Christina Paolilla was born on Long Island, New York on March 31, 1986.

Her parents, Lori, a stay-at-home mother, and Charles Paolilla, a construction worker, raised her.
Christine Paolilla lost her heroin-addicted father in a construction accident when she was two years old. She was soon diagnosed with alopecia, a disease that results in the
loss of all body hair.

When she was a child, she wore "bulky, Halloween-like" wigs and drew eyebrows that would easily stain from sweat.

At the age of seven, Paolilla moved in with her grandparents. At the time of Paolilla's childhood, she did not have a lot of self-confidence.

At Clear Lake High School in Houston, Texas, Paolilla became friends with Rachael Koloroutis and Tiffany Rowell, who helped her integrate into the school community. 

She was voted "Miss Irresistible" by her school's students in 2003. During the same year, she began to date Christopher Lee Snider.

 As she made her way to class, she was teased relentlessly over the messy eyebrows she wore to conceal her baldness. 

However, Rachael Koloroutis was a very different character. Her best friend, Tiffany Rowell, was one of the most popular and attractive girls in Clear Lake High School. 

Tiffany Rowell and Rachael Koloroutis, two of the most popular students at suburban Clear Lake High School outside Houston, Texas, became friends with Paolilla and
helped her to become a new person. It was something that potentially confused Paolilla.  

Even so, Koloroutis and Rowell, who were one year ahead of Paolilla, appeared well-meaning. They taught her not to dress, wear wigs, and wear makeup like Tammy Faye
Bakker, and helped her make such significant changes in her life that she was voted "Miss Irresistible.".

They were so close that Paolilla was the only friend who would let Rowell and Koloroutis see her without her wig on.

When she was a teenager, Rachael Koloroutis, who lived in a suburb outside of Houston, used to keep a photo of her close friend Christine Paolilla in her handbag.

 Both Koloroutis and Rowell had just graduated from Clear Lake High School, and they were now working as waitresses at the local strip club.
 

However, Paolilla kept other things private.

Palolilla had a boyfriend named Chris Snider who was "pushy and aggressive" and had a criminal record as well as a hard-drug habit.

While Snider scared Paolilla's mom and even Koloroutis and Rowell, they told her that "she could do better", and "there was another guy who would treat her with dignity,
respect, and kindness."
 The fights Palolilla had with Snider were always fueled by "crushing jealousy." If she saw him looking at another woman, she'd hit him.

Despite this, there was also a part of her that relishes being humiliated and degraded by Snider. Indeed, it seemed almost as if she wished that he would punish her
somehow.

Palolla Snider, who was also reported to the police several times by her own parents, was known around the family as "the psycho".

When particularly nasty fights took place, she would sleep on the lawn, yell, go berserk, and rattling the screen door. 

Snider told his family time and time again that only two things scare him: the police and Christine.

A particularly abusive episode of Palolilla's behavior occurred one night when she suddenly ceased yelling at Snider, stared him down, and began to lick his face from chin
to toe. Then they decided to go get some drugs. 

During a pizza party at the Rowell house. Tiffany Rowell and Rachael Koloroutis, both 18 years old. Marcus Ray Precella, 19; and Precella's cousin from Houston, Adelbert
Sanchez, 21, were enjoying each other's company.

It is believed that the murders took place at around 3:00 pm on July 18, 2003.

The two of them went to the house to steal money and drugs, which was his idea and Snider surprised her by handing her a gun just before entering the house.

Then he shot Precella, which was a second surprise to me. As she was firing "blindly" around the room, she began crying, and then, she claimed, the gun she was holding
just went off on its own, and she lost control of it as it went off on its own.

After they left the crime scene, she told Snider she had to go back inside to "make sure they're all dead." When she went back inside, she found Koloroutis crawling on the
floor, gagging on her own blood while she tried to dial 911 on her cellphone.

Then, Christine pulled out her pistol, raised it above her head, holding it by the barrel like a hammer, and began, in a whipping motion, bashing Rachael's skull in with it.

Once Paolilla was done, she requested that Snider drive her to work so she could clock in for her shift behind the makeup counter at Walgreens.

In the end, the couple went on the run together. After moving into a room at a La Quinta Inn, they went on a drug binge as epic as it was squalid.
Every day they shot $500 worth of heroin and cocaine while living on Cheez-Its, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and soda. They never left the room and never permitted
housekeeping to enter, so as the weeks passed, it became strewn with blood, vomit, dog feces, and over a hundred needles. The couple lived in that room for seven
months.

A couple returning home to visit friends in Clear Lake City, Texas, found four bodies in a blood-soaked living room. Police responded to the
scene and identified the victims as Koloroutis, Rowell, and her boyfriend, Precella, and his cousin, Sanchez.

All four victims were shot multiple times, including Precella, who sustained a "blunt-force head injury."

For Koloroutis, the worst was to come - her head bashed in, her right hand lacerated with clumps of clotted hair. She had been shot at least 12 times, including once in the
left buttock. She was also shot in the crotch.

There was a high level of precision in the shooting - over 40 bullets were fired, which suggested an execution-style killing. However, the murderer's personal animosity for
Koloroutis - known as "overkill" - suggested that the murderer had some personal ties to at least this victim. A shot to the crotch was a strong indication of jealousy or
competition.

Although the police quickly developed a theory that the murders were most likely linked to drugs, they stuck to it.

Despite collecting over 400 leads in the early months, many of which related to Precella's drug associations, the investigation failed to produce any results.

