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A day after our great migration from southern California to northern California, my mom asked me, "Do you want to go to grandma's church or the Maughns' [our neighbors] church?" This took me about half a second to decide. My grandmother is a beautiful, wonderful, inspiring woman, and her presence feels like home. That said, the thought of going to church with my grandma felt lame, because hello, I'm 5 years old and this is serious business. I can't be seen sitting next to an old person whose job is to shush me by patting my thigh. What would the other 5-year-olds think? By contrast, the Maughns were a party. They'd color with me at church, and nobody ever did the shut-up-you-gremlin thigh pat.

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"The Maughns'." That's it. Those are the words that laid the groundwork for the rest of my life.

Szalax

If only I'd heard the good news about Tammuz.

So, we joined the Mormon Church. My mother frequently attended the church's singles mixers (can you think of a sadder thing, besides, uh ... everything else in this story?), and in December 1997, she met Dawn Godman, one of the killers. My mother loved how much Dawn liked her. And the only reason why my mom met Dawn is because I wanted to go to the Maughns' church after we moved to northern California, and the only reason we moved to northern California was so I could be closer to my dad. You see where this is going: I never bashed anybody's head in with a hammer or threw bags full of body parts into a river, but I obviously still have a lot to feel guilty about.

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Editor's Note: No, you really don't. The greatest responsibility we ever had as kindergartners was to watch Raphael, the class turtle. He escaped. The turtle. Escaped. That one was on us, because even as 5-year-olds, we probably could have caught that turtle. But that would have been the extent of our 5-year-old abilities. We could not have prevented a mass murder with our tiny, Popsicle-sticky fingers. You're totally in the clear on this one, Talia.

Talia Jane is a relatively well-adjusted adult who spends most of her time not writing about murder. You can follow her on Twitter and Tumblr.

Robert Evans wrote a book, A Brief History of Vice, in which he drank his own pee to test an ancient tobacco recipe. The least you can do is pre-order it.

Related Reading: Cracked spoke with a male porn star recently too, and we learned a lot. We heard the batshit-crazy true life stories of an undercover agent fighting the cartels and heard some shocking tales from a woman raised in a Christian fundamentalist cult. Have some stories to share with Cracked? Reach us here.