This Girl Is Already D*ed, She Doesn’t Know It Yet

This Girl Is Already D*ed, She Doesn’t Know It Yet

PART1

Pay attention to what’s happening in this courtroom. Watch the young woman in the orange jumpsuit as the bailiff tries to lead her away. See how her mouth opens in that primal scream. Notice her hands, how she’s gripping those chains like she’s trying to rip them apart. This isn’t shock. This isn’t grief.

 This is pure unfiltered rage. In just a few seconds, this 18-year-old is going to tell a packed courtroom something that will send chills down everyone’s spine. Something that will force investigators to reopen cases they thought were closed. Because what started as the tragic murder of one girl is about to become something much, much darker.

You know that friend who just gets you? The one who shows up with your favorite coffee, remembers your dog’s name, texts you exactly when you need it most. For 17-year-old Natalie Morrison, that person was Amber Sinclair. They’d only known each other for 8 months, but it felt like a lifetime.

 Natalie’s mom, Karen, said Amber was a godsend after they moved to Riverside, Oregon in early 2017. “Natalie was struggling,” Karen would later tell reporters, her voice breaking. “New school, new town, didn’t know anyone. Then Amber came along and it was like like she’d found her person.” Riverside was one of those towns where everybody knew everybody.

Population barely hit 15,000. The kind of place where Friday night football games were the social event of the week, and the local diner served as the unofficial town hall. Natalie’s family had relocated from Sacramento in August 2017 after her father got a job managing a lumber mill. For a 16-year-old girl, leaving behind everything familiar felt like the end of the world.

But then there was Amber. Amber Sinclair was a year older, a senior at Riverside High with a reputation for being friendly to everyone. She had that effortless charm some people are just born with. Thick, dark hair always pulled back in a neat ponytail, clear skin, bright smile. She played volleyball, volunteered at the animal shelter, made honor roll every semester.

 Teachers loved her, parents loved her, other kids, well, most of them liked her, too. When Amber approached Natalie in the cafeteria that first week of September 2017, offering to show her around, Natalie thought she’d hit the jackpot. Here was this popular, pretty, put-together girl wanting to be her friend.

 They bonded over stupid things at first, a shared hatred of geometry, a mutual obsession with true crime podcasts, both of them being only children who wished they had siblings. “They were inseparable,” Natalie’s best friend from Sacramento, Riley Chen, remembered. “Natalie would FaceTime me and Amber would always be there. At first I thought it was sweet.

 Then it started to feel, I don’t know, intense.” By November, Amber and Natalie were doing everything together. Study sessions, shopping trips, weekend sleepovers. Amber even got Natalie on the junior varsity volleyball team, convincing the coach to hold late tryouts. From the outside, it looked like the perfect friendship.

 Nobody knew Amber was documenting everything. February 11th, 2018. That’s the night everything ended for Natalie Morrison. It was a Sunday evening, cold and drizzly like most February nights in Oregon. Natalie had spent the day studying for midterms with Amber at the local library. Around 7:00 p.m., Amber suggested they take a break and go for a drive.

 There was this abandoned mill on the outskirts of town, Carver Mill, shut down since the ’90s, where kids sometimes went to hang out, drink, do things their parents wouldn’t approve of. Natalie texted her mom, “Going to grab food with Amber, back by 10.” She would never send another text. Here’s what makes this so twisted.

Amber didn’t just wake up that morning and decide to kill her best friend. She’d been planning it for months, maybe from the very beginning. When investigators later recovered Amber’s laptop, they found a document she’d created in July 2017, a full month before she even met Natalie. The title? The perfect crime, a case study.

Let that sink in. Before Amber Sinclair had ever spoken to Natalie Morrison, she was planning to kill someone. The document was 47 pages long. It detailed everything from choosing a victim, “Must be new to town, socially isolated, trusting.” To selecting a location, “Remote, familiar to me but not to target.

PART2

” To disposal methods and alibis. But it wasn’t just a hypothetical exercise. Amber had been searching for the right person. She’d initially befriended another new student, a girl named Jessica Park, but Jessica’s family moved away after just 2 months. Then came Natalie, the perfect target. Amber drove them to Carver Mill that night, parking her Honda Civic in the gravel lot where grass was breaking through the concrete.

