Tessara and Samantha Crespi

"Is there no way out of the mind?"

-Sylvia Plath

It was the 20th of January 2006. A Friday. Five year old twin girls Tessara and Samantha had the day off school that day as they both felt a little unwell. They lived in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States with their parents, David and Kim, and three older siblings Jessica, Dylan and Joshua David. 

The Crespi Family

David and Kim married in 1994. They met as students at California State University. David's first wife died of cancer and Kim adopted his two children Jessica and Dylan. Two years after they married, they had Joshua David and four years later, they had the twin girls. They lived in a beautiful home which Kim looked after and David was a senior vice president at Wachovia.

That day, David was also at home as he had requested a week off from work. He also felt unwell. The day itself began as normal. David did a bit of work from home and his mother called him at 11.30 am. He spoke to her for about fifteen minutes. Kim left the house around twenty minutes after the call ended. David said he would look after the twins. Kim was going to get a hair cut and would only be gone for around an hour. And she was. But in that short period, Kim's entire world was shattered. 

David, Tessara and Samantha

At 1.20pm, as Kim approached her house, she noticed there was a lot of commotion and activity in the area. There were people on the street, even some of her friends were outside and there were police cars everywhere. Kim had no idea what was going on. As she approached her house, an officer asked her to get out of her car. He needed to tell her something. Her twin girls, Tessara and Samantha, had been murdered. As Kim was trying to make sense of the words the officer had said, she then found out who had killed them. It was David. 

David, Kim, Tessara and Samantha

David confessed to police that he killed Tessara and Samantha. After he killed the girls, he called 911 and told them what he had done. When Kim left the house that day, the girls wanted to play with their Dad. It was something they always did. David loved to play with his children. Sometimes the girls would dress up as Disney Princesses and they would watch Disney movies and sing. That day, they wanted to play hide and seek instead. 

Tessara and Samantha

When the girls went to find their hiding spots, David went to the kitchen and got two knives. He found Samantha first. She was hiding in the kitchen and he stabbed her eighteen times, in the chest , back and head. Tessara tried to run away from David and she hid in a walk in closet in the master bedroom. He found her and stabbed her fourteen times. 

Tessara and Samantha

David called 911 and told the Operator he killed his two daughters. Before the police arrived, David changed his clothes as they were covered in his daughter's blood. 

It was the darkest day for Kim. Without any warning, she lost the life she shared with David and her two beautiful girls that Friday afternoon. David had never been violent before. He was a loving father, a well liked neighbor and work colleague and a devoted husband. There were no signs that he was about to murder his twin girls that day. It was an act that was unforgivable yet Kim managed to forgive David.