What Led a High School 'Miss Irresistible' to Kill 4 of Her Friends? Examining the Infamous Clear Lake Murders

It was a Cinderella story turned nightmare.

The quadruple murders of Rachael Koloroutis, Tiffany Rowell, Marcus Precella and Adelbert Sanchez in July 2003 went unsolved for three years before a tipster’s phone call led police in Texas to a once struggling teen who once seemed to have her fortune reversed, going from being bullied to being voted “Miss Irresistible” by her high school classmates.

But the same classmates who appeared to take Christine Paolilla under their wings found themselves fatally shot by her ex-boyfriend Christopher Snider during what investigators believe was a drug deal gone wrong.

More than 20 years later, PEOPLE is looking back at the harrowing crime, which led victims' families to search for answers for years before Paolilla herself was sentenced to life in prison.

An Outsider Turned 'Miss Irresistible'

Paolilla seemed to struggle in her first few years of high school, according to ABC News. The outlet reported that the teenager was a reserved outsider whose father died at a young age and whose mother was addicted to drugs. The high schooler also had insecurities about her appearance stemming from her alopecia, a condition that leads to early age hair loss. In school, Paolilla wore wigs.

But Rowell and Koloroutis, two popular kids at Clear Lake High School who were a year older than Paolilla, suddenly befriended the teen, according to ABC, sparking a friendship that would have a tragic end.

"She was voted by the school, 2003, Miss Irresistible at Clear Lake High School," Paolilla’s mother told 20/20 during a segment on her daughter’s crime, according to ABC. "They did it because they felt that she was the person who they just loved, because of the way she was, the person she was."

The Murders

Police responded to a Houston area home on July 18, 2003, to find the four victims dead. Investigators believed Sanchez and Precella were drug dealers and that Paolilla and Snider, her then-boyfriend, had come to the house to purchase drugs, according to The Houston Chronicle. But something went awry, leading Snider to take out a gun and begin shooting, the outlet reported.

The newspaper reported that officers testified how each victim was shot “multiple” times: Sanchez and Rowell weren’t able to get off the couch before they were killed, while Snider allegedly shot Precella and Paolilla pistol whipped Koloroutis as she tried to crawl away after getting struck by the bullets. "Why are you doing this to me?" she asked Paolilla before her friend beat her with the gun, Harris County Assistant District Attorney Rob Freyer testified, according to the Chronicle.

Searching for Answers, and Paolilla’s Conviction

The victims' families searched incessantly for answers over the next three years, as police failed to crack the case, according to ABC News. The outlet reported that George Koloroutis, Rachael Koloroutis’ father, had printed and handed out fliers to local residents and put multiple billboards up along a Houston area highway to raise awareness about the case, even offering a $100,000 reward for information that could help solve his daughter’s murder.

Three years after the investigation stalled, a man called a police hotline to tip police off to Paolilla’s involvement, telling them details about the murders that only investigators had known, such as how Koloroutis tried to crawl from her murderer away after she was shot.

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Paolilla confessed to being involved in the crime, but at trial, a psychiatrist for the defense testified that her confession stemmed from the heroin withdrawals she was experiencing while being interrogated by police, according to the Houston Chronicle.

But the jury was not swayed. Paolilla was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison after she was convicted of capital murder in 2008, avoiding a potential death sentence because she was 17 years old at the time of the quadruple murder, ABC 13 reported. Snider, who was 21 at the time of the killings, died by suicide in 2006, around the same time police received the tip that broke the case open.

Jail records reviewed by PEOPLE show Paolilla, now 38 years old, remains behind bars in a Texas prison and isn’t eligible for parole until 2046.