My Sister’s Murder Wasn’t Sexy!

Investigation Discovery used my family’s nightmare for ratings

Lee Griffo
7 min readJan 6, 2015
Jessie, with her new Gucci Fiat, a month before her murder, photo credit: author.

Trigger warning: This article contains descriptions of graphic violence.

My sister, Jessie, decomposed in her home for four days in the Arizona summer, her bodily fluids pooling with those of her murderer and long-time partner, Dallas Augustine, who put a bullet first through my sister’s brain and then through her own.

The shot that killed my sister entered near the top of her head from inches away and exited her lower jaw — destroying her beautiful face — before lodging in her shoulder. Because her body slumped forward, the decomposition had advanced to the point she was unidentifiable without dental records. Her murderer remained upright with a single clean shot through her temple. That bullet was found in their couch.

The smell in the house was indescribable. The police removed the bodies and the evidence from the scene but left the ghastly clean-up to our family. Seemingly gallons of rotting blood soaked the floor. The professional cleaning crew couldn’t come right away, so we worked for days around that awful stain. The smell clung to our clothes and imprinted us with another level of horror.

Defiling corpses

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Lee Griffo

Life thoroughly lived. Unvarnished scandals and triumphs. Exhilarating, humiliating and true. Proud to be published in The Memoirist and Human Parts.