THE INTERROGATION
(FRAGMENT 7)
December 31, 2016, 8:42 p.m.
Case #: 124.678.21–001
OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPTION OF POLICE INTERVIEW
—START PAGE 8—
| INVESTIGATOR: | How long have you been in Texas, Mr. Thorn? |
| THORN: | Just today. I came in for the show. |
| INVESTIGATOR: | You were scheduled to perform a private concert here in Midland, Texas, as the grand prize of a contest. Is that correct? |
| THORN: | Well, basically. Except that the contest was a crock of shit. You know that, right? |
| INVESTIGATOR: | By all means, enlighten us. |
| THORN: | My label’s always up my ass to do social media. I agreed to do it as long as they let me pick the winner myself this time. |
| INVESTIGATOR: | So you set up a spurious contest as a ruse to meet Tessa Hart? |
| THORN: | Come on, man. A ruse? It was supposed to be a grand romantic gesture. |
| INVESTIGATOR: | And was Tessa aware of this romantic gesture? |
| THORN: | Not exactly. She thought she won a private New Year’s Eve concert for herself and her fifty closest friends. But of course she doesn’t have fifty friends. Or if she did, she wouldn’t want them all in a room with her. So she just invited two. |
| INVESTIGATOR: | Two? |
| THORN: | Her therapist and Taylor. |
| INVESTIGATOR: | Wait a minute. Are you saying now that there is an actual person named Taylor? The person running the @EricThornSucks Twitter account was not, in fact, you? |
| THORN: | No, no, no. It was me. Seriously, it’s not that complicated. You can’t follow this? |
| INVESTIGATOR: | You’ll have to excuse me. It can get a little murky when people start referring to their own multiple aliases in the third person. |
| THORN: | You really don’t like me very much, do you? |
| INVESTIGATOR: | Let me ask you this, Eric. Now, this might sound like a silly question, but I have to ask. Why all the subterfuge? Why didn’t you simply tell Tessa that the person she’d been talking to was you? |
| THORN: | I was going to. That’s why I staged this whole thing. I wanted to tell her in person. |
| INVESTIGATOR: | Why? |
| THORN: | It’s complicated. You don’t understand what it’s like to be famous. |
| INVESTIGATOR: | Go ahead. Help me understand. |
| THORN: | It’s terrifying, OK? It’s scary as shit. It means looking over your shoulder everywhere you go, every step you take, forever. For the rest of my life, probably. It means every single person I meet, online or off-line, I have to look at them and wonder if they’re some kind of stalker who’s going to murder me in my sleep. |
| INVESTIGATOR: | Murder you? |
| THORN: | See, that sounds kind of paranoid, right? And I know that, rationally. I know my fans aren’t out to get me. I know people with mental illnesses are no more prone to violence than anyone else… But I also know the danger isn’t completely in my head. There’s an actual psychological syndrome. It has a name and everything: erotomanic celebrity worship syndrome. Celebrity stalkers who genuinely believe their victims are in love with them. They used it at Dorian’s murder trial. Some expert witness diagnosed her. |
| INVESTIGATOR: | You lost me again. Who are we talking about right now? A fan who accosted you? |
| THORN: | No, no. I’m talking about the fangirl who killed Dorian Cromwell. Did you follow the trial coverage at all? She was totally delusional. He followed her on Twitter, and she somehow talked herself into believing that Dorian was her boyfriend. Like they were in a secret relationship that no one else knew about. She truly believed it. She thought he loved her. And when it became clear that it wasn’t true, she couldn’t handle it, and she hunted him down and killed him. |
| INVESTIGATOR: | I’m sorry, Eric. How exactly does this relate to the crime we’re investigating here? |
| THORN: | You wanted to know why I didn’t just tell Tessa who I was from the beginning. But I couldn’t. I have to be incredibly careful about giving my fans any kind of personal attention. |
| INVESTIGATOR: | You considered her a threat to your personal safety? |
| THORN: | Not Tessa specifically. All my fans in general. |
| INVESTIGATOR: | But now you no longer consider Tessa a threat? |
| THORN: | No, not at all. Now I actually am in a secret relationship with her. That’s why I came here to meet her. |
| INVESTIGATOR: | And you never revealed your identity to her over Twitter because… |
| THORN: | Because I’ve been lying to her for months, and I thought it would be better to come clean in person. |
| INVESTIGATOR: | Hence the contest. |
| THORN: | Exactly. And it would have worked just fine…if not for Blair. |