Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. On May 29th, 2016, a dozen eyewitnesses watched as an SUV drove off a 200-foot cliff on the winding Hana Highway on the island of Maui. The only thing more tragic than witnessing a car fly off the edge of the cliff
was that it appeared to some eyewitnesses that the car didn't brake, but actually accelerated towards the cliff. The SUV landed on the only section of rock, completely surrounded by the crashing waves of the Pacific Ocean. When the first responders reached the side of the SUV, they were completely shocked by what they saw.
Inside of the white SUV were two identical twin sisters. One was dead and one survived. Was what happened on Hana Highway in May 2016 a tragic car accident? Or was this a case of a botched murder-suicide plot? This is Forensic Tales, episode number 50, The Yoga Twins Murder. ♪
Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell. Forensic Tales is a weekly true crime podcast that discusses real life.
Bone-chilling true crime stories with a forensic science twist. Some cases have been solved. Others have become cold cases. If you're interested in supporting the show and getting early access to weekly episodes and bonus material, consider visiting our Patreon page, patreon.com slash forensic tales.
Every contribution to the show, big or small, helps me to continue to produce the true crime content you love. Please consider supporting the show on Patreon. Another great way you can help support Forensic Tales is by leaving us a rating with a review. Now, let's jump right into this week's episode. Hey everyone, this is a very special episode of the show, Forensic
That's because this is episode number 50. I can hardly believe we've been at this for 50 straight weeks now. We haven't skipped a single week and wow, our one year anniversary is right around the corner.
So before we dive into the episode this week, I just want to say a huge thank you for listening, for supporting Forensic Tales podcast, and here's to the next 50 episodes. The story this week is going to take us to May 29th, 2016 on the Hawaiian island of Maui.
On May 29, 2016, several eyewitnesses watched a Ford Explorer SUV swerve off the winding Hana Highway in Maui and plummet off a 200-foot cliff. Hana Highway in Maui is a fairly dangerous road that stretches about 50 miles and
and is known by the locals for its winding turns and steep cliffs. The SUV crashed into the rocks below, just yards away from the crashing waves of the Pacific Ocean. Just moments before the SUV went off the edge of the cliff, an eyewitness reported that there were two females inside the car who appeared to be arguing with each other.
Another eyewitness heard someone inside the car scream. A third eyewitness saw the passenger pull and grab on the driver's hair and steering wheel, while the final eyewitness was horrified to watch as the SUV didn't appear to stop as it approached the cliff, but actually appeared to accelerate towards it.
Dozens of people who witnessed the crash began crowding over the cliff's edge. All you could see was that the SUV became a pile of metal. It was almost unimaginable to believe that someone could survive a crash like that. The car just so happened to have landed on one of the only patches of rocks and was completely surrounded by the ocean.
First responders had to be helicoptered into the crash site just in order to get to the people inside. When first responders finally reached the car, there were two passengers inside. One was behind the steering wheel and the other was in the back seat of the car. The very first thing they noticed was that the two passengers looked nearly identical.
The first responders were shocked to discover that one of the passengers was alive, that they had somehow, someway managed to survive the near 200-foot drop off the edge of the cliff. They thought they were going into a crash site to recover bodies. They didn't know this was now a medical emergency.
After discovering that the driver is still alive, they want to know who she is. They want to know her name. But the driver won't say. She won't tell them what her name is. The other passenger, who was in the back seat of the car, had clearly suffered very serious injuries. Injuries that nobody could survive.
Her face was covered in blood and first responders quickly found that the second passenger didn't have a pulse and that she was dead. Her body was described as a bag of broken bones. The driver of the SUV was airlifted off of the rocks and flown to a hospital some 30 miles away.
Within minutes after arriving at the hospital, police are at the survivor's bedside. They need to figure out who these two women are. But just like how she was at the crash site, the survivor doesn't want to talk to police. She doesn't want to answer any of their questions. She won't even tell them her name or who she is. Police needed to find out what was this woman hiding.
Back at the crash site, as the body of the second passenger is about to be removed from the SUV, police find two IDs inside of the car. One ID belonged to Alexandria Duvall, and the other belonged to her identical twin sister, Anastasia Duvall. Now that the police know who the two passengers are, they still had a really big problem.
