S074 - Chen, Roberta [DECEASED]

[Buko]

Name: Roberta Chen
Gender: Female
Age: 19
Grade: 12th
School: John Endecott Memorial Academy
Hobbies and Interests: Piano, urban exploration, whittling, woodworking.

Appearance: Roberta is short and pear-shaped, standing at 5’0” and weighing 110lb. Roberta is Chinese on her father’s side, and Dominican on her mother’s, resulting in a mixed appearance that is often confused with different ethnicities. She has short, straight black hair that is shaggy and roughly cut. It reaches to her chin and often gets in her eyes. She has light brown skin dotted with faint freckles, and almond-shaped eyes that are dark brown. She has a soft, round face and a stubby nose. Her small, cute appearance is contrasted with a tendency to scowl, and a series of small, pale scars on the backs of her hands. She has two large scars on her upper right thigh, one at the front and one at the back. She has a tendency to put her weight on the other leg, and a limp is evident at close examination but becomes more prominent when she runs.

Roberta has a preference for jeans and heavy boots, and a tendency towards long-sleeved shirts that are either plaid or have simple floral patterns, worn over t-shirts or tank tops depending on the weather. She wears a hooded, black puffer vest during cold weather. She regularly wears a pink crocheted headband with a crochet flower stitched in and uses this to keep hair out of her eyes when necessary, primarily while woodworking.

On the day of the abduction, Roberta was wearing a long-sleeved, pale pink shirt with darker pink flowers underneath her usual black, hooded puffer vest. She had jeans, and heavy brown boots. She had on her crocheted pink headband with a flower on the left, a matching pink scarf and knitted pink gloves.

Biography: Roberta Chen was born 2nd of February, 2002. She was born in Quincy, Massachusetts, to first-generation Chinese-American Ying Chen, and his wife Maria Chen (nee Mendoza), who had moved from the Dominican Republic when she was a child. Roberta also has a little sister, Isabella, who is two years younger. Both of her parents were involved in the medical profession, Ying being a doctor and Maria a nurse, which factored into how they’d met. The long hours their jobs required, as well as their workaholic natures, resulted in regular absences from the house, and their children’s lives, and so the girls were raised largely by a series of babysitters, neighbors, and daycares.

Roberta, from an early age, had a bad temper and a tendency towards being impulsive. She spent much of her time at the daycare in timeout for ignoring instructions, shouting, and interfering with what other children were doing. When she entered school, most of Roberta’s classwork would only be half-complete and her homework was largely ignored, and pressure to complete it would result in her lashing out. Her parents often only saw second-hand reports of this behavior, as Roberta’s temper at home was less obvious without frustration at the rigidity of school and her inability to focus on it influencing her actions. But their busy jobs, and being both unwilling and unable to reduce their hours, meant that they couldn’t give the attention that might have led to being able to help Roberta with her anger, or at least realize it might not be something she’d simply grow out of. Punishments to keep her in line tended to come from others, such as being grounded or losing privileges for acting out. Both her parents were averse to conflict with people they lived with, preferring to ignore it when possible in favor of focusing on the positives. This had the unintentional side effect of them seeming to favor Isabella, as she did much better in school and had more positives to complement.

Roberta’s primary source of both calm and positive reinforcement was piano lessons. Her parents, in part due to music lessons keeping their children occupied for an extra portion of the day, signed them on early. Roberta proved more adept at it than at schoolwork and enjoyed the process of making music as it gave her a sense of immediate fulfilment that focusing on anything else at school didn’t.

Outside of these lessons, Roberta’s misbehaviour got steadily worse. She got in trouble several times for not doing her work, shouting at or being disrespectful towards teachers when they criticized her work or behavior and scratching or drawing shapes into the bathrooms and some desks on multiple occasions. She spent a lot of time in detention and was suspended twice.

It wasn’t until middle school that Roberta’s behavior ventured into illegal activity. When she entered middle school, there was a cluster of older troublemakers that were led by a sixteen-year-old boy named Curtis. Though he had left for high school, many of his friends remained in middle school, including his fifteen-year-old girlfriend, Kaili. Roberta was intrigued by the crowd, particularly by Kaili’s reputation as a troublemaker and by what was, unidentified as such at the time, a crush on the older girl. It proved difficult for Roberta to integrate herself with them, as she was small and overall had a cute, harmless appearance. She actively attempted to cultivate a tough image, cutting her hair shorter and switching to fashion choices that mimicked the group she wanted to be a part of. Though this only made her more obvious as a wannabe, the group eventually accepted her as a tag-along and eventually let her follow them to their meetings with the others, including Curtis. Roberta, having not met Curtis until then, found that she intensely disliked him. But he was substantially bigger than her and commanded the respect of the rest of the group. Though her temper resulted in her verbally lashing out on occasion at him, fear and respect made her back down quicker than she would have with anyone else.

Part of the group’s after-school activities included breaking into and lingering around abandoned buildings, usually trespassing to do so. Roberta’s smaller size compared to most of the others allowed her to more easily scale dangerous bits of architecture or wiggle through windows and gaps to open up places for the others, which started to lend credibility to her place within the group. Roberta held a genuine enjoyment for exploring old buildings. Each building was different, and exploring old buildings let her easily daydream about what might have happened there before, and why no one was there anymore.

Kaili gave Roberta a pocket knife when she was fourteen, which Roberta treasures. The gang did not engage in violent crimes against others, but they often played reckless games with the knives, resulting in Roberta slicing her hands more than once. The main purpose Roberta used this knife for was whittling, as they often found chunks of wood lying about the buildings they explored. She would spend much of her time sitting with the others to one side and trying to carve something out of the wood she found. She wasn’t very good at it, and most attempts just resulted in something that was a bit smaller and smoother. She found it soothing, and it was an activity that calmed her when she wanted to snap back at Curtis.

Curtis had a knack for procuring alcohol and drugs, and they were often passed around while the group hung out at night. Roberta experienced a few varying drugs but didn’t enjoy any of them, but struggled with refusing them since she didn’t want to look like she was cowardly. She did enjoy alcohol, enjoying the buzz that occurred when she didn’t overdo it, but it resulted in her temper flaring even easier.

Changes in Roberta’s behavior over the course of middle school were noticed. She calmed down somewhat in class regarding the teachers, as she’d given up on caring what they thought about her and by then had intentions to leave school the moment she could. Considering her education a hopeless endeavour resulted in her frustration bubbling up less, which outwardly looked better than when she’d cared enough to argue. On the other hand, her alteration in how she dressed was noticeable, and the cuts on her hands were particularly noticeable due to her piano lessons. Concerns were raised given her association with known troublemakers, but supervision, now that she was considered too old for babysitters and daycare, came primarily in the form of getting the neighbors to check on her occasionally, and they checked on an easily predictable schedule that Roberta could navigate around. The only person who regularly noticed was her sister, but Isabella didn’t tell anyone.

An incident occurred when she was fifteen, in her first year of high school. This was partly spurred by Curtis and Kaili having a nasty breakup and Kaili declining to keep meeting with the group as a result. Despite Kaili’s absence, Roberta joined her remaining friends in sneaking into an abandoned factory, and they climbed onto the roof before Curtis produced the usual alcohol. What was already an ill-advised venture got worse when Curtis, drunk and bitter, started badmouthing his ex-girlfriend to the group. Roberta, her fear of Curtis dulled by both the alcohol and missing Kaili’s presence, verbally lashed out in Kaili’s defense. The verbal argument between Roberta and Curtis escalated. Roberta had been, as she often did, trying to whittle while they sat on the roof. Without thinking, she’d gestured at Curtis with the knife. This was taken as a threat, and Curtis pulled his own. Mutual intoxication, panic, and aggression spiralled into a few attempts at jabbing each other’s hands before Roberta realized what was happening and tried to back up. Curtis lunged at her, but the weight was too heavy on the abandoned roof and they both fell through. It wasn’t a large fall, and Curtis was able to walk away from it with only a broken arm. Roberta, on the other hand, broke two ribs and got her upper leg impaled on a piece of rebar, missing a vital area by inches. Curtis and her friends scattered, though one called an ambulance for her. Roberta was found by the paramedics while she was gravely injured, intoxicated, and in possession of a pocket knife while trespassing on private property.

Roberta was in the hospital for a month before being initially released, with plans for her to rest her ribs and leg and engage in physical therapy. She soon attempted to push herself too far due to frustration with being so immobile and tore the wound open again and got returned to the hospital. She would heal enough to be mobile again five months after the incident, though she suffered some nerve damage in her leg and decreased mobility, resulting in a permanent limp that became less prominent over time and only noticeable at close examination.

Roberta struggled mentally with her time in hospital, alongside the time under scrutiny by the police while her crimes and the ensuing punishment was still being decided. The trauma of the injury, the knowledge that she had almost died, her friends abandoning her, and the consequences for how she’d been living her life all catching up at once led her to a melancholy state. Feelings of hopelessness that had, until then, only affected her school life started to infect her life as a whole. She also developed a strong dislike of both hospitals and being trapped, as a result of her lengthy stay.

Roberta’s case proved difficult, due to the multiple small crimes involved and suspicion of others. The owner of the abandoned factory had to be persuaded not to press charges with an out-of-court settlement fee, and the underage intoxication and carrying of a knife resulted in extra examination. Curtis’ broken arm and his known association with her got him examined as well, but both of them denied that Curtis had been there. Roberta was ultimately put on probation, with court-mandated therapy and counselling.

The therapy and counselling proved to be positive. The therapist, after talking to Roberta, her parents, and multiple teachers from across her schooling, diagnosed her with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and worked with her on ways to manage this. Roberta wasn’t used to being listened to by adults, and though she initially resisted the attempts, she ended up opening up and telling the therapist both about her general frustrations and, although not giving a full rundown of what her friends had been up to, telling the therapist enough that it gave a decent impression of the influence they’d had on her. It helped for Roberta to have a name for some of her frustrations and inability to focus, instead of just a vague feeling that something was off. After some testing with different medications, she was subscribed methylphenidate extended-release capsules.

Between her absentee parents and her trouble-making friends, the decision was made that Roberta would function better if moved to a home away from Quincy where she’d have more supervision and support to prevent more acting out. Her parents agreed with this, partially due to embarrassment that they’d completely missed Roberta’s ADHD despite being medical professionals, and acknowledgment that they couldn’t give her the supervision she needed without giving up their work.

Roberta was sent to Salem to live with family on her mother’s side, her uncle, Haziel Mendoza, and his wife, Nora, alongside a son from Nora’s first marriage, Michael Eastman. Although both Haziel and Nora worked full-time jobs in management, these hours were during the weekdays and they were generally home at night and on weekends, thus being more present than Roberta’s parents and being more able to keep track of her. Due to Roberta needing to repeat her freshman year due to the injuries, legal trouble, and the move, this also put her and Michael in the same freshman year at John Endecott.

The first year was the most difficult, as they tried to find a balance between keeping a strong enough eye on Roberta while still allowing her some freedom. For the first year, Roberta had a wristwatch with GPS tracking in it, so that Haziel and Nora could see where she went if she wandered off. Though Roberta did agree to wear it for a while, the concept became suffocating and she ended up removing it and hiding it in bushes outside places it was reasonable for her to linger before running off, despite the fact that she was at the time not venturing anywhere unreasonable or illegal. When she was caught doing this, it became clear that this was neither working nor improving Roberta’s relationship and trust with her new family. The family instead agreed to stop the GPS tracking as long as she texted them on occasion to say where she was. Roberta is usually truthful when she does so but occasionally is vague about her precise location if she’s somewhere she shouldn’t be.

Roberta has maintained regular piano practice since elementary school and it was one of the few activities she was able to do while her leg healed, enhancing her love of it. On a whim, and out of a desire to find more outlets for her energy, she took on a keyboardist position in a band during her second year of high school. Roberta wasn’t enthusiastic about performing in front of others, but enjoyed the energy and rebellious nature of much of the music and used it as a vent for her recurrent urge to cause trouble. Though the band quickly tailed into inactivity, Roberta has since joined a couple of others, inside and outside of school, though few of them ever lasted long. Roberta has a tendency to only stick around for the practice or occasional performance and try to avoid any interaction with anyone watching. She continues to practice more classical piano at home, but rarely in the presence of anyone else.

As the years have progressed, Roberta’s relationship with her uncle and his family has gone up and down. It was very common in the first couple of years for shouting matches to occur with them over what she is and isn’t allowed to do. It has steadily gotten better as they adjusted more to each other and got better on both ends at communicating, and now it’s rare for it to decline into yelling.

Roberta’s criminal habits have become less frequent or foolhardy, but have not vanished entirely. She still trespasses into abandoned property on occasion, though she usually doesn’t linger long or climb into condemned areas. More often than not, she’ll sneak in to swipe an interesting piece of wood she saw, then leave immediately. She has gone teetotal regarding both drugs and alcohol, due to a combination of lack of accessibility without Curtis, alcohol interfering with her ADHD medication, and fear of committing more stupid acts and falling off a rooftop again. She’s still prone to anger and doesn’t always manage to deal with this constructively, but there is much less of it due to treatment helping with her ability to focus, which was a major source of frustration. She will also leave infuriating situations before she becomes explosive if she realizes her rage is building before it gets too high.

Because of her interest in whittling, her uncle signed her on for some beginner's woodworking classes not long after she moved to Salem. Roberta took a shine to them, and although her patience often frayed early on when she wasn’t immediately good at it, her teacher was patient enough to help her through the initial frustrations. Once she started to get better at it she took immense joy in crafting. Her enjoyment of woodworking ended up getting her out of her melancholic, directionless mood because it was something that had potential as a career without having to be good at schoolwork. Her classes have continued and in her free time Roberta has mostly abandoned whittling in favor of using more refined tools to make wooden toys and work on renovating old furniture. She still whittles when idle at times, but less consistently.

