Circle of friends

Bert Gregory, Cory Gregory's father: I said, “Did something happen to her in that car?” And he started shaking his head, yes. He couldn’t talk.

The look on Cory Gregory’s face said it all. Four days after Adrianne Reynolds disappeared, it was clear Cory had been lying about what really happened. His father, Bert, braced himself for what his son was about to say.

Bert Gregory: I said, “Did she get hurt in the car?”  Shook his head yes.  I said, “Did she get hurt bad? He said really, really a lot.” I said, “Is she dead?”  He shook his head yes.  I said, “Well where’ she at?”  He just couldn’t - he couldn’t talk.

Bert called Teresa, his ex-wife, and told her to come over right away.

Rob Stafford, Dateline correspondent: What do you say to Cory?

Teresa Gregory: I just couldn’t even say anything. I just cried and hugged him.  And he says, “Mom, I’m  so sorry. I’m so sorry.”  At that point my heart was so broken, I didn’t even have words.

But Cory decided he did have something to say—something more about what had happened—and he wanted to say it to the police. His father reached for the phone.

Stafford: How difficult is the phone call you’re about to make?

Bert Gregory: Oh, I don’t know if it was difficult.  It was the right thing needed to be done.  A family needed to know where their daughter is.  Things need to be straightened out.  I mean you can’t hide something like this. It’s the right thing to do. He needs to face up to what he did, what his part was. 

Stafford: What’s the look on Cory’s face?

Teresa Gregory: He’s a broken child at this point.  He can’t stop crying. He can’t stop shaking.

Bert Gregory: He seemed relieved, though. 

Stafford: He seemed relieved?

Bert Gregory: Yeah.

Teresa Gregory: He’d been holding it in all weekend. And he’d, he’d been trying to cover up their tracks all weekend, and I think it was just breaking him to do so that he just needed for his own peace to tell the truth.

Cory was ready to meet with the police for the second time.

Stafford: What is on the line for you at this point?

Cory Gregory: Well, pretty much my life, I guess. But you know I really wasn’t thinking about myself. You know I was thinking more about - I - I didn’t want to lose Sarah.  I wanted to keep Sarah in my life. But I knew the right thing was to talk to the police for Adrianne’s sake and her family’s.

Cory was able to momentarily cast aside that power Sarah had over him and he provided police details of what really happened to Adrianne. Investigators captured every word on tape.

(Police interview) Cory Gregory: And we went to Taco Bell...

The tears from earlier that day were gone as Cory told a story that even the most hardened detectives found hard to fathom.

Cory Gregory: Then Adrianne grabbed her neck and started choking her.

Attorney: Adrianne grabbed Sarah’s neck?

Cory Gregory: Yes. And they both were struggling, and Sarah and Adrianne—struggling trying to choke each other....

Cory gave Dateline a more complete version of the final moments of Adrianne Reynolds' life.

Cory Gregory (to Dateline): They just started swinging at each other and then Adrianne hits Sarah in the nose. Sara’s nose started bleeding. So Sarah grabbed this wooden stick that she keeps in her car for def --- protection, she says, and started to hit her a couple times with it and they kept fighting and wrestling and it moved to the back seat.

At this point, Cory said he got out of the car and moved to the front passenger seat as the fight became more vicious.

Cory Gregory: Sarah’s on top of Adrianne and she choking Adrianne and then Adrianne goes out and Sarah gets off her and sits in the car - sits back in the front seat. We sit there and smoke a cigarette for awhile. 

Stafford: You sit there smoking a cigarette at that point? And Adrianne is dead in the back seat of the car?

Cory Gregory: We thought she was just passed out.  We were waiting for her just to wake up. And then finally we looked back and her face was blue and we just started freaking out after that, you know?  We didn’t know what to do.

Stafford: And here’s Adrianne, your friend, who you had been out with just a couple days earlier.

Cory Gregory: Yeah. 

Stafford: And she’s dead in the back seat of the car.

Cory Gregory: Yeah.

Stafford: Are you saying anything? Are you crying?

Cory Gregory: I—

Stafford: What are you doing?

Cory Gregory: I’m just sitting there. I couldn’t say anything. I was just shocked.

Stafford: But you’re incredibly unemotional about a lot of this.

Cory Gregory: I am really emotional, but I like to keep my emotions to myself, you know?

Remember: this all happened in broad daylight in a car parked at a busy taco bell. But because the windows were fogged up on a cold winter day, people right outside the car couldn’t see what was happening inside where panic was now setting in.

Stafford: So what are you going to do?

Cory Gregory: We don’t know. It’s like, “Man, what’s going on, Sarah? You killed her.”  And she’s like, “No, she’s not dead. She’s not dead.”  And it’s like, “Man, she dead, Sarah. What are we gonna do?” We’ve never been in trouble with the law. We don’t know nothin’ about it and then Sarah’s like, “You gotta help me hide the body - you gotta help me hide the body.” And you know, I was hesitant, but I told her, “Yeah, I’d help her out.” 

Stafford: Why don’t you pick up the phone and call someone?

Cory Gregory: I just cared too much about Sarah. I didn’t want to see her spend the rest of her life in jail.

Stafford: You want to help Sarah. You don’t want to help Cory at that point?

Cory Gregory: At that time, no, because I didn’t think I had—

Stafford: Hard to believe.

Cory Gregory: Well that’s the truth. I figured you know, I’ll help her. I didn’t know what to do anyway. So I just followed along - did what she said.

Cory says that power, that control led him here - where he helped Sarah carry Adrianne’s body to the trunk of the car. They then drove out to Sarah’s grandparents’ farm. Cory says the plan was to bury Adrianne’s body, but the ground was frozen. So these two teenagers from the heartland were about to go to plan B.

Stafford: How would you describe what’s about to happen?

Cory Gregory: Horrifying, you know. It was worse than any horror movie you could watch. We were both in shock.

MORE FROM DATELINE

Dateline Section Front

NBC's People of the Year: Read the interviews The Night Mary Jane Disappeared The Friday the 13th Mystery Mystery at Lost Dog Road Slideshow: Photos in the Bob Duke case When The Smoke Clears   Sneak peek: When The Smoke Clears Slideshow: The Christie Fleming murder Transcript: Dan Brown and Secrets Of The Lost Symbol Through The Pouring Rain Dateline Section Front   Add Dateline headlines to your news reader: