TENNESSEE PRISON FOR WOMEN
Recorded Visit Transcript
Date: September 15, 2020
Subject: Crystal Barnett #0847291
Visitor: Jackson Reed
Duration: 27 minutes
[00:00:00]
GUARD: [Muffled from mask] Recording started. You have thirty minutes.
[Sound of chairs scraping]
CRYSTAL: You came. My lawyer said you weren’t gonna.
JACKSON: Rocco asked me to. Charlie’s mother wants to bury her son.
CRYSTAL: Straight to business. You’ve changed.
JACKSON: Where is Charlie Stine’s body?
CRYSTAL: You look good. Healthy. I like the longer hair. It doesn’t cover the scar though.
JACKSON: Where is Charlie?
CRYSTAL: Did you read my book?
JACKSON: No.
CRYSTAL: Liar. Victoria posted about it. Said you both read it together. Said it made her understand—
JACKSON: Where is Charlie Stine’s body?
[00:02:33]
CRYSTAL: You’re really gonna be like this? After everything I did for you?
GUARD: [From the intercom] Do not remove your mask, Barnett!
JACKSON: [smiles] Do as you’re told. Now, for the last time—where is Charlie?
CRYSTAL: [Fixes mask over nose and mouth] I wrote about you. Whole chapters.
JACKSON: Last chance.
[00:04:17]
CRYSTAL: Fine. You want transactional? Let’s be transactional. I’ll tell you where Charlie is if you answer one question honestly.
JACKSON: No games.
CRYSTAL: No games. Just one question. Do you ever think about me?
JACKSON: Where is Charlie?
CRYSTAL: Answer me first. When you’re with that girl—Keisha—do you ever compare her to me. How I rocked your world—
JACKSON: Yes, I think about you. When I can’t eat protein bars anymore because they all taste like the ones you forced down my throat. When I see some Instagram “model” who spends all that time on her face while being rotten to the core. Just like you. Now where the fuck is Charlie?
[00:06:44]
[Sound of Crystal laughing]
CRYSTAL: You still can’t admit what we had was—
JACKSON: Where. Is. Charlie.
CRYSTAL: [Sighs] Mojave Desert. Mile marker 237 on Route 66. Fifty yards north of the road. Six feet down, wrapped in contractors plastic.
JACKSON: That’s nowhere near Vegas.
CRYSTAL: I told you bloodhounds wouldn’t find him in Nevada. I never said he was in Nevada.
JACKSON: If you’re lying—
CRYSTAL: I’m not lying. I wouldn’t lie to you.
JACKSON: You’ve done nothing but lie since the day we met.
[00:08:21]
CRYSTAL: I never lied about how I felt about you. In the silo, when I told you I’d thought about you since Lejeune—
JACKSON: I don’t care.
CRYSTAL: When I said you were the only one who might have measured up—
JACKSON: I don’t care.
CRYSTAL: You cared that night after the launch.
JACKSON: I thought you were a client with boundary issues. Now I know you’re a murderer who killed seven people, including my friend. Mile marker 237. Fifty yards north. Six feet down.
CRYSTAL: In contractors plastic. Yes.
[00:10:55]
JACKSON: We’re done here.
[Sound of chair moving]
CRYSTAL: Jackson. Wait.
JACKSON: What?
CRYSTAL: Will you visit again?
JACKSON: No.
CRYSTAL: I’ll have more information. About the others. The ones they haven’t found yet.
JACKSON: Tell the FBI. I’m done.
CRYSTAL: I’ll only tell you.
JACKSON: Then they’ll stay buried. I can live with that.
[00:12:33]
CRYSTAL: You such a prick! You’re here, right in front of me, and you still don’t see me. Even after everything.
JACKSON: I see you fine, Crystal. And so does everyone else. You’re just mad they don’t like what they see.
[Long silence]
CRYSTAL: I made you famous.
JACKSON: Not something I ever wanted. Weird how you claim to know me so well and yet all you can do is project your own desires onto me.
[00:15:44]
GUARD: Time’s up.
JACKSON: We’re done anyway. Goodbye, Crystal.
CRYSTAL: This isn’t over. You’ll be back. You need me as much as—
[Door closes]
[00:16:12 - END RECORDING]
From “Field Notes: A Memoir” by Jackson Reed
Published by Knopf, October 2021
Chapter 47: Finding Charlie
I talk a lot about how men and women are different. They way they communicate being the biggest difference that causes the most problems, at least for the men in my private community. But when I told them I had just come back from seeing Crystal, that I’d “caved” to her nagging in all of her media interviews, they turned into the biggest bunch of bitches this side of Salon.com
“You’re giving her power over you!”
