Mrs. Edna Garrett never dreamed that her beloved boarding school for girls would one day lead her to the electric chair, but that s exactly where she now sat. Her deep rooted passion for taking wayward or unwanted girls and transforming them into functioning, proud members of society had ultimately led her down a path she could not find her way off of. But even now, moments away from becoming the 10th woman to be executed by the state of Texas, Mrs. Garrett placed the majority of the blame squarely on the shoulders of a tired old game show host.
To say Mrs. Garrett had a case of separation anxiety after she ran off with her new husband to join the peace corps would be an understatement. It was ok at first, but she really missed the school. She thought traveling the world with her new husband and helping those in need would be even more satisfying than focusing on the trials and tribulations of four girls who quite frankly, no longer needed her. After a few years, she found this was not the case.
Many nights she would lie awake wondering how many girls back in the states were slipping through the cracks. How many girls would never become functioning adults because they were deprived of her guidance and advice? Three? Four? And for what? So she could pass out blankets in a third world country? No. She had a talent that went way beyond this soup kitchen stuff and she started to feel like she was being wasted. It didn t matter what it took, she would open a new school and get her life back.
She left her husband in 2003 and moved back to the United States. She thought about going back to New York, but there was nothing left for her there. Jo, Tootie, Blaire and Natalie had all moved on with their own lives. The old school had shut down just last year, which was fine with her. She wanted a new start in a new state, anyway. The Garrett School for Developing Young Women opened in Galveston, Texas, August 10th, 2004.
Things went really well at first. She had a couple of girls enroll in the school right off and she really felt it was the start of something great, even better than before. After a few months she had six girls enrolled. Even though she was a bit older and had two more girls than what she was use to managing, she felt optimistic. Edna was up for the challenge and met it head on.
Everything started to turn bad about a year into it. Things just weren t the same anymore. She lost countless hours of sleep worrying about the schools finances. For whatever reason things just weren t adding up. The tuition for four teenage girls supported the entire operation back in the 80 s. Now she was working with even more students and she still, for some reason couldn t find her way into the black.
She didn t even connect with the students like she use to. She had high hopes at first. Especially for Emily. She was the 4th girl to show up at her school and was literally dropped at her doorstep. She was twelve years old at the time and her parents had left her in the front yard of the school and drove off. Edna s heart immediately went out to the girl when she found her standing outside of her school with nothing except the clothes on her back and a note pinned to her shirt that read Gone to Paris, good luck finding us.
Edna fell in love with Emily. She gave Emily free tuition at her school so the state wouldn t take her and throw her into the system, which gave her the time to file the proper paperwork needed to foster and eventually adopt the abandoned child. It was a decision she would learn to regret.
As Emily grew into a teenager it became obvious that she was not like the other girls. She wasn t social. At first she would engage in conversation or at the lest answer simple questions, but after a while that stopped. Emily sank deeper into her shell and withdrew from making eye contact. She would often sit in the corner and stare at the floor and pout. If she ever did speak to Mrs. Garrett or any of the other housemates, it would always be laced with venom.
Edna wouldn t have been bothered so much if Emily would have stayed that way, but it was getting worse. She went from keeping to herself and being a dark, scary loner, to harassing and sometimes even assaulting the other girls at the school. Two parents even pulled their daughter out of the home and demanded a full refund when their daughter called in hysterics because Emily had threatened to set her hair on fire.
The only thing it seemed like Emily was interested in was setting fires. While other girls talked about boys they saw on T.V. or how to do their hair or make up, Emily sat near the fireplace ripping magazines and slowly feeding them into the flames. On more that one occasion Mrs. Garrett found her setting other students belongings on fire behind a wooden shed in the backyard. She was getting to her wits end. She had to put up with a lot of crap back in the 80 s, but a pyromaniac was not something she was use to dealing with.
Edna slipped into a depression and began drinking. She was there, going through the motions of running the school and occasionally helping one of her charges with a life crisis, but it was all somehow changed. She couldn t exactly say why, but she no longer felt like they were on center stage. Before it felt like the whole world was watching them grow and cheered them on every step of the way, now it felt like no one was there at all, no one cared. She was getting nowhere with Emily and her other small victories with the other girls seemed hollow. Her inability to get through to Emily had sucked the enjoyment out of getting through to anyone else.
The clock just turned to eleven fifteen a.m. as Edna sat hovering over her accounting book, quietly sobbing into her fourth glass of Makers Mark whiskey. Somewhere in the background her television droned on about the Middle East. Edna felt exhausted and was ready for a break from all of the math and the crying. She rested back in her seat, wiped her eyes and turned her head toward the glowing television.
Dan Rather was assuring an entire nation, now herself included, that he would be right back after some short messages. The very next person that came flickering on to the television would set about questions and ideas in Edna s mind that would send her moral compass spinning in all directions. Things that would eat away at Edna s very core until she was empty inside. It was the mother fucking devil himself.
It was Alex Trebek, and he was selling Colonial Penn life insurance plans that started at only pennies a day
Oddly enough Colonial Penn has a children s plan. It s actually comparable to the senior citizens one you always see that doesn t require any kind of heath questions or medical exams. It s even a little bit less a month since they expected you to live a lot longer, so they would be milking you for a long time. That was the idea anyway.
Edna believed her scheme to be perfect. She was Emily s only guardian and the little trouble maker had absolutely no other family, no friends, and nobody that would ask any questions. She had written Emily off a long time ago as unmanageable. That, combined with the fact that she was now costing her tons of money was enough to push her over the edge and set her plan in to effect. After all, she wasn t just hurting Edna, but potentially two, or even three girls that Edna might help during the rest of her career.
Emily was unconscious mere seconds after Mrs. Garrett placed the chloroform soaked rag over her mouth. She never felt her body being dragged through the backyard, or the banging on her head as Mrs. Garrett slid her up the two steps leading to the entrance of the woodshed. She wasn t aware of the rope being securely tied around her ankle, ensuring no escape in the event that she woke up before it was done. She didn t hear Mrs. Garrett jam the door shut, so it would look like she got herself trapped in there on her own. She had no idea of the fire being set all around her.
The major mistake Mrs. Garrett made was assuming that the real world was like it is on television. She had just assumed the rope around Emily s ankle would burn up with the rest of her and it would all be ash. Sadly for Mrs. G this was not the case. When the fire department investigated they found remnants of the rope still stuck to her. Despite Edna s protests a full autopsy was ordered. The toxicology report came back showing she had been drugged not long before her death.
Edna s trial was a short one. She tried to drag it out as much as she could. She almost had a hung jury because she was so sincere about helping young girls become adults. She made sure to play up the sweet old lady act as much as she could and she even had a few fooled. It turns out she was a pretty good actress. It was all over once the jury saw the two million dollar life insurance plan taken out on Emily, coupled with the report of the coroner s office. The prosecutor created a well painted image of a selfish drunk old woman who not only felt no remorse for what she had done, but that she would undoubtedly do it again if she were ever given the chance. Due to the fact that so much money was taken out on a young child s life and its Texas, a death sentence was quickly handed out.
Now Edna sat strapped to a chair awaiting a call that would never come. Her last moments were spent lamenting the day she ever saw that Colonial Penn commercial. She should have just let Emily run her out of business, which she would have done, if that satanist Alex Trebek hadn t put ideas in her head. Protesters came, letters were written, but none of it helped.
Mrs. Edna Garrett was pronounced dead at 12:06 AM on December 14th 2008.