Christa Worthington had returned to town in 1998, trading in her plumb apartment on tony Gramercy Park in Manhattan for a family cottage on the Pamet River. She told friends that after 20 years of writing about high fashion and expensive accessories for publications like Women's Wear Daily, Vogue, Elle and Cosmopolitan she was ready for a quieter life. She had lived in Paris and London and was now looking forward to being close to her family and perhaps fulfilling her longtime desire to have a child.

Police learned Worthington's history as they interviewed her family on the Cape as well as her circle of close friends in New York. Worthington visited the city only occasionally, the last time three weeks before her death for a Christmas party, but she kept in close telephone contact with friends.

Investigators soon found out that Worthington was exceptionally open about her personal life. Whether she had known someone a few days or a lifetime, she shared freely details about her family, romances and money concerns. And from these accounts, certain suspects seemed to emerge.

Worthington at the beach with Ava in 2001

Perhaps the most obvious was a local fisheries official named Tony Jackett. Not long after her return to the cape, Worthington began an affair with Jackett, a married father of six.

Worthington had long wanted to have a baby. She wrote about it in the London newspaper The Independent in 1997 and appeared on an episode of the talk show Leeza dedicated to single women who wanted to be moms. Jackett has said he and Worthington used no birth control because she assured him she was infertile. When she became pregnant and announced she planned to have the baby, the relationship ended.

Ava's birth in 1999 thrilled Worthington. She initially made no demands on Jackett, but after her daughter's first birthday, she approached him about paying child support and publicly acknowledging Ava. She was concerned that Ava, who bears a strong resemblance to her father, would begin asking questions.

Jackett's lawyer, Chris Snow, said his client agreed to a "dialogue" about support and showed Worthington proof of his assets and modest annual income, but when Worthington learned she would have to disclose her finances in return, she balked.

"At that point, she no longer wanted to pursue an informal agreement," said Snow. Worthington owned her $400,000 house and had a $300,000 trust fund, according to her will.

She did, however, continue to press him on telling his wife. Eventually, Jackett did.

"I felt like I had a date with a firing squad," Jackett told the Boston Herald.