Christopher Goffard, “Framed” (16262 words)

Goffard’s piece “Framed” was truly a page-turner, or in this case, kept me scrolling. In 2011, Kelli Peters was the PTA president of the Plaza Vista School in Irvine, California. A parent called the police stating that Kelli was driving “erratically” and said he saw drugs in her car. However, Kelli was inside of the school helping a coworker at the time of the call. When Officer Shaver found the drugs in her car, Kelli’s world turned upside down. It turned out that Kelli had an enemy: Jill Easter. Jill became furious when Kelli “mistreated” Jill’s son by leaving him outside, and called him “slow” to line up. This lead to a whole slew of events, from the drugs being found in Kelli’s car to the flyers Jill handed out, the phone call, the affair, the book, and the trial.

This story was insane! From the audio message that the police department provided where one can clearly hear Kent Easter change his accent, to the fact that Kelli’s daughter did not feel safe to sleep alone at night, it is unfortunate to realize that there are truly people like this. Goffard does an excellent job of putting us into the situation at hand, which allows us to feel empathy with Kelli and hope that both Kent and Jill are sentenced.

The story was organized into six chapters, all written by the same author. One aspect of this that I found particularly interesting is the fact Goffard labeled them chapters rather than parts. As this was a suspenseful, crime/mystery story, I think that the formatting was fitting and would be good to consider for any stories that have multiple parts. Also, the utilization of dialogue kept the story moving. Goffard took online commentary as well, which was a good way to include outside perspectives. Although this is not a photo gallery, the use of images really enhanced the story as the audience could put a face to a name. I liked that at the end of the story, there was a section called “How this series was reported.” I think this would be something interesting to consider while creating our publication.

After I finished reading the article, I decided I wanted to complete more research. For me, it was almost like a “where are they now.” The events occurred in 2011, the article was published in 2016, and I came upon a few videos from 2017. The videos I found were separate interviews between Dr. Phil and Kelli and Jill. I was intrigued to hear their first-hand accounts and surprised that Jill accused Kelli of the actions she committed against Kelli. Jill refused to answer many questions, and she attempted to put all of the blame on her husband.  (458)