the line "Mother, I am going home" and included content indicating that Corbett was in a "confused" state of mind. Corbett's father, James, showed the note to a physician who determined that she may have been suffering from mental illness at the time she disappeared.

Before her disappearance, Corbett was dating Thomas Sterling, a student at nearby Amherst College. Sterling reported to police that Corbett asked him to buy her poison a week before she disappeared. He refused the request. Police also