 The main building was three stories of broken windows and peeling paint. Condemned signs plastered on every door. But Amber knew a way in through the back. She’d been there dozens of times, scoping it out. “Come on,” Amber said, flashlight in hand. “I want to show you something cool.” Natalie followed her inside. Years later, investigators would map out exactly where they went.

 Through the main floor, past old machinery rusting in the dark, up a metal staircase that groaned with every step. Amber led Natalie to a second-floor room that used to be an office. There was still a desk in there, a broken chair, scattered papers yellowed with age. “Look at this,” Amber said, pointing her flashlight at something on the desk.

When Natalie leaned forward to look, Amber pulled a tire iron from her backpack and swung it at the back of Natalie’s head. The medical examiner, Dr. Raymond Foster, would later testify that the first blow fractured Natalie’s skull, but it didn’t kill her. Not right away. What happened next is almost too horrible to describe.

Amber hit Natalie 36 more times. 36. The autopsy revealed fractures to the skull, ribs, arms, defensive wounds where Natalie tried to protect herself. Dr. Foster estimated that Natalie remained conscious for at least the first 10 to 12 blows. But here’s where it gets even darker. Amber had brought her phone.

 She’d set it up on the desk, recording video. And according to forensic analysis of that video, which was played in court to a gallery of gasping spectators, Amber stopped hitting Natalie about 5 minutes into the attack. She sat down next to her dying friend and started reading aloud from her journal, the one she’d been keeping since July.

Entry one. Amber’s voice was calm on the recording, almost cheerful. “I need to find the perfect victim, someone vulnerable, someone who will trust me completely.” Natalie was still breathing at this point. Shallow, rattling breaths. Blood pooling beneath her head. Entry 14. Natalie is perfect. She believes everything I tell her.

 She thinks I’m her best friend. She has no idea I’ve been studying her, learning her patterns, her fears. Her trust is so easy to earn. The video ran for 23 minutes. For 23 minutes, Amber Sinclair sat in that abandoned mill reading her murder journal to her dying friend. When Natalie finally stopped breathing, Amber stood up, wiped the tire iron clean with a rag she’d brought, packed everything back in her bag, and left.

 She drove home, took a shower, ordered Chinese food, and then she texted Natalie’s phone. “Hey, you get home okay? Let me know when you’re back safe.” When Natalie didn’t come home by 11:00 p.m., Karen Morrison called her daughter’s phone. It went straight to voicemail. She called Amber. “Oh my god, is Natalie not home yet?” Amber’s voice was thick with concern.

 “We got food at that burger place on Main Street, and then she said she wanted to walk around downtown for a bit. I offered to drive her home, but she said she needed to clear her head. She seemed upset about something, but wouldn’t tell me what.” Karen asked what time this was. “Around 8:30, I think. I’m so sorry, Mrs. Morrison.

 I should have insisted on driving her home.” The story was perfect. Concerned friend, worried mom, troubled teenager who wandered off. When Karen called the police at midnight to report Natalie missing, they asked all the standard questions. “Any problems at home? Boyfriend issues? History of running away?” No, no, and no. Detective Marcus Webb caught the case.

He was 43, 20 years with Riverside PD, and he’d seen a handful of missing persons cases over the years. Most kids turned up within 48 hours, sleeping at a friend’s house, crashed at some party, needed space from their parents. But something about this one felt off from the start. “Natalie Morrison wasn’t the type to just disappear,” Webb said later.

Straight-A student, close with her parents, no history of rebellious behavior. And the weather that night was miserable. Where would she go? By Monday afternoon, search parties were combing downtown Riverside. Volunteers checked parks, shops, anywhere a teenager might hide out. Amber was right there with them, passing out flyers with Natalie’s picture, posting on social media, organizing prayer vigils.

 She played the devastated best friend perfectly. On Tuesday, Detective Webb started reviewing security footage from businesses on Main Street. The burger place Amber mentioned, their cameras showed Amber’s car pulling into the drive-thru at 7:47 p.m. But Natalie wasn’t in the passenger seat. The timestamp on their order, one burger, one order of fries, one drink, showed a single meal.

