"Secrets and Motives"

Illustration by Jörn Heidrath

### Narrator(s)

Jesse Cornett, Addison Peacock, Alexis Bristowe, Corinne Sanders, and Mike DelGaudio

### Next

"Lost"

**"Secrets and Motives"** is the fifth tale in the eighteenth episode of the eleventh season of The Nosleep Podcast. It concerns a detective trying to figure out why three girls killed their teacher. Written by T. Michael Argent, it has a runtime of 34:05 and was read by Jesse Cornett, Addison Peacock, Alexis Bristowe, Corinne Sanders, and Mike DelGaduio. It is the 1381st tale overall on the podcast.

## Summary

A detective, Bateman, is called to a school after three girls, Evelyn, Courtney, and Alison, admit to a murder. As the girls are lead out, Evelyn calls out that what they did was right. Interviewing the principal, Van Patten, Bateman learns the girls entered his office, confessed to the murder, and calmly sat down to await arrest.

Bateman goes over the facts of the case. The school's Human Anatomy teacher, Mr. Price, was murdered a few days previously, stabbed multiple times. Price, an avid hunter, kept a slaughterhouse in the basement where he would carve up the deer and elk he caught. He is to interview the three girls about their involvement.

At the first interview, Evelyn tells him that she had an older sister that was murdered the year previously, but the perpetrator was never caught. The only evidence at the scene was a piece of a bumper and some black paint flecks. She noticed that Mr. Price had a black car and a new bumper. She refuses to say anything more and is taken away.

Courtney reveals in her interview that she agreed to commit the murder because Mr. Price looked at the girls in class funny and was supposedly having affairs with them. She then reveals that her and Evelyn saw Price in the vicinity of Bethany Poole, a missing and presumed dead girl, on the day she vanished.

Going home that night, Bateman goes over Price's life. He used to have a girlfriend before she died in a car accident. He then moved schools and took new jobs before coming to the girls' high school, all with spotless records. However, there was a kidnapping and murder at one of the schools he taught at, which bears a striking resemblance to the murders of Bethany and Evelyn's sister.

In the final interview, Alison reveals that Bethany was her best friend. They were both outcasts, the former because she wore glasses, and the latter because she was missing two fingers. Alison had a dentist appointment the day Bethany was murdered, and blames herself for her disappearance because she wasn't with her. After hearing about Price's proximity to her from Evelyn and Courtney, she agreed to search his house for evidence on a day he was supposed to be gone.

They broke in late at night and searched upstairs, finding nothing. Going in the basement, they saw the blood from a carved up deer and assumed it was Bethany's. Price came downstairs, having been at the store buying soap, and asked the girls what they're doing there. Evelyn snapped and stabbed Price a few times before Courtney and Alison joined in, dragging Price out to his backyard and killing him.

Bateman is about to tell Alison that all of the girl's evidence against Price was circumstantial, but realizes that she truly believes what they did was right. He decides to say nothing.

A few weeks later, he visits Price's old classroom. He reflects on the fact that the girls destroyed their lives with a series of unfortunate misunderstandings and concludes Price was innocent. On his way out, he bumps into a skeleton hanging on a hook, used to teach the students about the bones in the human body. It is missing two fingers.

## Cast

Jesse Cornett as Bateman

Addison Peacock as Alison

Alexis Bristowe as Courtney

Corinne Sanders as Evelyn

Mike DelGaudio as Van Patten