CHARACTER
The Life we Buryby Allen Eskens

Crystal Hagen

Crystal Hagen

Quick Facts

A fourteen-year-old murder victim whose decades-old case propels Joe Talbert’s investigation. Though dead before the novel begins, Crystal first “appears” in a freshman-year photo, autopsy images, and her diary. Her closest ties include a new boyfriend, a strict stepfather, a domineering stepbrother, and the unsettling neighbor implicated in her death.

Who They Are

Crystal Marie Hagen is the book’s absent presence—an ordinary, bright freshman whose life is retroactively reconstructed through artifacts and memory. At first, the town’s story casts her as the target of her “creepy” neighbor, Carl Iverson, a narrative that seems to fit the visible facts and satisfies the community’s craving for a culprit. But as Joe reads deeper, Crystal becomes the lens through which the novel interrogates Truth, Lies, and Buried Pasts and the costs of Justice and Injustice.

Her Farrah Fawcett hair, acrylic nails for homecoming, and shy, mischievous smile form a tender snapshot of adolescent possibility—a vision violently undercut by the autopsy photos that show her charred remains. That haunting contrast fuels Joe’s need to exhume what was erased: the person behind the crime scene.

Personality & Traits

Crystal’s voice survives in fragments—school photos, courtroom narratives, and a diary that shifts from giddy teen shorthand to coded testimony. Together, they reveal a girl who begins the year full of sparkle and ends it forcing language to carry what adults would not see.

  • Vivacious and youthful: The prosecutor describes her as a “happy, vivacious, fourteen-year-old,” eager about cheerleading and a new boyfriend. Her photo—parted blond hair, perfect smile—captures a freshman testing independence without abandoning innocence.
  • Fearful and secretive: After a stolen-car crash, fear of her strict stepfather, Douglas Lockwood, traps her in silence. She hides danger in coded entries, knowing exposure could bring punishment instead of protection.
  • Brave and resolute: A meeting with a guidance counselor reframes her abuse as rape under the law. Crystal decides to end it the day she dies—a declaration of agency that tragically triggers the violence meant to keep her quiet.
  • Observant and clever: Unable to speak plainly, she devises a numerical code that records names and acts. The diary becomes both lifeline and ledger, a way to hold the truth until someone is willing to read it.

Character Journey

Crystal does not change on the page; our understanding of her does. Early on, the prosecution’s story reduces her to a passive victim, and her “Creepy Carl” diary line props up a tidy narrative. As Joe and Lila Nash decipher her codes, Crystal’s life reassembles into a far more intimate—and dangerous—story: she is being blackmailed and raped by her stepbrother, Dan "DJ" Lockwood. The supposed stranger-danger murder collapses into a family crime, implicating authority figures and community blindness. Re-situated within Family Dysfunction and Responsibility, Crystal emerges not as a symbol of naïveté, but as a courageous teen trying to reclaim her body and future—killed because she chose to speak.

Key Relationships

  • Andrew “Andy” Fisher: Andrew Fisher is Crystal’s first serious boyfriend and a source of uncomplicated joy. Their impulsive joyride and crash become the lever of her abuser’s blackmail; Andy’s shame keeps him silent for decades, inadvertently sustaining the false narrative of the case.

  • Dan “DJ” Lockwood: Crystal’s older stepbrother is the hidden antagonist—her blackmailer, rapist, and ultimately her killer. He weaponizes her fear of family punishment into control, turning the household into the crime scene no one searches.

  • Douglas Lockwood: A devout, authoritarian stepfather whose rigid moralism teaches Crystal that confession equals catastrophe. After the murder, his false alibi for his son moves him from unseeing guardian to active participant in the cover-up.

  • Carl Iverson: The unsettling neighbor whom Crystal notices watching her. Her offhand diary label—“Creepy Carl”—is inflated by the prosecution into motive and identity, transforming a watchful neighbor into the state’s solution and sending an innocent man to prison.

Defining Moments

Crystal’s life is recorded in traces. Each moment below survives as evidence—silent until read with care.

  • The GTO joyride and crash: She and her boyfriend steal a car from the stepfather’s lot and crash it, losing a glasses lens at the scene. Why it matters: The lens becomes the physical proof her abuser uses to blackmail her, converting a teen mistake into a mechanism of control.
  • The coded diary: Crystal encodes names and acts in numbers to protect herself while preserving the truth. Why it matters: The diary is both shield and key—its decryption overturns the official story and reveals the real predator.
  • The guidance-counselor meeting: A counselor explains that what’s happening is legally rape and prosecutable. Why it matters: Language gives Crystal a legal and moral frame; naming the crime emboldens her to resist, raising the stakes for her abuser.
  • The final diary entry: “It stops today. I am so happy.” Why it matters: This note captures her reclaimed agency and hope—and the fatal threat that hope poses to those invested in her silence.

Essential Quotes

June 15 – I was practicing in the back yard and saw Creepy Carl watching me from his window. I flipped him off and he just stood there. What a pervo. This line seeds the misdirection that powers the wrongful conviction. A teenager’s flippant label becomes courtroom “evidence,” showing how casually observed discomfort can be manipulated into a narrative of guilt.

September 28 – DJ found my glasses. If I don't do what he wants he'll tell everyone. He'll ruin my life. A mundane object—the lost lens—becomes the lever of coercion. The entry captures how shame and fear, not force alone, imprison victims; Crystal is trapped by the anticipated judgment of her own household.

October 9 – I gave DJ what he wanted. He forced me. I want to kill myself. I want to kill him. The blunt juxtaposition of “gave” and “forced” reveals a survivor wrestling with language, consent, and self-blame. Her fury and despair coexist, exposing both the psychic damage of abuse and the latent resolve to fight back.

October 29 – It's rape. DJ is raping me. Mrs. Tate said so. She said that the age difference means he'll go to prison for sure. It stops today. I am so happy. Naming the crime reframes Crystal’s experience from private shame to public offense. The legal clarity offers hope—and triggers the escalation that leads to her murder, underscoring how truth-telling threatens entrenched power.