Webb called Amber in for an interview. “I must have misremembered.” Amber said, eyes wide with distress. “God, I’m so scattered right now. I’m so worried about Natalie. Maybe she didn’t want food. Maybe I dropped her off first. I don’t know, Detective. I just want her to come home.” The tears looked real.

 The concern looked real. But Webb had been doing this long enough to trust his gut, and his gut said something was wrong. He pulled Amber’s phone records. She’d texted Natalie at 8:52 p.m. asking if she was home safe. But cell tower data showed both phones pinging off the same tower at that time, the one near Carver Mill, not anywhere near downtown.

 On Wednesday morning, Webb brought Amber in again. This time he confronted her about the cell tower data. “Okay, okay.” Amber sighed, fresh tears rolling down her cheeks. “I lied about where we went. I’m so sorry. Natalie wanted to go to the old mill. There’s this guy she likes, and he was going to meet her there.

 I didn’t want to tell you because I didn’t want her to get in trouble, but I swear, Detective, I left her there at 8:30, and she was fine. She was waiting for this guy.” Webb asked for the guy’s name. “Tyler something. I don’t know his last name. Natalie met him online.” Convenient. A mystery boyfriend who couldn’t be traced.

But without a body, without physical evidence, Webb couldn’t arrest her. He needed more. On Thursday, a search party volunteer decided to check Carver Mill. It wasn’t an obvious location. It was outside town, not somewhere a teenage girl would walk to, but they were running out of places to look.

 The volunteer’s dog found Natalie in that second-floor office at 2:37 p.m. She’d been dead for 3 days. The crime scene was brutal. Blood spatter covered the walls, the floor, the old desk. The medical examiner’s preliminary assessment suggested severe blunt force trauma, multiple impacts. The volunteer who found her had to be treated for shock.

 Detective Webb got the call while he was sitting in his car outside Amber Sinclair’s house, watching. He’d been tailing her for 2 days, watching her routine, waiting for her to make a mistake. Now he had his crime scene. Now he could move. But Amber had already made her biggest mistake. When investigators processed the scene, they found Natalie’s phone under the desk, battery dead.

 They also found something else, a small video camera mount, the kind YouTubers use for hands-free recording. The camera itself was gone, but the mount was still stuck to the desk with industrial-strength adhesive. Someone had filmed this. And there was only one person who’d walked out of that mill alive. Here’s the thing about teenagers, they think they’re smarter than everyone else.

 They think they can outsmart the police, outsmart forensics, outsmart technology. Amber Sinclair certainly thought she was brilliant. She wasn’t. Detective Webb got a warrant to search Amber’s house on Friday morning. Her parents, Mark and Susan Sinclair, both accountants, both in complete denial that their daughter could be involved, stood in their driveway watching officers carry out boxes of evidence.

“There must be some mistake.” Susan kept saying. “Amber loved Natalie. She’s devastated.” In Amber’s bedroom, investigators found the journal. The actual physical journal where she documented everything. She’d hidden it in a false bottom of her dresser drawer, along with Natalie’s student ID card, a lock of blonde hair tied with a ribbon, and a USB drive.

The journal was leather-bound, about 200 pages. Amber’s handwriting was neat, almost elegant. She dated every entry. July 8th, 2017. I’ve decided to do it. Not just think about it, not just plan it, but actually do it. I’ve spent 2 years researching famous murder cases, studying what went wrong, where people got caught.

 I can do this better. I can be perfect. July 22nd, 2017. Victim selection is crucial. Can’t be someone I already know. That’s too obvious. Can’t be a stranger. No connection means more suspicion. It needs to be someone new, someone I can befriend naturally, someone who will trust me completely. August 4th, 2017. Jessica Park moved away.

 Wrong fit anyway. Her parents were too involved, too protective. I need someone more isolated. September 9th, 2017. Natalie Morrison. New student, just moved here from California. Only child. Parents both work long hours. She’s lonely, desperate for friends. She’s perfect. Page after page documenting how Amber studied Natalie, how she engineered their friendship, how she learned Natalie’s schedule, her favorite things, her fears and insecurities.

