Circle of friends

Adrianne Reynolds’s parents drove around desperately trying to find their daughter. They also discussed everything they knew about Sarah Kolb and Cory Gregory, the teenagers who said they dropped Adrianne off at McDonald's just before she went missing.

Rob Stafford, Dateline correspondent: So what do you think about the story the kids are telling you?

Tony Reynolds, Adrianne's father: I didn’t believe it, because if they dropped her off, she’d be here.

They began to wonder if Adrianne’s relationship with the two teens had something to do with her disappearance. Just a few days earlier, Adrianne confided in her stepmom, saying she was interested in Cory and that could be a problem for their friend Sarah.

Joanne Reynolds, Adrianne’s stepmom: And she even told me that Cory told Adrianne that they had to keep their friendship a secret from Sarah.  That Sarah would get mad.

Stafford: ‘Cause Cory was worried that Sarah would be jealous?

Joanne Reynolds: Uh-huh.

Tony Reynolds: She liked to be the one in control of everything.

Control— that was something Cory Gregory had learned early on about Sarah Kolb, but it was not a turn-off to him. In fact, it was an important part of their relationship, a relationship that came to define his life.

Cory Gregory: I met Sarah at the mall. And then we ended up going and smoking weed behind Gordman’s Department Store and then we just started hanging out everyday from there.

Cory had been a good student and a fun-loving boy, but by the time he was a sophomore, he had fallen in love with pot, heavy metal music and especially Sarah Kolb. 

Stafford: What attracted you to Sarah?

Cory Gregory: She was just dressed how we dressed - the big, baggy pants, black band T-shirts and—

Stafford: Kind of that Goth look?

Cory Gregory: If that’s what you wanna call it—yeah.

They starting going out, but that lasted only a few weeks. Sarah said she just wanted to be friends but they became best friends— inseparable.

Sarah Kolb

In fact, Sarah convinced Cory to transfer to her school, where she had a reputation as a very angry girl. “What is it with people today?” she wrote in her journal. “It seems as if everyone is driving me crazy, and all I want to do is slaughter them like the f*ng sheep they are!”

Stafford: What’s she so angry about?

Cory Gregory: I don’t know. She just has an anger problem, really. She just gets mad over the littlest things.

Stafford: What’s Sarah like when she gets mad?

Cory Gregory: Just off the wall, really, you know?  Yelling, screaming, throwing things…

Cory’s parents, Bert and Teresa Gregory, did not witness Sarah’s anger but they worried about how infatuated with Sarah their son had become, even though Sarah told him she just wanted to be friends.

Teresa Gregory, Cory’s mother: Cory really wanted to be boyfriend and girlfriend.  Really bad. And I think Cory, in the back of his mind, thought if he just hung in there long enough as her best friend, she would someday see him as a boyfriend. Because he was loyal to her and hung in.

Cory expressed his feelings for Sarah in a letter: “I love you. I have since I first laid eyes on you.... You are all I think about.... You are the only one I felt I could speak my emotions, and I want you to know I’ll always be that for you.”     

Adrianne’s arrival at their school in November 2004 complicated the relationship between Cory and Sarah.

A friendship between the two 16-year-old girls began in the most benign way: with notes being passed in school.

Sarah Kolb started by asking Adrianne a few innocent questions: “What’s your favorite color?” “What are some of your favorite bands?” Sarah said she liked heavy metal music and the color purple. 

Cory Gregory: She was - her and Sarah were talking about dating. 

Stafford: Sarah and Adrianne were talking about going out with each other?

Cory Gregory: Yes.

Stafford: Was Sarah bisexual?

Cory Gregory: Yes.

Stafford: Was Adrianne?

Cory Gregory: Uh, she was bi-curious.

Stafford: She was thinking about it.

Cory Gregory: Yeah.

This sexual tension between Sarah and Adrianne quickly became apparent in their note-passing.  Adrianne asked Sarah: “What is the most you’ve done with a girl? Are you bisexual or straight lesbian?” Adrianne implied to Sarah she was bisexual, which was news to her father.

Tony Reynolds: I think Sarah might’ve said, “Well, I’m bi” or whatever, and I would think Adrianne would say, “I am too.”  But the two never got together.

In fact, something pushed the girls apart. Their relationship disintegrated after a party at this house in December.

Could that be a clue to Adrianne’s disappearance a month later?

Cory Gregory: She was talking and flirting with the other boys—Adrianne was, so Sarah got mad about that.

Stafford: Sarah’s jealous?

Cory Gregory: Yeah, Sarah got jealous.

Stafford: Because Adrianne’s spending time with boys and Sarah wanted Adrianne to spend time with her?

Cory Gregory: Pretty much, yeah.

Adrianne ended up having sex with one of the boys at the house, which enraged Sarah.

Cory Gregory: She started calling her a “slut” and a “whore” and words like that.

Cory says the next day, Adrianne slept with another boy at the house, angering Sarah even more.

Cory Gregory: Adrianne tried to call Sarah like every single day and Sarah just answered the phone and yelled at her or hung up on her.

Stafford: Did Adrianne seem that desperate to have friends and not be rejected?

Cory Gregory: Adrianne wanted to fit in, you know?  And Sarah got his attitude like “Oh, I’m number one,” you know?

Despite the rejection, Adrianne kept trying.  On December 15^th, she asked Sarah: “How come you don’t talk to me?”

By December 30, Adrianne wrote again, saying Sarah was “just looking for a way to not be” her friend.

Cory Gregory: After that first day at that party, they’ve fought every single day I’ve seen them since then. Sarah would make her cry.

At the time, Adrianne’s parents didn’t know about these letters, but Adrianne had told her stepmom that Sarah was bad-mouthing her and even threatening her.

Joanne Reynolds: Adrianne told me that she was scared.

Stafford: Scared?

Joanne Reynolds: Uh-huh.

Stafford: Of Sarah?

Joanne Reynolds: Uh-huh, and that there had been a lot of fighting at school.

Stafford: What kind of fighting?

Joanne Reynolds: Just Sarah yelling at her, telling her to commit suicide.

Still Adrianne would not let go of Sarah and wrote her saying: “I wanted a chance for us to start over again and to at least be friends.”

“Why do you hate me so much and why do you want me to die?”

To complicate things even further, in mid-January, Cory and Adrianne began hanging out a bit - but without Sarah.

Cory Gregory: We kissed a couple times, but that was about it. 

Stafford: Did Sarah know that you were seeing Adrianne?

Cory Gregory: I told Sarah and she got mad and hung up the phone on me.

Cory told his mom about the tiff with Sarah.

Teresa Gregory, Cory’s mother: I said, “Cory, Sarah’s not your girlfriend, you can hang out with anybody you want.  She has no right to tell you who you can and cannot be friends with.”  He said, “I know, Mom, that’s what I told her.”

Cory and Sarah made up the next day, but she was furious at Adrianne for moving in on her best friend and she wrote about it in her journal on Friday, January 21, 2005, the day Adrianne went missing. “Stupid bitch needs to back up off my Kool-aid! She’s going to give him a note. Yeah well I’ll (f*ng) kill her.”  But surprisingly, later that same day, Sarah was nice to Adrianne and, as she told police, even gave her a ride at lunch time, the last time she was seen.

Cory Gregory:  They’re acting like they’re friends again. So I figured nothing of it because Sarah does this all the time.  She’ll hate someone one day and she’ll be friends with them the next.

Why would Sarah give a ride to a girl she clearly did not like? Police would soon be asking her that very question.

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