They needed to find out who's who. So the police went back to the hospital where they informed the driver that her twin sister was dead, that she didn't survive the crash. Investigators thought that once she learned that her twin sister was dead, that she would finally start to open up to them and at the very least say which twin she was. Not only did the driver not say who she was,
She didn't even really express any emotion after learning that her twin sister was dead. She actually started to get defensive with investigators. So the police still need to find out who's who, even if the survivor, the driver, isn't going to cooperate with them. One twin is dead and the other one isn't talking.
So they look to see who the Ford Explorer SUV is registered to. Maybe they will help decide who's who. But it turns out the car isn't registered to either Alexandria or Anastasia. Police learned that the car was registered to a guy by the name of Lonnie Dickerson. They go to Lonnie's house and they find out that he's the boyfriend of Alexandria.
He says that he's the boyfriend and that Alexandria and her twin sister, Anastasia, borrowed his car earlier that afternoon. So the police bring Lonnie Dickerson to the hospital where the driver is in hopes that he might be able to identify which twin survived and which one was dead.
Lonnie identified his girlfriend, Alexandria, as the one in the hospital, the survivor, which means that it was Anastasia Duvall who was dead. Alexandria and Anastasia Duvall were actually born Allison and Ann Duvall, a part of this story that we'll talk about in just a moment. The twins were born in 1978 in the state of New York.
When the girls were just five years old, they tragically witnessed the death of their mother. Their mother had collapsed on the kitchen floor, and it wasn't until hours later that a neighbor stopped in to check on them. And that's when they found the twins inside of the home, and their mother was dead on the kitchen floor. Growing up, the twins had a rocky relationship, to put it lightly.
They would fight, often physically, with one another, and then they would be best friends again. It was almost as if they couldn't live with each other, but they certainly couldn't live without each other. In the late 1990s, they moved to Florida and got really into practicing yoga. They even took their passion for it, and both of them would go on to become certified yoga instructors.
And in 2008, they opened up their own yoga studio, Twin Power Yoga, in a really hot spot of Palm Beach County. During the mid-2000s, the twins were really well known throughout the Palm Beach County area. They were known for being highly visible at all of the popular bars and restaurants. They drove around in matching Porsches.
And they even approached about starring in a reality show that would feature their lives in Palm Beach. From the outside looking in, the twins seemed to have it all. So the talk of potentially starring in a reality show prompted the twins to move their yoga studio to a much bigger facility in 2011. But soon after they moved the studio, that's when their trouble really began.
After the show producers pulled the plug on the reality show, the twins found themselves and their business stuck in a space that they couldn't afford. They couldn't afford to pay the rent. And they quickly accumulated over $100,000 in debt. They were completely underwater. In 2014, they abruptly closed and locked the doors of their yoga studio.
They didn't pay their employees. They didn't offer their members refunds, some of which had already paid for their yearly memberships in full. They just closed up shop and took off to Park City, Utah. And when they arrived in Park City, Utah, that's when the twins legally changed their names from Allison DeBow to Alexandria Duvall.
and Anne deBow to Anastasia Duvall. They were now Alexandria and Anastasia, leaving their old names and old lives in the past. Their time in Park City, Utah was short-lived.
They were still in a massive amount of debt. They decided to open up yet another yoga studio that they couldn't afford. And they eventually found themselves filing for bankruptcy within just a few weeks of one another. And in Utah is also where the twins ran into some trouble with the criminal justice system. In January 2014, they got so drunk one night that
got into their car, and were involved in a pretty terrible car crash, which resulted in a DUI conviction for Anastasia. A car crash where reports would indicate also involved hair pulling and also involved Anastasia threatening to kill the arresting officer for taking her to jail that night.
In December 2015, they moved out to Hawaii on what they would describe as a religious quest. Within the first couple days on the island, on Christmas Eve 2015, they were both arrested and cited for disorderly conduct and making terrorist threats, behavior that was heavily induced by alcohol.
After both twins failed to show up to their court hearing for the disorderly conduct charge, the judge in the case issued bench warrants for both of them. After the crash on May 29, 2016 that left Anastasia dead, her sister Alexandria was released from the hospital with surprisingly not too serious injuries. The worst injury she suffered was a broken arm. She really walked away from this.
