Original subtitles

[otherworldly music playing]

DISPATCHER: 911. This line's recorded.

What is your emergency? ARNOLD: Um...

It's Christa Worthington. I think she fell down

or something. I'm p-- I'm sure she's dead.

[dramatic music playing]

NARRATOR: Christa Worthington was never the type

to regret anything.

But after she was brutally murdered,

it was her way of life that was put on trial.

MANSO: Here's a single mother murder victim

being called a-a whore.

NARRATOR: Slut-shaming,

small-town gossip, and a convenient killer.

What really happened to Christa Worthington?

[seabirds chirping]

Born December 23, 1956,

to an affluent family in Truro, Cape Cod,

Christa Worthington was an only child with a bright future.

- I knew Christa.

My home in Truro is

less than a mile from Christa's house.

She was bright, as I say, she was definitely--

she was brighter than most people.

She was quite literary, she read a lot.

And she wrestled with ideas.

She had dreams of becoming Virginia Woolf.

NARRATOR: After graduating from Vassar,

Christa moved to New York City to pursue a career as a writer.

- I met Christa probably in 1991.

We worked on the first of the Chic Simple book series.

Her writing was both sensual and sensible.

"Sex is part of the design motivation

"behind every pair of boots, pumps, sandals

and signature mules."

She would describe a handbag as "Freud's take on the womb."

I mean, like, who would come up with that?

MANSO: She shortly gets a freelancing job

with several fashion magazines,

including The New York Times.

GROSS: She was amazing.

She just captured the zeitgeist of the '90s.

[upbeat music playing]

NARRATOR: By the time she reached her 30s,

Christa was well-known in the fashion industry.

GROSS: She knew the beat. She knew fashion inside out.

MANSO: She moved to Paris for about a year and a half.

She then got a job with Women's Wear Daily,

which is the gospel

when it comes to fashion publications.

LATART: Christa Worthington

reminds me of The Devil Wears Prada.

She, like the Anne Hathaway character,

turned into the Anna Wintour character.

♪

NARRATOR: She was at the top of her career,

but there was something missing.

Christa wanted a child.

- She was not married,

and she was just gonna do it her way.

LATART: It was in her late 30s.

She was told by a doctor

that she wouldn't be able to have children.

When she was told no, I think that it probably crushed her.

NARRATOR: But Christa was determined.

She left her career in fashion, moved home to Cape Cod,

and began writing about fertility,

hoping to find a way to have a child on her own.

CARROLL: It's something that she was very open about.

WORTHINGTON: Trying to figure out how to be

the best parent to your child, given that there is no father.

- Christa's personal life in Cape Cod was complicated.

Truro is a really small town,

and she didn't care about small-town morals.

She was a woman who really took her life into her own hands,

and I think that was threatening to some people.

People didn't like that she was flouting these norms and saying,

"I can find happiness however I want."

She had an affair with Tony Jackett,

the town's shellfish constable.

- Tony was married. He has four children

with his wife, and then two adopted children.

Tony is a good-looking guy.

He has a charm to him.

They would sneak away and they would meet

right there on the ocean.

[dramatic music playing]

♪

CARROLL: She got pregnant.

LATART: Obviously, this was a blessing for her.

And it was a shock for him, and he wanted to keep it a secret.

MANSO: That's when her lover Tony Jackett

broke off the relationship.

LATART: So Christa was going to be

a single mother.

After Christa gave birth

to her daughter Ava,

she wanted to start seeing other people.

So she started dating Tim Arnold.

CARROLL: He was a children's book illustrator.

LATART: He just wanted to be with her.

He thought that she was going to be the one.

They dated for a couple months,

but then they ended up splitting.

It was something

that he seemed to not be able to deal with very well.

NARRATOR: Tim was heartbroken. But Christa moved on.

LATART: She decided to go on

as many dates as she thought she needed to or wanted to.

In the Cape Cod area, that was kind of frowned upon.

NARRATOR: Between her affair and ongoing love life,

she developed an outsized reputation.

MANSO: Locally,

there were women who resented Christa.

NARRATOR: What happened next would shake them to their core.

DISPATCHER: 911. This line's recorded.

What is your emergency?

ARNOLD: I don't know what happened.

I-I think she's dead.

[high-pitched ringing]