dateline the secret life of the homecoming queen

Michelle was said to be frosty to the idea. After a missionary trip to Cuba, he came back home afire with the idea of becoming a minister full-time, leaving his job to see where Jesus would lead him. Thad, meanwhile, was becoming even more involved in the church. When Thad got home from work, she’d say she’d had a long day with the kids and she was going off to shop. MURPHY: That spring Michelle started popping in on her in-laws next door less frequently. And that was Thad’s excuse as to why she was so down in the dumps and everything. And some guy stepped in supposedly before they did and bought it. WALKER: They had already qualified for it. Michelle grew older and stayed cute, a kind of “Little Miss Sunshine” who always thrived in the attention her golden looks brought. Her single mom raised Michelle and her two older brothers with the teachings of the Baptist Church as a moral foundation. Her parents split up when she was a little girl and her father died when she was only 13. MURPHY: What the old photos of a happy kid don’t reveal were the fault lines in Michelle’s childhood. So grab the little poodle, you know, the doggy, and take another picture. And she would sit at my mom’s and dad’s in the swing, I would take her picture. TRISH BENEFIELD: She was always wanting to pose for my camera. She always seemed to end up front and center in the family snapshots kept by her Aunt Trish Benefield. Growing up here in this conservative community in the ‘70s was a sparkly little girl named Michelle. Proud to be in the Bible Belt and all that implies about how you live your life and treat your neighbors, a great many of whom you’ll know by name. Rome, Georgia, a county seat northwest of Atlanta, population about 35,000.

MURPHY: A sense of place is important to this story, and here it is. HARPER: It’s hard to believe things got to where it was.

Dateline the secret life of the homecoming queen