And toxicology reports were done on both of the twins following the accident, and both tests came back positive for alcohol, meaning both girls had been heavily drinking the day of the crash. When Alexandria was released from the hospital, the investigators in Maui knew that something wasn't right here.
They had eyewitness reports that claimed they had been fighting, pulling each other's hair right before the crash. And they even had the eyewitness say that the SUV sped up towards the cliff, that they didn't see any signs of breaking. But who would intentionally drive off the side of a 200-foot cliff? Was this a murder-suicide with a botched case of suicide?
investigators needed to learn more if they were going to make an arrest in the case. So investigators took a really hard and close look at the crash site and the part of the Hana Highway that they drove off of. Crime scene investigators who specialized in car crashes were called in, and right away, they couldn't find any evidence that the SUV attempted to break.
They simply couldn't find any tire mark impressions on the highway that you'd expect to see if an SUV like that was driving and attempted to brake prior to the cliff's edge. You just didn't see anything. And investigators also studied the car's control module, basically the car's black box. And they discovered that within one and a half seconds of the car's impact, the
The accelerator was floored at 100% and that the steering wheel had been turned 180 degrees to the left, the side of the cliff. The car's control module confirmed police's suspicion that Alexandria didn't brake, but actually accelerated off in the direction of the cliff. It also provided enough information for police to believe that this was intentional.
With the evidence obtained by the crash site, the eyewitness testimony, police felt pretty confident that this was a murder-suicide attempt, that the suicide aspect of it was botched, considering Alexandria survived, but they were confident that Alexandria intentionally drove herself and her twin sister off the cliff that day.
There was one big problem for the police's theory of murder-suicide, though, and that came from evidence obtained at Anastasia's autopsy. At the autopsy, the medical examiner recovered a clump of Alexandria's hair clenched in Anastasia's hand. This is big because it proves what many eyewitnesses saw that afternoon—
They saw the passenger of the car, who we now know was Anastasia, pulling on the driver's hair, who we know is Alexandria. Anastasia was pulling so hard on her sister's hair that a clump of it was still clenched in her hand at the time of the autopsy. So is it possible that Anastasia was the one who actually caused the crash?
that this wasn't really a botched murder-suicide, that this was really a tragic accident caused by the victim herself. Even with the forensic evidence from the autopsy, the Maui police didn't buy that this was an accident or that the victim, Anastasia, caused the crash by pulling the hair.
So on June 3rd, police charged Alexandria with murder and drove their patrol cars to her house to make an arrest. The only problem was she wasn't home. Not only was Alexandria not home, but it was obvious that the house had been completely cleared out. Investigators feared that this was an attempt to escape and to get off of the island and
which created a sense of urgency to find her before she's able to flee, to get away. And that's when they located her at a local hotel, and she was ultimately booked on second-degree murder charges. Alexandria was brought in front of a Maui judge where she entered a plea of not guilty.
Through her lawyer, she contended that this was an accident. She didn't intentionally drive off the cliff, contrary to the physical evidence presented by the police. Alexandria begged the court that this was a terrible accident. So the case moved forward to a preliminary hearing. And at the preliminary hearing, the prosecution presents all of the evidence to the judge.
They have eyewitnesses testify to what they saw prior to the crash. They had the crime scene investigators testify to the physical and forensic evidence in the case. And once all the evidence was presented to the judge, the judge did something that nobody really saw coming. The judge didn't think the prosecution had probable cause in the case, but
And he ruled that there wasn't enough evidence to hold Alexandria on second-degree murder charges. So she was released from jail. But this doesn't mean that the prosecutors stopped pursuing the case. They decided to take their case in front of a grand jury. Before the case was heard in front of a grand jury in Maui, Alexandria was released from jail and headed back to upstate New York and attended her sister's funeral.
She maintained her innocence and thought that once the judge dismissed her case, that this might be the end of it. But she was wrong. The prosecution wanted a grand jury to decide if the passenger and victim, Anastasia, was the one who caused the accident by pulling on Alexandria's hair and pulling on the car's steering wheel.
or if the crash was intentionally caused by Alexandria as the driver. And in their argument to the grand jury, they presented evidence that suggested it was physically impossible for the passenger to cause the crash. They also presented evidence about the twins' troubled past and their history of physical violence with each other. And of course, they introduced all of the incidents of alcohol abuse.
