Chapter 5 - Progress Reports
Derek's contracting company was months from collapse.
He'd hidden more than $415,000 in debt from Hannah, including private loans she'd never heard about.
Two months before Carol moved in, Derek had talked Hannah into raising the life insurance policy they'd taken out when they found out she was pregnant. He'd called it responsible planning for the baby.
He was the primary beneficiary.
But the money was only half of it.
Investigators pulled messages between Derek and Carol going back almost four months. They'd talked about Hannah's pregnancy, her appointments, and how easy it would be to explain away her symptoms as stress, nausea, or a bad appetite.
Carol handled the food.
Derek handled the story around it.
Every time Hannah complained, he told relatives she was becoming obsessed with her weight. He sent his careful little messages to her doctors. He canceled a nutrition consult and told Hannah the clinic had rescheduled. He kept a note on his phone tracking her weight every few days.
The entries didn't read like a worried husband.
They read like status updates.
Police found several of Carol's prescription bottles locked in a cabinet in the laundry room, next to containers from meals she'd cooked separately for Hannah. Lab testing tied more food from the refrigerator to the same drug.
The worst of it came out of Derek's deleted cloud backup.
Three weeks before that dinner, Carol had written:
"She's tougher than you told me she'd be."
Derek answered:
"Then keep it slow. The doctors already think she won't eat."
Carol wrote back:
"And if the baby comes early?"
Derek's reply was five words.
"That may solve both problems."
Hannah read the whole exchange one time.
Then she handed the phone back to Detective Reyes and said, "I want a lawyer. I want a divorce. And I don't want either of them within a hundred feet of my daughter."
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Derek and Carol were arrested before sunrise.
Prosecutors later charged them both in connection with the poisoning and a conspiracy count. Derek's finances turned into a separate case once detectives found he'd used Hannah's information to apply for another loan behind her back.
