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She knew something that she didn't want to tell Marlene over the phone. On her way home, she had driven by a bunch of
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police and like commotion on the local school grounds. So, as she's like having this realization, all she can bring
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herself to say to Marlene was, "You need to hang up and call the police immediately." Which Marlene does. And
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she said police were at her door within minutes. Now, she wanted to show the officer a picture of her daughter that
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was missing so he knew who to look for. >> But she said that he couldn't even bring
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himself to look at it. All he said was Wendy had an accident. >> And even in that moment, her mom is
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looking for all the explanations that aren't the worst one. She said she remembered thinking, "Oh, like maybe she
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got hit by a car or something." And you can almost pinpoint the moment in her story when the real trauma happened and
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Marlene's brain started trying to protect her from it because the actual words that came out of the officer's
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mouth are fuzzy to her now. But she says that she just remembers he said something like she came across a bad
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person and somehow she was told that Wendy was dead.