 It read like a hunting journal. October 17th, 2017. Natalie trusts me completely now. She tells me everything. Her parents love me. Everyone thinks we’re best friends. This is almost too easy. January 29th, 2018. I’ve decided on February 11th. Carver Mill. I’ve prepared everything. The weapon, the cleanup supplies, the alibi. I’ve thought through every variable, every contingency. This will work.

The final entry was dated February 10th, 2018, the day before the murder. Tomorrow everything changes. Tomorrow I find out if I’m as smart as I think I am, if I can really pull this off. I’m not nervous. I’m excited. Natalie has no idea she’s been living on borrowed time since the moment I met her. Detective Webb had seen a lot in his career, but reading that journal in the evidence room made his hands shake.

 This wasn’t a crime of passion. This wasn’t an accident. This was premeditated murder at its coldest. The USB drive was even worse. Amber had recorded the entire murder on her phone. The 23-minute video showed everything. The attack. Natalie’s suffering. Amber reading from her journal while her friend died. When the prosecutor’s office reviewed the footage, three staff members had to leave the room.

 One threw up, but it was evidence, undeniable, irrefutable evidence. When forensic technicians analyzed Amber’s computer, they found even more. She’d been researching the case obsessively since Natalie’s body was discovered, reading news articles, monitoring social media, even checking how investigators typically build murder cases.

 She’d visited forums about criminal psychology, asking hypothetical questions about how to avoid detection. And here’s what sealed it. Her search history from February 12th, the day after she killed Natalie, included queries like, how long does it take to decompose, and do security cameras at burger places keep footage, and how accurate is cell tower triangulation.

She’d made a critical error. She thought she could control every variable, anticipate every move the police would make, but she couldn’t control forensics. She couldn’t control the physical evidence she left behind. DNA under Natalie’s fingernails. She’d scratched her attacker. Blood spatter on a jacket found in Amber’s closet that she’d tried to wash but couldn’t completely clean.

 Traces of Natalie’s hair in the trunk of Amber’s car. And the video. Dear God, the video. On February 19th, 2018, Detective Webb arrested Amber Sinclair at her high school. She was in calculus class when two officers walked in and asked her to come with them. Students would later say she didn’t look surprised. She looked annoyed.

At the station, Webb read her rights, asked if she wanted a lawyer. “I don’t need a lawyer.” Amber said calmly. “I didn’t do anything wrong.” Even with all the evidence against her, she maintained that position for hours. She had an answer for everything. The journal was fiction. She was writing a crime novel for class.

The video was fake. She’d staged it for a film project. The physical evidence was planted. Then Webb played a card he’d been holding. “Amber, we found something else on your computer. Searches dating back to May 2015. You’ve been researching how to get away with murder for almost 3 years.” Something shifted in her eyes.

 Just for a moment. “You also searched for Bethany Walsh drowning 2016 about 50 times between April 2016 and May of 2017. Bethany Walsh, a classmate of Amber’s who drowned during a school trip to Lake Haven in April 2016. 14 years old. The death had been ruled accidental. Bethany couldn’t swim well. She’d gone out too deep. She panicked.

There were other kids around, but by the time anyone realized she was in trouble, it was too late. Amber had been one of the last people to see her alive. “Why were you so interested in Bethany’s death?” Webb asked. “We were friends.” Amber said. “I was sad about it.” “Were you?” “Because we have messages you sent to other students after she died. You called her annoying.

 You said you were glad she was gone. You said she got what she deserved.” Amber’s calm facade was starting to crack. “We’re going to reopen that case.” Webb said quietly. “We’re going to look at everything again. Were you there when Bethany drowned, Amber? Did you help her along?” That’s when Amber smiled. Actually smiled.

 “You can’t prove anything about Bethany.” She said. “Too much time has passed. Too many witnesses who don’t remember. Lake water doesn’t preserve evidence. That case is closed.” Webb leaned back in his chair. “So, you’re admitting there’s evidence to find?” The smile disappeared. The interrogation lasted 7 hours. Amber never confessed. Not directly. But she talked.

