Feb 09, 2007  |  By: LOU CHIBBARO JR.  | COMMENTS     

Montgomery County police said they could find no evidence to confirm the sexual orientation of the two missing teenage girls from Maryland who were found dead in Virginia on Feb. 2 in a presumed double suicide, following nearly three weeks of online speculation that they might have been lovers.

The discovery of the bodies of Rachel Crites, 18, of Gaithersburg, and Rachel Smith, 16, of Potomac, in the front seat of the Crites family car ended a three-week saga in which the families and friends of the two teens struggled desperately to find them. Authorities in Virginia said the two appeared to have died from carbon monoxide poisoning.

Their car was found in a remote, wooded area near the West Virginia border, according to the Loudon County Sheriff’s office. WTOP Radio News reported that law enforcement sources said the key in the vehicle’s ignition was in the “on” position, with the motor off after all the fuel had been consumed.

Police listed Crites and Smith as missing persons on Jan. 20, one day after they told their parents they were going to see a movie together in Georgetown and did not return home.

Two days after the two were reported missing, Crites’s father, Troy Crites, released to Channel 7 News a diary entry from his daughter that immediately raised speculation that the two teens may have been involved in a romantic relationship.

“Wherever I end up laying, whether buried or cremated, I want to stay with my true love, buried next to her,” the diary entry said. “This is my choice. I’m sorry.”

Parents and friends of the two teens told police they had been close and nearly inseparable friends for more than a year. But a number of friends from Thomas S. Wootton High School in Rockville, where Crites graduated last year and where Smith was still a student, said both had dated boys, and characterized their relationship as “sisters.”

Brian Cathcart, a student at Montgomery Blair High School, who said he dated Rachel Smith last year, told the Blade he felt “a little left out” upon learning of the relationship between Smith and Crites. He said that Smith never confided in him about her feelings for Crites. Prior to learning about the diary entry, Cathcart said he assumed Smith was straight.

Crites’ father told Channel 7 News and other news media outlets that his daughter had suffered from a bout of depression last March and that he and his wife were very concerned that she might be planning to harm herself.

Over the next 12 days, prior to the discovery of the bodies, area residents flooded blogs with messages of support for the two families, with some speculating that the two teens may have feared rejection from family and friends over a possible lesbian relationship.

Shortly after Montgomery County police appealed to the public for help in finding the missing teens, a friend of the Rachel Smith family contacted the Blade and asked for assistance in seeking help from the gay community in locating the two Rachels. But Rachel Smith’s mother, Marion Smith, and Montgomery County Police spokesperson Lucille Baur, subsequently urged the Blade not to report any information speculating on the sexual orientation of the two teens.

Both said they feared that information disclosing what the two teens would likely consider a private matter could cause them great distress. Montgomery police investigators believed it could be detrimental to the well being of both teens if the Blade reported that they might be gay, Baur said.

The Blade agreed to the request and withheld publication of any story on the matter, even though open discussion of the two Rachels’ possible sexual orientation was taking place on online message boards and blogs, including the blog of WTOP Radio. WTOP and other broadcast news outlets also reported on the Rachel Crites diary entry in their regular news stories.

Similar to the Blade, the Washington Post chose to withhold information about the diary entry at the request of Montgomery County police, mentioning it only after the bodies were found.

Scott Beard, a faculty adviser for ALLIES, a gay campus group at Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, W.Va., told the Blade that he was interviewed by Montgomery County police after unconfirmed reports surfaced the teens were spotted on campus.

Beard said the police told him they thought Crites and Smith were together as a couple.

“Based on ...