And after hours of testimony, the grand jury in Hawaii indicted Alexandria. They disagreed with the judge at the preliminary hearing. They believed there was enough evidence and probable cause for her to stand trial for murdering her twin sister. So once the grand jury came back with their indictment, Alexandria was once again arrested in upstate New York. And then she was extradited back to Hawaii.
The murder trial against Alexandria Duvall began in January 2018, a little over a year and a half since her twin sister's death. She was being charged with second degree murder for her twin sister's death. And if convicted, she was facing the possibility of spending the rest of her life in prison. And at just 37 years old at the time, that would be a very, very long time.
Alexandria and her defense attorney, Bernie Bervar, did something pretty unusual early on. She waived her right to have her case heard in front of a jury. She wanted a judge to decide her fate in a bench trial, not the 12 members of a criminal jury. And here's where I have to insert my opinion. And I think that this was an incredibly smart move on her behalf.
I have always said that if I became a criminal defendant in a serious case, that I would absolutely waive my right to a jury trial. I, just like Alexandria, would want my case decided by a judge. I would request a bench trial. Someone that knows the law, knows how to appropriately apply the law to the facts of my case, and
I don't want 12 people off the street that usually have no sense of the law to decide whether I'm guilty beyond a reasonable doubt or not. I don't want people who couldn't get out of jury duty applying the law to the facts of my case. So if Alexandria did one thing right in all of this,
The decision to have a judge decide was definitely the best decision, at least in my opinion. So during the trial, the prosecution called a number of witnesses to testify to the facts that they saw the twins fighting inside of the SUV literally just minutes prior to the crash. One witness described the passenger as sounding very aggressive and scared.
Another witness testified that he was in a van on a Boy Scout trip at the time when he saw the twins fighting and he witnessed the passenger pulling on the driver's hair right before it accelerated towards the edge of the cliff. This car of Boy Scouts literally saw the SUV make a sharp left turn and go over the cliff with no apparent signs of braking.
At trial, the prosecution also heavily relied on car crash experts to be able to speak to some of the evidence obtained on the Hana Highway where the car went off the cliff and the evidence from where the car ended up.
Maui police officer Lawrence Saville testified that the tire marks left on the Hana Highway were consistent with the car, making a sharp left turn with a hard acceleration.
that the road evidence was consistent with the eyewitness testimony that the SUV didn't break prior to going off the cliff, that it actually appeared to accelerate towards it. Alexandria's defense attorney had his own handful of experts to make their own interpretations of the crime scene. The defense team had an expert by the name of Wayne Slaggle testify.
who is an accident reconstruction expert. Sloggle testified that the cliff drop wasn't visible from the highway itself, meaning Alexandria wouldn't have been able to see that there was a 200-foot drop off the other side. So how could she intentionally drive off the cliff when she wouldn't have even been able to see it?
Sloggle also pointed to berm, which is raised dirt that can act like a ramp. And this raised part may have caused the SUV to make a sharp left turn and ultimately go over the edge of the cliff. Execution didn't just point out the evidence on the highway.
They also argued that Alexandria showed absolutely zero emotion throughout the entire incident. The police officer who visited her at the hospital to basically let her know that her twin sister was dead testified at trial that Alexandria was, quote, hysterical.
but that she didn't actually shed any tears. He said she appeared to be upset, she was hysterical, but there weren't any tears. And that she showed a lack of emotion for just having found out that her twin sister was dead. This was also the same Maui police officer who said that when he encountered Alexandria inside of the car for the very first time, she smelt of alcohol.
The boyfriends of the twin sisters also took the stand at trial. The boyfriends played an important role for the prosecution because they knew the girls really well. They spoke to the fights that they would have, their drinking problem over the years, and most troubling was when Federico Bailey, Anastasia's boyfriend, told the judge about the night before the
and the day of the crash. So according to Bailey's testimony, he and the sisters went camping the night before the crash. Originally, it was supposed to be just Bailey and Anastasia to go on the camping trip. But when Alexandria found out about it, she pretty much just invited herself along. A decision that didn't make Anastasia too happy.
She wanted it just to be her and her boyfriend on this camping trip. She didn't want her sister to have any part of it. The relationship between Alexandria and Anastasia was rocky at best. They would have these terrible physical fights. They would go sometimes days or weeks without even speaking to one another. And then they would make up and become best friends again.
