On August 4, 2021, Hol­ly is inter­rupt­ed from a dis­tract­ing evening by the arrival of Isabelle Jaynes, along­side Her­bert Beale and Cur­tis Rogan from the FBI. Their vis­it con­cerns a shock­ing case mak­ing head­lines, pro­pelled into the spot­light by diaries dis­cov­ered in Emi­ly Har­ris’s clos­et, start­ing in Octo­ber 2012, before Jorge Luis Cas­tro’s mur­der. Cur­tis Rogan, an FBI pro­fil­er, high­lights the exten­sive and hor­ri­fy­ing con­tent of these diaries, span­ning over a thou­sand pages, reveal­ing Emily’s deep-seat­ed hatred and psy­chosis far exceed­ing her part­ner Rod­ney’s incli­na­tion towards vio­lence. These diaries detail Emi­ly’s detes­ta­tion for Cas­tro, filled with appalling racial slurs and a broad­er, ven­omous view of oth­ers, sug­gest­ing a lev­el of hatred that was kept hid­den even from her hus­band.

The dis­cus­sions reveal Emi­ly as the insti­ga­tor in the mur­der and can­ni­bal­ism of Cas­tro, a deed she per­suad­ed her hus­band to par­take in under delud­ed beliefs of it hav­ing mir­a­cle cures for their phys­i­cal ail­ments, along­side oth­er base­less ben­e­fits. Despite Rod­ney Har­ris’s poten­tial hes­i­tan­cy, high­light­ed by his inabil­i­ty to move beyond mere frus­tra­tion at soci­etal norms and taboos, it was Emily’s per­sua­sive and deeply dis­turbed mind­set that ini­ti­at­ed their descent into repeat­ed acts of can­ni­bal­ism. These dis­turb­ing rev­e­la­tions pro­vide a pen­e­trat­ing look into the psy­che of Emi­ly Har­ris, illus­trat­ing a blend of psy­cho­log­i­cal manip­u­la­tion and psy­chot­ic belief sys­tems lead­ing to their heinous acts, as uncov­ered through these diaries which are dubbed by Rogan as invalu­able from a psy­cho­log­i­cal per­spec­tive, despite their grotesque and chill­ing con­tents.