Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This article contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.
A teen takes over dads house after he was reportedly commits suicide.
She was a 17 year old who spent money like it was nothing ,even installing stripper pole in her kitchen ,but police say crystal howell was hiding something or rather ….someone.
A loving father is murdered.
His cold -blooded head killer is someone close to home.
And when his dead some say his own house becomes party central
complete with a stripper pole
But where is his body ?
And was money and drugs the motive for murder?
Did something else jsut make this killer snap..?
The howell family of augusta georgia , michael sports editor , mother christina and oldest dauhther sierra.all agreed youngest daughter crystal was a spitfire.
But soon the seemingly harmless mischief turned to serious misconduct
Crystal started lying, stealing and vandalizing other peoples property even setting the neighor´s poo cushion on fire.
There were very strange things that happen with her when she was younger that kind of convinced most of the world that knew the howells that crystal had some problems.
Eventualy crystal was put on medication.
Michael didn´t want her on that medicien but he allowed it .He resally did not want her to be on it ,he thought it changed her personality
crystal´s parents were deeply divided on this issue .
And he would say that christi´s way of dealing with crystal was to medicate her basically put a theoretical pillow ower her face, to keep her quite and keep her in line and he just didn´t agree with that he thougt it was the sheap and easy way out.
Doctors suggested counseling for crystal but michael said . no.
He had been bullied as a child for foing himself .He didnt want crystal to be stigmatized.
He was constantly at odds with his wife about the approach they should be taken with crystal
After 19 yeas of marriage mike and christina decided to split , largely due to the disagreement over crystal and a bombshell sconfession from christina.
Oldest daughter sierra wasn´he´s biological child.
It´s was a life -changing famly revelation
Crystal and her dad packed up and moved to picturesque maggie valley north carolina
And with a large inheritance michael got from his grandparents.
Bought an eight-bedroom hom on sheepback mountain.
But despite the beautiful calm settings . crystal´s issuses escalated to hard drugs.
Frequent shoplifting self -harm and running away .
She could be gone two three weeks at a time sometimes.
A few years later summer remsey and taylor mats at an alterntive high school.
She was very charismatic ,always funny ,she was really weird about her feelings she tried to keep them in and make other people happy .
i was really good in school i never really had experience with anyone who had like a history of trouble or anything .and when i met crystal it was just “oh there´s like the teeanger rebellion i´m supposed to have.”
In that so -called rebellion caused michael to be an even strickter father .
Despite that he and crystal were exeptionally close.
Taylor: ” when i looked at their relationship, that´s what i wanted to have.
summer: they were best friends ,he loved her , she loved him even though he was strict on here she still adored her father .
Buit that adoration would soon be annihilated
Reportedly it was cold february when crystal and her father were out at a local store. he was shopping, she was once again stealing
And he caught her shoplifting and made her apologize and they went back home.
Back at home crystal took a shower .
And mike took a nap.it would be his last one.
The next day crystal told friends her father went on a buisness trip to Georgia
She asked to stay at Taylor´ s house for a couple of weeks until he returned.
Then a phone call that crystal tells her friends has changed everything.
Summer: it was about two or three days into her being over there when we came home from school and her mom called her and that was when her mom told her that her dad had killed himself.
Taylor: she´s like crying hysterically and she ´s trembling and she said “my dad killd himself , what do i do , what do i do?, he killed himself.”
Summer and taylor took care of their friend that night .
then they made a plan to move into crysta´s house to live with now fatherless teen.
taylor : she was like yea that works out perfect and like everyone was exited .
But was she grieving at all ?
Taylor: i mean..i guess in her own weird crystal way, she seemed a little bit messed ubout it.
But apparently not for long reportedly life for the teens on sheepback mountain
turned into a never -ending wild party.
Crystal even installeda stripper pole in the kitchen .
In all the newfound fun was being pad for by crystal´s dad.
Summer : she did had his bank card so she would pay the bills and like the lights and her phone bills and stuff like that and she would by everybody food.
Summer says reports of a party house are greatly exaggerated, she claims the stripper pole was just for fun and exercise
and the parties well it was just one big party , but that party was a doozy.
Summer: there was like 50 people there more than we ever wanted.
And friends say chrystal had drug for everyone .
summer: she brought drugs into the house .it was meth.
Summer says crystal did grugs that night.but duiring the party things got strange and summer believe someone also slipped her something more in crystal drink.