So back to the camping trip, Anastasia and Alexandria weren't on the best of terms. Anastasia just wanted to go with her boyfriend, have this long weekend together. She didn't want her sister going. Now, Bailey, Anastasia's boyfriend, said that at some point during this camping trip, the twins left the campsite together.
And then when they came back, he described them as being in good spirits. Maybe they left for a little bit. They ironed out whatever issue they were having and now everything was good. But he said he noticed right away when they returned that they smelled like alcohol, which upset him.
He said that he realized they left the campsite to go buy alcohol and maybe that's why they were in such good spirits. He testified that this upset him because they weren't supposed to be drinking on the trip. He really wanted his girlfriend Anastasia to cut back on her drinking. This was supposed to be a fun camping weekend that didn't involve alcohol.
Bailey said he was pissed. And when he realized that the two went out to go buy alcohol and they were already drunk, he said he had to walk away and cool off for a minute. But when he returned after he was calm, he said the twins were gone. They had left the campsite, leaving him behind. Later that afternoon is when the twins crashed off the cliff.
Following the crash, Bailey testified that Alexandria was just acting strange. That she asked him, her now dead sister's boyfriend, to help her shower, to help her wash her hair because of her broken arm. She even wore some of her dead sister's dirty clothes.
He even testified that she seemed to take some sort of sick joy out of bringing him with her to help identify Anastasia's body at the morgue. After Bailey's testimony about Alexandria's just odd behavior following the crash, the prosecution stuck to their original story.
They focused on the car's black box data that proved the SUV accelerated and that the steering wheel turned 180 degrees to the left just one and a half seconds prior to impact. They also pointed out the tire marks found on the highway that were consistent with an acceleration. They had dozens of eyewitnesses who saw the sisters fighting inside of the car and
and that ultimately all of this evidence points to a botched murder-suicide attempt. The prosecution argued that Alexandria intentionally drove off the cliff and that she should be found guilty of second-degree murder for killing her very own twin sister.
Before the case went into the hands of the judge, Alexandria's attorney basically just said this was a tragic accident. He argued his client didn't intentionally drive off the cliff and that the reason the SUV drove off was because Anastasia was pulling on Alexandria's hair and was pulling at the car's steering wheel.
Her attorney basically argued that Anastasia was the one that caused her own death and she was the one that caused the car to crash. Before the closing arguments were heard, Alexandria had a decision to make. She had a really big decision to make and it was a question on everybody's mind. Would she take the stand and testify in her own defense?
Every single person in that courtroom or anyone who was following the case on television wanted to hear from Alexandria directly. People wanted to know what was she thinking, what she would say really happened on Hana Highway that afternoon. The only other person inside of that SUV was her sister and she's dead.
leaving Alexandria the only living person who really knows what caused the crash. But Alexandria didn't take the stand. She didn't testify in her own defense, which is perfectly within her constitutional rights. Many criminal defendants choose not to testify because they become subject to cross-examination by the prosecutor.
So any hope that we would hear directly from Alexandria, at least this point in the case, was lost. She wouldn't take the stand. So once Alexandria stated that she would not take the stand and testify, the prosecution and the defense rested. It was now completely up to Judge Peter Cahill.
There was no 12-person jury. It was all up to Judge Cahill to decide if this was a murder-suicide attempt or if it was some tragic accident. The judge would be the person to ultimately decide Alexandria's fate. On February 1st, 2018, Judge Cahill walked back into his Maui courtroom with a verdict.
The judge found Alexandria Duvall not guilty of second-degree murder of her sister, Anastasia. When the verdict was read out loud in court, Alexandria let out a big sigh of relief. This was huge because she was facing the possibility of spending the rest of her life behind bars for murdering her own sister.
his ruling, Judge Cahill said that the key evidence that helped him reach the not guilty verdict was the hair evidence. At the autopsy, a clump of Alexandria's hair was found still clenched inside of Anastasia's hand, which indicated to the judge that the passenger of the SUV must have pulled on the driver's hair hard enough to
to be able to rip out several strands of hair. This single piece of forensic evidence told the judge that what the defense team was saying about what happened might actually be true. Judge Cahill was quoted as saying that this tells me during the critical period, the deceased pulled her sister's hair so hard that she could yank it out of her scalp, end quote.
leaving the door open to the defense's argument that this was an accident. But what about the car's control box? The data that suggested the SUV was in full acceleration and the steering wheel was turned completely to the left towards the cliff just one and a half seconds before impact.
