Four weeks before their graduation, Kevin Schaeffer walked author Amy Butcher to her home in their college town of Gettysburg, PA. Hours after parting ways with Butcher, Kevin fatally stabbed his ex-girlfriend, Emily Silverstein. He waited forty minutes, then called the police and met them outside.
Psychiatrists would later conclude that Kevin has suffered a "psychotic break" on the night he killed Emily. Butcher was severely affected by Kevin's crime, but remained devoted to him as a friend, writing him monthly. Over time, she grew determined to prove that what Kevin did had not only been unintentional, but unconscious.
She write about the experience in her book, Visiting Hours: A Memoir of Friendship and Murder.