 She talked about how easy it was to manipulate people. How Natalie was so desperate for approval it was pathetic. How she’d planned everything perfectly except she didn’t account for how incompetent the local police would be about checking the mail sooner. It was all on tape. The district attorney charged Amber Sinclair with first-degree murder.

 She was 18, so she’d be tried as an adult. The trial began in September 2018. For 6 weeks the prosecution laid out their case. The journal, the video, the physical evidence, expert testimony from psychologists about Amber’s complete lack of empathy, her narcissistic personality, her methodical planning. Natalie’s parents sat in the gallery every single day holding hands listening to the horrific details of their daughter’s death.

Amber’s defense team argued diminished capacity, mental illness, anything that might sway the jury. But the video made that impossible. This wasn’t a disturbed girl having a psychotic break. This was calculated cold-blooded murder. The jury deliberated for 3 hours. Guilty on all counts.

 Sentencing was set for November 9th, 2018. Judge Patricia Hammond’s courtroom was packed that Friday morning. Media, spectators, Natalie’s family and friends, even some of Amber’s former classmates who wanted to see justice served. Amber sat at the defense table in an orange jumpsuit. Her hair pulled back in her signature ponytail.

 Expression blank. Judge Hammond reviewed the case, the evidence, the jury’s verdict. Then she looked directly [music] at Amber. “Miss Sinclair, you have shown no remorse for your actions. You have demonstrated a disturbing capacity for manipulation and violence. You planned and executed the brutal murder of a young woman who considered you her best friend.

 The impact of your crime on the Morrison family, on this community, cannot be overstated.” She paused. “I hereby sentence you to life in prison without the possibility of parole.” That’s when everything exploded. Courtroom security footage, the footage that would go viral within hours, that would be played on news stations across the country, captured what happened next.

Amber’s blank expression shattered. Her face twisted with rage as she lunged forward, chains rattling. The bailiff tried to restrain her, but she was pulling against him, screaming. “She deserved it!” Amber shrieked, her voice echoing through the courtroom. “She deserved every second! She was weak and stupid and she deserved to die!” People in the gallery gasped.

 Karen Morrison sobbed into her hands. Amber wasn’t done. “And she wasn’t the only one!” She was fighting against the bailiff now, spittle flying from her mouth. “There are others! Others who needed to disappear! You think Natalie was the first? You’re all so stupid!” Three more bailiffs rushed forward. It took four grown men to drag her toward the door while she screamed and thrashed.

 “Bethany knew! She figured it out and I had to do it! And there’s more! There’s” The door slammed shut cutting off her voice. The courtroom sat in stunned silence. Detective Webb was already on his phone calling his team. Within hours investigators were pulling every file on every suspicious death in Riverside going back 5 years. The drowning of Bethany Walsh was immediately reopened.

 A house fire in 2015 that killed a girl named Samantha Torres who’d reportedly bullied Amber in middle school became a priority case. To date investigators have officially linked Amber to three murders. Natalie Morrison, Bethany Walsh, and possibly Samantha Torres. Though evidence in the fire case remains circumstantial.

 There are four other deaths, all girls between the ages of 13 and 17 that are still under investigation. Amber Sinclair was convicted of one count of first-degree murder, one count of evidence tampering, and one count of abuse of a corpse. She is currently serving life without parole at Columbia River Correctional Institution.

 The investigation into Bethany Walsh’s death is ongoing with prosecutors expected to file additional charges in the coming year. The Morrison family established the Natalie Morrison Foundation in 2019, which provides support and resources to families of teenage violence victims. Karen Morrison has become an advocate for better mental health screening in schools and stronger intervention programs for troubled youth.

“We’ll never get Natalie back.” Karen said at the foundation’s launch. “But maybe we can save someone else’s daughter. Maybe we can catch the next monster before they destroy another family.” Natalie Morrison would have graduated high school in 2019. She wanted to study marine biology, maybe work with sea turtles.

 She loved photography and terrible reality TV, and made the best chocolate chip cookies her friends had ever tasted. She trusted too easily, loved too openly, believed the best in people. Her best friend killed her for sport. Rest in peace, Natalie. You deserved so much more than the friend you found.