Given that Beth had planned to babysit for her (foster) cousin, Greg Nicholas, on the night she disappeared, he immediately came under suspicion. Interviews with family members started to fill in some troubling — and conflicting –details.
Beth’s mother, Kathleen, went through her daughter’s letters and found something that, in retrospect, seemed disturbing. In one of those letters Beth had written, “It’s not fun to date anymore.”
“My daughter didn’t want her cousin, foster cousin, Gregory Nicholas, staying on the same floor with her,” Kathleen told troopers after revealing their that bedrooms were next to each other. “It was a poor arrangement. I don’t know if he was getting out of line or if it was for reasons of modesty.”
She added that, “Greg did not get along with my daughter. They bickered with each other since they were four or five years old. This continued until her early teens, when he ran away. After he came back, I don’t have a specific recollection of my daughter’s and his demeanor. There was nothing outstanding. Their attitude toward each other hadn’t seemed to change.”
Beth van Zanten