On a crisp September morning in two-thousand-and-seven,
Ashley Wallace awoke at dawn, the sky pale as heaven.
Just twenty years old, in her dorm she prepared,
For her first day of college, excited yet scared.
She straightened her clothes, gathered notebooks with care,
The mirror reflected a girl going somewhere.
A knock at the door made her freeze where she stood—
Who could be visiting? Nobody should.
She opened it slowly, her heart full of dread,
Two officers waited, their faces like lead.
Not here for a crime she had done or had planned,
But news of her father, long buried in land.
They’d exhumed his remains, found poison inside,
No heart attack took him; he’d been made to die.
Shaken and trembling, her answers came weak,
Their pointed questions grew colder, more bleak.
She phoned her poor mother, who’d heard the same tale,
Both sobbing and lost as their strength seemed to fail.
Her sister was crying, the family unsure,
Who’d harmed their dear father? They’d known him as pure.
Back at her mom’s house they sat in the gloom,
Sharing their pain in that small kitchen room.
They poured out their drinks, trying hard not to break,
Yet under the surface a killer lay awake.
Morning brought headaches too sharp to ignore,
A hangover heavy, much worse than before.
Ashley pushed on, tried to face her new day,
While poison was coursing her life away.
Another night came, more drinks, more despair,
A mother, a daughter—death’s scent in the air.
Next morning she woke in a hospital bed,
Two officers watching, their faces like lead.
Her body near failure, her organs near done,
Fifteen minutes from death—yet somehow she’d won.
They handed a note with her signature there,
A confession to murders she’d never declare.
But truth soon emerged like a blade from the mist:
Her mother, not Ashley, had poisoned and hissed.
She’d killed both her husbands with antifreeze pain,
And framed her own daughter to cover the stain.
Yet she called help too early, the ruse fell apart,
And justice soon followed her cold, blackened heart.
Fifty-one years was the price for her crime,
She died behind bars, serving out her time.
And Ashley survived, though her soul bore the scar,
A tale of betrayal too twisted by far.
A family shattered, a nightmare come true,
In rhyming retelling, the darkness breaks through.