Murder in Massachusetts

Mind Games

As far as Patricia Olsen was concerned, Amanda's boyfriend explained to detectives, he believed she "hated Neil ... absolutely hated the guy. Every time she spoke to Amanda, she said he's a jerk. He did not let her do anything. Amanda asked her, 'How come [you don't] just leave him?'"

Patricia answered, "Because he has better lawyers and [I] would not get anything."

"Pat told me," Amanda's boyfriend said, "she wished [Neil] was dead a couple of times. ... Both Amanda and Chris said that Pat wanted Neil dead [and] Pat told me over the phone once that she wanted Neil dead. She never told me she wanted Chris to kill Neil. Pat once told Amanda that she wanted Chris to kill Neil. Amanda said that she did not want to hear it."

The conversation took place over the telephone. Amanda's boyfriend was standing by Amanda as she and Patricia spoke.

"I want Neil dead," Patricia apparently told Amanda, "and [I'll] pay money to see it happen."

From that first moment Patricia mentioned a desire to have Neil killed, Amanda would go to her boyfriend and tell him about it. She grew tired and worried. She didn't want any part of it, she claimed. "I don't want to hear this," Amanda said after she got off the telephone. "I don't want anything to do with it." Amanda would cry, explained her boyfriend. It bothered her. "That's all she talks about," Amanda said. "She's so f—ked up in the head."

It bothered Amanda so much that she once contemplated suicide. Soon, she stopped talking to her mother all together.

"Leave him, mother," Amanda yelled over the telephone another time.

"I can't do that," Patricia said. "I'd be broke."

"Wouldn't that be better?"

"No!"

The last time they spoke about Neil's murder over the telephone, Patricia allegedly said, "I am going to kill myself right now." No one would help her. She was upset the kids couldn't find anyone for the job.

Amanda started crying. "I do not want to talk to you anymore." Then she hung up.

It was at that time, Amanda's boyfriend claimed, when Patricia started "working on" Christopher.

"He used to hint about it all the time. Something about, his mother was going to give him money for doing her a favor ... something about a gun." He couldn't recall exactly what was said, only that he got the feeling that Christopher was seriously thinking about doing this "favor" for his mother, which he presumed to be Neil's murder.