OK, this is kind of creepy, maybe.
I skimmed through her journal entries for end of March 2008, remembering she wrote about Rachel again then (she did), and saw something I hadn't before.
She stayed days later in Mesa than first planned, and one thing she did was attend a PPL training in Tempe (Tuesday...April 2 or 3). Definitely not because she was the slightest bit interested in PPL, but maybe because sje knew Gus was doing the training.
Her PPL notes were typically very detailed about what interested her most (sporadic attention, no doubt), or she would say she was at training or wherever and do all but doodle to make it look like she was actually paying attention.
That Tuesday she took very few notes, and at the end of them she wrote--
1. (PPL is not a hobby).
2." 2 checking accounts"
3. "Good story to go with receipts"
Reading into that after the fact, or.....?
The Rachel thing--I think she was real. The
wrote about her on and off in her journals, in entries that predated her wholesale fiction writing post-murder.
The
lies to cover up or blur even little details. My guess is she found Rachel on LDS link up, and didn't know her from squat before that (she'd lied to Travis about already having friends in Mesa) , and that Rachel was likely not the best Mormon ever (if she had to break the seal or whatever it sounds like she'd already been married once, not to mention she was apparently living with her BF, not to mention eloping to Las Vegas, to be followed by a wedding on the beach).
None of that screams Mormon, which makes the
's story even more ludicrous, that Rachel the observant urged the
to go unburden herself to her bishop about breaking the law of chastity. If Travis knew of and if he disliked Rachel, I'd bet it was because he didn't respect her as a Mormon.
((It's a
specialty to reverse reality....Rachel being looked down upon Travis (which
would see as an insult directed at herself) becomes Rachel the better Mormon than Travis....))