So a couple of years elapsed, and life continued. While Snider wound up in Kentucky jail on an old car-theft warrant, Paolilla entered a drug rehabilitation facility in
Kerrville, Texas, where she met Justin Rott, a longtime heroin addict.

They got married and bought a condo with a $360,000 trust left to them by her late father. However, nesting did not last long.

Soon after moving in, Paolilla saw a television report on the anniversary of the unsolved murders of two of her best friends. She called Rott in to watch, and as police
sketches were thrown up on the screen, Paolilla unravelled.

Her gaze wandered over the living room. She finally stopped and stared at her new husband, and asked, “Does that look like me?

Ultimately, After providing this semi-confession, Paolilla quickly told her husband what had taken place that afternoon - a version of events in which she was surprisingly
passive.
Execution of the warrant occurred at 11:55 a.m. on July 19, 2006. They were able to track her down based on her ATM activity, and within two days she was arrested.

After hearing the cops were on his tail, her accomplice and former boyfriend, Chris Snider, fled into the woods with a bottle of soda and a collection of pills. He then
committed suicide.

The Houston Police Department received an anonymous tip a week before the third anniversary of the murders from a man who claimed to have met Paolilla in rehab and
to have been told how she and her boyfriend committed the murders. Later, it was determined that the man was not Rott.

She was taken to the San Antonio Police Department at approximately 2:45 p.m., where she agreed to a videotaped interview. On the day of the offense, appellant
admitted that he drove Snider to Rowell's residence. They had originally planned to purchase drugs there, but made a return trip when Snider complained that he had
forgotten something. On both occasions, the appellant insisted that Snider entered the house alone, while she remained in the car. The second time Snider returned, she
saw him running with a gun in his hands. She denies ever hearing any shots fired.

Interrogators continued their interview inside the hospital at 6:15 p.m. using only an audio recorder.   The appellant once again denied ever having entered the house in
this interview. Although she stated that there was a fight inside, Snider admitted that he had shot all four complainants. The interview concluded at 7:15 p.m. At
approximately 9:00 p.m.

The appellant was flown to Houston later that evening. She slept during the flight and for part of the next day after being placed in a jail cell. On the afternoon of July 20,
appellant complained of illness and requested to see a doctor during an unrecorded interview. At 6:50 p.m., Appellant was transported to Ben Taub Hospital   and again
treated for heroin withdrawal, this time receiving twenty-five milligrams of Librium at 10:07 p.m. Appellant was discharged at 11:00 p.m. and returned to police
headquarters in downtown Houston.

At 11:38 p.m., a final videotaped interview was conducted. In this interview, the appellant stated that on the return trip, Snider forced her into the house, forcing her to
hold one of his two guns. Even though she denied aiming at any of the complainants, she stated that Snider pulled the trigger several times while she held the weapon in
her hand. The interrogation ended at 1:39 a.m. on July 21st. After the interrogation, the appellant was returned to her cell. The record does not indicate that she
complained of illness following the interview.

The appellant moved to suppress all three recorded statements at a pretrial hearing. Even though she was informed of her Fifth Amendment rights prior to each interview,
appellant claimed that her statements were rendered involuntary due to medications she ingested and because she was experiencing acute opioid withdrawal.

There was only one expert witness called on behalf of the appellant, Dr. George S. Glass, a physician who is board-certified in psychiatry and addiction medicine. In his
testimony, Dr. Glass stated that appellant had a very high tolerance for narcotics. In his opinion, heroin has a short half-life, which means that it breaks down in the body
relatively rapidly. Abusers may suffer withdrawal symptoms between four and eight hours after their last injection if the addiction is not sustained. 

The prosecutor described how her uncle committed suicide, how her father was killed in a construction accident when she was a child, leaving her mother with two young
children and no insurance, and then how her mother turned to drugs.
He explained that even as a child she suffered from alopecia, losing all her hair, eyelashes, eyebrows, and was teased at school about her wig -- making her vulnerable to
bad guys such as Snider, whom she encountered in intermediate school.

The appellant's motion to suppress was denied by the trial court. Further findings of facts were issued by the court, which concluded that the testimony of Sergeant Harris,
Officer Park, and Sergeant McDaniel was credible and reliable. 

In its findings, the court further concluded that appellant was not intoxicated or suffering from withdrawal symptoms, and that during all three interviews, she was lucid and
was capable of understanding warnings that were given to her and the nature of the statements she made. The court also specifically found that the opinions of Dr. Glass
were not supported by the evidence and were therefore not credible. Due to a court ruling that the appellant voluntarily waived her rights, all three recordings were later
published for the jury to review.

Two eyewitnesses identified appellant as the person who committed the crime. Michelle and Craig Lackner lived next door to Tiffany Rowell. The Lackners testified that on
the day of the offense, they both observed a young man and woman casually strolling down the street and approaching Rowell's house. The Lackners testified in court that
the appellant is the girl they had witnessed. Both witnesses affirmed that she was carrying a purse, but denied that she was carrying a gun. Using a six-person photo
spread, the Lackners also identified Snider as her companion.

 Trial court adjudication further stated that "the only basis for a verdict is the evidence in front of you." The appellant further requested a mistrial, but it was denied.

Having been instructed by the trial court on the law of parties, the jury returned a verdict of guilty. Afterwards, the appellant was sentenced to a mandatory term of life
imprisonment.

In the end, however, only Paolilla knows why she acted as she did. It is disappointing to see how little interest she has shown in apologizing or explaining.