The COVID lockdown had a negative effect on Roberta, as it left her feeling trapped again and resulted in her agitation and temper flaring regularly, interspersed with melancholic moods. She handled it better than she did in the hospital, as the presence of her uncle’s family and the ability to at least occasionally venture outside helped. But her temper bubbled close to the surface for the entirety of COVID. One positive side effect of COVID was that her younger sister, Isabella, was sent to live with the Mendoza family during a large part of it, due to COVID increasing both the absence of the parents and the risk of passing COVID on to Isabella if she remained. This resulted in Roberta and Isabella reconnecting after some distant years post-incident, and now that Isabella’s moved back they regularly talk online and watch movies together through streaming. Isabella gave Roberta the crocheted headband that she most often wears during their time reconnecting. COVID also changed Ying and Maria’s situation, as the stress of the pandemic removed the joy they had for their jobs, with Ying looking to reduce his time at work and Maria intending to retire completely from nursing. This has resulted in them focusing on their daughters recently. Phone calls to Roberta, which were beforehand made regularly but were short, cordial, and more out of duty on both sides than actual affection have become more regular and Ying and Maria have extended invitations for Roberta to come home for a while. Roberta has refused the offer so far. She feels happier and more at ease living with her uncle, holds some lingering resentment for her parents, and believes that her parents should have tried harder when it mattered instead of doing it now when it was convenient for them. She has not seen them in person since going to live with her uncle.

Roberta is much closer to her uncle and aunt than her parents, particularly to her uncle, Haziel. This doesn’t extend to her relationship with her uncle’s step-son, Michael, which is cordial at best due to Michael being a cold, closed-off person with little interest in interacting with her, though he’s inclined to ignore any crimes he notices her doing. As a result, both of them keep out of each other’s way.

Roberta has stayed with the same therapist since the move, though a separate one from the initial one in the hospital, and still visits her every two weeks. Having someone to vent her frustrations, in themselves difficult to verbalize coherently, has helped her keep her temper down, and allowed her to maintain some direction without falling into the trap of believing she’d be unable to achieve anything better. Her therapist has helped her focus on one thing at a time, in order to stop her from looking at the whole and considering it unachievable.

Roberta’s grades remain poor, lingering around Cs and with her often failing tests. Though she has exercises and medication for her ADHD, occasionally she forgets to take them or she can’t figure out her work well enough. This is further stymied by low self-esteem regarding her intelligence, which results in a lack of effort that then makes the belief a self-fulfilling prophecy. She has higher grades in her practical classes and does well in Spanish classes due to getting additional help from her fluent uncle. Roberta spoke Spanish briefly as a child, picking it up from her mother’s side of the family, but had initially dropped it as she started school and now seeks to regain that ability. She and Haziel often speak Spanish at home, in order to help practice, and it has given her some level of fluency again.

Roberta has considered dropping school but stays under encouragement from her family and therapist. She doesn’t engage in any school activities that aren’t necessary, preferring to do her own thing without any school guidelines. Her plans once school is complete are to find an apprenticeship in woodworking and work towards becoming a carpenter.

Roberta has difficulty with socializing, as her instinct is still to gravitate towards troublemakers and rougher kids, while her experiences have informed her on why that’s a bad idea. Though Roberta has since reverted to more casual clothes and is no longer attempting to project a tough, aggressive image to fit in with old friends, it is still her first instinct to behave as such despite her diminutive size. If Roberta’s sufficiently calm, or if the people trying to talk to her are stubborn, once the initial aggression is gotten through Roberta’s more willing to talk to and befriend people. Belligerent arguments are easy to stumble into, but Roberta will walk away quickly once she realizes something is going that way. Her few friends tend to be scattered amongst different social groups, and hanging out in groups is something Roberta rarely does of her own volition. Roberta has not maintained contact with her old group of friends, except for Kaili who she messages regularly through text and the internet. These messages are more sparse on Kaili’s end, as she’s currently at college, but replies are still frequent.

Roberta has few friends, and her dating experience is even sparser. Roberta is a lesbian and has had a series of crushes, including the one she had on Kaili that led her to her trouble-making friends. She’s not open about her feelings and hasn’t pursued any relationships, preferring the safety of crushing from afar.

Advantages: Roberta is used to exploring old buildings and dangerous places and has some skill in using a knife. Her past with her aggressive friends, and the roof incident, has given her the knowledge that things can go south with friends fast, making her less vulnerable to naivety regarding violence.
Disadvantages: Roberta’s small size means she can be overwhelmed in a fight, and her leg has never fully healed from the rebar, making it difficult for her to move swiftly. Roberta’s harsh demeanor is likely to scare off allies and reduce trust. Roberta is impulsive and has a temper, which is likely to lead her to poor decisions. She has few friends amongst the students and they’re scattered amongst different social groups, making finding allies harder. Her ADHD is likely to cause problems with focus and increase her temper issues, particularly if she misplaces her medication.

Designated Number: Student No. #074

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Designated Weapon: Khopesh

Conclusion: Use that skill with knives to kill with that Khopesh, capeesh? - Jim Greynolds