“She played you, and now you’re her victim all over again!”
Some of these guys are so scared of a woman playing them for a fool, they’ll give up on the things they actually want out of life.
And what I wanted was Charlie being in a place his mother could visit him. Charlie was why I started all this. And I wouldn’t stop until it was finished. Even if it meant seeing that bitch again.
It took three days to get the permits sorted, another two to get the cadaver dogs and excavation team in place. I stood with Rocco and Diane Stine in the desert heat, watching the careful work of recovery. When they found the contractor’s plastic exactly where Crystal said it would be, Diane collapsed against Rocco, finally able to grieve properly.
“Thank you,” she whispered to me later, gripping my hands with surprising strength. “Thank you for bringing my boy home.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell her that Crystal had held that information hostage for two years, waiting for me to come asking. That Charlie’s resting place had been just another card for her to play.
I almost didn’t put it in the book, honestly. You saw it on the news; you don’t need me rehashing it. Hell, you saw a lot of me in the news. If I wrote my own memoir, I wanted it to be something fresh.
Which is why I turned down a six-figure advance from Penguin Random House (the same fucks who published Crystal’s tell-all) and published this thing myself.
If you would have told me five years ago I’d have walked away from a New York publisher to be just another Amazon self-published author, I would have laughed you out of my sight.
But the publishers who couldn’t be bothered to sign me for all those years I beat down their doors don’t deserve anything from me. Certainly not my royalties. So here we are.
Those royalties–the ones I earned myself–paid for my house. Our house. Mine and Keisha’s. We bought a house last year. Nothing fancy, just a three-bedroom in Midtown OKC. Victoria has her own room for when she visits. She’s been sober for eighteen months now, and she and Jeff Callaway–that podcast host Marcus introduced her to–announced their engagement recently.
I imagine they’ll be married by the time this comes out. Sorry, fellas. And ladies… you never had a chance. Irina was a one-time thing. And I’m sure you understand Victoria wasn’t inclined to give the experience another shot.
None of this would have happened if we hadn’t almost lost each other. Guess all that shit about pressure being required to make diamonds is 100% true.
I still have the Twitter account. There’s nothing that will make me give that handle up. But I haven’t posted in years. I’m not sure I ever will, honestly. The last time I opened the app, all I saw was crazed women extolling the virtues of Irina Sterling (seriously, why do you harpies still call her that? You know what her name is). I have too much going on in my life to try and reach these people, most of whom are still wearing Covid masks in their pfp.
I’m lucky enough that I don’t need the jungle of social media to build. I have my own walled garden and new members come through word of mouth. This is the type of online community everyone actually wants, but few can get because of the algorithm, censorship, and people just being habitually insane.
I’m relieved to be checked out of all that.
I wasn’t sure how to end this book. How to fully encapsulate how I feel. Ironic for a writer, I know.
So if you don’t mind, or even if you do, I think I’ll let the Man Himself sign us off. I don’t think anyone can capture the cultural zeitgeist quite like he does.
Play us out, Donnie.
@realDonaldTrump - Twitter
September 28, 2019
Just heard that Fake Feminist Irina Sterling (real name Crystal - not even Russian!) got SEVEN LIFE SENTENCES in Tennessee. The American People are SAFE thanks to heroes like Jackson Reed, a MARINE who survived 5 days of torture and never gave up!
This is what REAL AMERICAN MEN do - they fight back against killers, they protect their communities, and they tell the TRUTH even when the Radical Left tries to destroy them. Jackson Reed is a patriot!
And his sister Victoria - beautiful woman, very beautiful - stood by her brother when everyone else believed the LIES. That’s family values! Not like the Do-Nothing Democrats who would have let Sterling keep killing!
Young men of America, look at Jackson Reed. Tortured by a serial killer but REFUSED TO BREAK. That’s what our brave Marines teach! That’s American strength! Not like these soy boy Democrats who apologize for everything and can’t even define what a woman is!
Jackson did what was RIGHT even when they tried to CANCEL him, even when they HACKED his private writings (just like China!), even when a KILLER came after him. He kept investigating. He found the truth. He saved lives!
BE BRAVE! Don’t go along with the crowd! Stand up for what’s right even if they try to kill you for it! That’s what Made America Great and that’s what will Keep America Great! Congratulations Jackson - a true American Hero!
[END]
Technical question… what was the total word count of this novella? Thanks.