Friends mourned Missy Avila’s death and were subsequently charged with her murder

After her 17-year-old daughter was found drowned in a shallow body of water, her auburn hair was chopped off to her waist and she was charged 100 pounds. Logically, Irene Avila found comfort in the company of her daughter’s best friend, and shared in their mutual grief.

The girlfriend, Karen Severson, moved into Irene’s house and vowed to find the killer who left Michele Avila alone in California’s Angeles National Forest in October 1985.

“She became like a daughter to me,” Irene told PEOPLE in a Interview from 1989.

Often the two would stay awake talking about the beautiful, popular girl everyone called “Missy,” whose body was found by hikers two days after she jumped into a car with another friend, Laura Doyle.

Doyle later claimed that she dropped Missy off with three boys driving a blue Camaro.

For the next three years the only leads were false, and the case stalled.

Then another friend, Eva Chirumbolo, came forward, based on the factual background of the case summarized by a judge in answer on a writ of habeas corpus filed earlier in the case.

Chirumbolo told investigators she had been with the other girls when they went to the national forest.

It turned out that Doyle had recently had a breakup with her boyfriend, and she blamed Missy for it. The idea that Missy was to blame came from Severson, according to PEOPLE’s previous reporting.

As they walked through the woods, Doyle and Severson called Missy promiscuous, according to the criminal complaint, and Doyle grabbed her hair and chopped off some of it. The two – who were bigger and taller than Avila, who weighed just 97 pounds. – then forced her into a shallow creek, tied her hands behind her back, gagged her and pushed her head underwater until her body became still.

Then they left her trapped under a tree trunk heavier than her own weight.

In July 1988, Doyle and Severson were arrested in connection with Missy’s murder, and were later each convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 15 years to life.

After years of mourning the loss of her daughter along with her daughter’s killer, Irene began to see those first sad months differently.

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Severson was obsessed with Missy’s case, visiting her grave several times a week and decorating the walls of her bedroom with photos and newspaper clippings about her friend. She often took beer to the creek where Missy was found, drinking at the crime scene.

She even said Missy haunted her: she saw her dead friend sitting on the couch and even blamed her when her van wouldn’t start after a trip to the grave. “Ma’am, let me go!” she shouted, according to the encounter described in PEOPLE’s previous reporting on the case.

Although Doyle had kept more distance from Irene, she had also occasionally stopped by to visit the grave, according to the documentation, which adds that she also provided “false leads” to investigators.

The California Board of Parole Hearings later noted, according to the filing, that it was “particularly troubling” that both women had remained in so close contact with Missy’s family, even as they kept up “a charade” about not knowing what was happening had happened to her. .

Both women have since released. Severson was released on parole in December 2011 and, after 22 years behind bars, Doyle was released on parole in July 2020.

Severson subsequently published a memoir about the murder, which led to his signing in 2015 Missy’s Lawwhich prevents convicts in California from profiting from their crimes.

In a 1989 prison interview with PEOPLE, in which she claimed her innocence, Severson mentioned a boy she had been interested in, claimed that Missy had “moved into my territory” and said, “I just couldn’t take it anymore.” ”

But Missy’s family told PEOPLE at the time that it was more complicated than that. “She was Missy’s best friend,” Irene said, “but she was jealous of Missy’s family, Missy’s looks, Missy’s popularity and even Missy’s relationship with me.”

Missy’s brother Mark added: “Karen wanted to be Missy.”