later in the night, right before we went to sleep. When I told her she was being stupid, she got really mad, and after that, things were even more different between us. We barely spoke anymore. She didn't really have many friends at all by that point. 

Officer Brown: And around when was that?

Alexis Sonello: I think it was a week or two before she went missing.