The Return of Ellie Black

“There was no way Kat could know a dollar figure was attached to each case. A careful calculation multiplied by parents’ wealth, then divided by race and religion. The poorer and darker a girl, the less funds and time the department allocated to her rescue—after all, the public is a little less outraged when those types of girls go missing. Maybe Ellie’s mom could sense it—some daughters were worth more than others. This was not a viewpoint Chelsey subscribed to. But it was a reality, even if she didn’t want to believe it.”

This quote explores the racial and socioeconomic inequalities that factor into missing persons cases. Although Chelsey does not approve of the notion that some girls and women are “worth” looking for and others are not, she understands the reality of the situation. Even Kat, though not privy to the police’s policies, intuitively understands this; she lists all the reasons why Ellie is a good person because she understands that this is important to her daughter’s survival.

“Ever since Ellie Black’s disappearance, Chelsey has volunteered for any case involving violence against women. She always has plenty of work to do. All those beaten, all those bruised, all those maimed women are welcomed on Chelsey’s shores. It is a type of atonement, Chelsey understands. She could not save Lydia. She could not solve Ellie’s case.”

Chelsey takes on more case work to suppress her trauma. Emiko Jean uses the metaphor of Chelsey welcoming women onto her “shores” to tie Chelsey’s behavior to the belief that Lydia’s body was lost at sea. Chelsey connects her work to her inability to save Lydia when she was a child, and she desperately wants to assuage her guilt—one of The Psychological Impact of Trauma.

“I used to obsess over stories about missing girls. […] Back then, I didn’t think of the girls as actual people. Not living, breathing humans who had been tortured, pushed beyond their breaking points. […] I thought I was invincible. But then, I learned. I learned that I didn’t need shackles or chains to keep me bound. All I needed was four walls of pristine forest. And fear. The kind that festers and blisters, makes your limbs twitch. Yes. The best prisons are the ones created in our own minds.”

Ellie’s remark suggests a critique of the true crime genre, as she admits that she failed to remember that every story describes the suffering of real people. Ellie learns through real-life experience the horrors of these stories and how fear can trap a person within the confines of their own mind.