Judge Cahill said that the data from the control box, as well as the police diagram of the scene, show that the car made a relatively gradual turn. The judge didn't believe that the car went straight off the cliff. He said in his ruling that the car was fishtailing and that it skidded across the road.
Judge Cahill sided with the defense's reconstruction expert, Wayne Slagle, who said in his opinion that the SUV was likely launched into the air after hitting the rock wall, which a portion of it was washed out.
Judge Cahill said, quote, there is no evidence that the defendant was aiming towards this hole in the wall. The vehicle crashes into the wall and then it's ramped or launched over the cliff, end quote. So the judge agreed with the defense that in his opinion, the cause of the crash was due to Anastasia continuing to fight with her sister, who was the one behind the wheel.
After the trial concluded, the prosecution and the defense had obviously very different reactions to the verdict. The prosecution was extremely disappointed with Judge Cahill's findings. They said in a public statement afterwards that they didn't get justice for Anastasia or her family.
and that in their opinion, the facts clearly show that at the very least, the bare minimum, there was reckless behavior on behalf of Alexandria. But Alexandria's defense attorney, Bernie Barver, gave a much different public statement after the trial. Barver said that this has been a very emotional ordeal for his client.
Not only did she lose her twin sister in a tragic accident, but she was the person held responsible for her death. Barber said the verdict has provided Alexandria with a great sense of relief that this is finally over and is finally behind her and she can move on with her life. So with the criminal trial over, where is Alexandria Duvall now?
What do you do when you've lost your twin sister in a very tragic way? You were charged and later acquitted of her murder. What do you do with your life? Eight months after the end of the trial, this is now in October 2018, Alexandria made her very first television appearance on The Dr. Phil Show.
This was really the first time we've heard directly from her. She didn't testify during the trial, so we were kind of all on the edge of our seats, wanting to hear what she had to say about everything. She told Dr. Phil that she doesn't remember much about the crash. She expresses feelings of wondering why she's even still here, why she was the one who survived and not her sister.
When Dr. Phil asked her about some of the incidents with the police in the past and some of the fights she had with her twin sister, she kind of downplayed everything. And when Dr. Phil asked her about earlier incidents of fighting involving hair pulling, specifically in Utah, she said she didn't remember.
When he asked her about the disorderly conduct charge on Christmas Eve 2015, she downplayed it and said that her and her twin were just talking too loud. And that's why they got the disorderly conduct charge. After the Dr. Phil episode aired, if you thought Alexandria was responsible for the crash and was responsible for killing her twin sister, you really didn't like her.
She really didn't come across as all that remorseful on the show. She certainly didn't win herself any fans, at least in the eyes of public opinion. But regardless of what you thought or what you think of Alexandria Duvall, she's a free woman. She was acquitted of her twin sister's death. She can officially move on with her life.
And I hope that she gets the help that it appears that she needs or at least needed back in 2016. If you'd like to share your thoughts on the case, please connect with the show on Instagram at Forensic Tales. Or to check out photos from the episode, visit our website, ForensicTales.com. I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts about the twin sisters.
Do you think it was a tragic accident that was caused by the hair pulling? Or do you think Alexandria Duvall got away with murdering her very own twin sister? Share your thoughts with us on social and let us know what you think really happened. Forensic Tales is a Rockefeller Audio production. The
The show is written and produced by me, Courtney Fretwell. For a small monthly contribution, you can gain access to bonus content and be one of the first to listen to new episodes. Or if you simply want to support the show, head to our Patreon page.
Don't forget to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to Forensic Tales. Leaving us a rating with a review greatly helps support the show. Forensic Tales is a podcast made possible by our Patreon producers, Tony A., Nicole L., William R., Joseph F., David B., Katrina G., and Sammy.
If you'd like to become a producer of the show, head to our Patreon page or email me at Courtney at ForensicTales.com to find out how you can become involved. Please join me next week. We release a new episode every Monday.
Until then, remember, not all stories have happy endings.