Summer: she was acting crazy, she was out of the world,not the crystal i know. she was kind of hallucinating.
Taylor: there was just kind of like smoke drifting in the air.and she would see smoke clouds and she would say ” oh my gosh that ´s my dad.”
Summer says , she and taylor took care of strange and dysfunctional crystal after the party.
Summer: she sat in a chair for two week and did not move.
Crystal eventually recovered and informed her friends she was going to her mom´s and will be back in six months. she told her friends they could stay .but was one important rule in the house . don´t go near the shed.
summer: she just asked us to stay away from it , this is her exact words ,”that´s where me and my dad went to hang out and that´s special to me” so we just ind of stayed away from it .
Everyone handles grief in a diffrent way .
But the way 17 year old crystal howell moved on from the reported suicide of her father certainley raised som eyebrows
Friends of crystal howell are baffled saying she loved her father and they were wery close .
,
Crystal howell was suddenly alone, the 17 year old moved her friends into her dad´s north carolina mountainside cabin,many say it was a non -stop party zone complete with a newly installed stripper pole
And where was her dad michael , crystal first told friends he was away on a business
Then she said he commited suicide.
Taylor and summer.
But three weeks after her moved in,crystal made a move of her own to her mothers´ house in Augusta Georgia.
Summer: she told me we could stay up there and she would pay for the electric and if we needed help with food or anything to contact her , she said ” i´ll be back in after my birthday.
But before she left crystal made one perplexing demand , asking to follow one rule .
Do not go in the shed.”
Crystal packed her belonings into a U-Haul withdrew at least three thousand frm her dad´s bank account and drove off in his orange landrover.
The very next day crystal´s friend summer broke that one important rule.
And walked into a nightmare.
Summer: she had this pinball machine downstairs and she had told us we get to sell it , we were bringit it back because we didn´t end up selling it , so we were bringit it back and i was ” why would we move it all the way back downstairs , so we just popped the lock off of the shed.
Summer: you could smell it as soon as you opened the door .it was awful.
summer: i just opened like this . i was standing right about here and there was one blue bin in the corner and i just walked in , i looked and that was all i needed to know .
summer: he was like folded like this down in it.like that.
summer: and you could see like this part of his head was blown off.
Horrified summer say she thought the body may have been a party goer from the blowout they had two weeks before.
then quickly realise. no. it was crystals father. Summer and Taylor immediately left terrified.
Summer went directly to the haywood county sheriffs´office.
Summer: i thought she was trying to frame me. that was initially what i thougt i was scared
crystal was nowhere to be found and summer was on the property
Summer : her father own a gun , she told me that he gave her the gun so they could have protectiions and she sold it to my dad for 20 dollars.that is another reason that made me think she trying to frame me
So where was crystal ? the north carolina authorities were looking for her but she was long gone.Crystal had made it her hometown in Georgia.
I was on my way to work and i acctually saw the car in the paring lot and i pulled over and talkted to her, she wasn´t her normal self. she was not wanting to be touched when your tried to huge her “
It was weird,it was really unconfortable ,she looked like she had no soul she looked like there wsssas nobody in there.no conversation .really , she said ” hello” and it basically it.
Christina and Sierra said godbyes to crystal,little did they know what had been done and what was to come.Just hours later authorities found crystal howell sleeping at a local motel and took her into custody.
Investigators soon interrogated crystal
Crystal howell was charged with first degree murder.
When christina learned what her youngest daughter had done, sh e went right to the station .
christina: she gave me a hug and she said i didn´t mean to do it.the only thing she said .
crystal soon confessed to the murder, she tells police as her father slept on the sofa ,che shot him in the head with his own gun
She then moved his body into the shed and moved her friends into the house.
She took approximately twelve thousand dollars from her fathers bank account.
And used a cellphone to search how long a body takes decompose
So the how was clear but what about the why
Austin rhodes/ michael´s friend: she was the kind of person that you could easily predict at one point was going to be in serious trouble he just had no idea she could turn a gun on her own father
While in custody, crystal was diagnosed with several mental disorders
Many believed it was her untreated mental issus , a subject her parents had always been on opposite side of that cause her to snap.
Austin rhodes/ michael´s friend: he wanted a solution that didn´t involve… drugging her. and it is wonderful a thought as that was and unfortunately i think costs his life.
Crystal howell took a plea deal and was sentenced 30 years in prison