Grimmie’s murder explored in podcast
New 5-part Sentinel series debuts today
Erin Westfall knew Christina Grimmie’s name before going to The Plaza Live for a concert June 10, 2016. But she had never heard the singer’s voice. As it was for many, Westfall said hearing it for the first time — powerful, but delicate — was a revelation.
“I grew up in chorus and in vocal lessons, and singing and doing all these things trying to perfect a sound like that — and she just had it,” she recalled. “And it was effortless to her.”
At 18, it was Westfall’s first concert alone, without the watchful eyes of her parents or her sister, and it was shaping up to be an amazing night. She was there to see Before You Exit, a local band she had followed for years — and now she was also discovering someone new. Someone special.
“There was just something magnetic about her,” she said. “I don’t know how else to describe it. She is the kind of person that walks into the room and she was light. She just had people gravitate towards her.”
However, the night would end in tragedy.
Grimmie was an effervescent 22-year-old who had risen from YouTube stardom to mainstream acclaim as a contestant on the NBC competition “The Voice,” to an ascendant career as a recording artist and touring act. She was gunned down by a troubled man whose fandom had curdled into a dark obsession.
In the Orlando Sentinel’s new podcast, “Christina Grimmie: The Murder of a Rising Star,” we take an in-depth look at the killing that began perhaps the darkest weekend in Orlando’s history. The first episode, “A Dream Derailed,” explores Grimmie’s path to fame, before it was cut short at The Plaza Live.
MacKenzie Bearup had discovered Grimmie early, having heard one of her songs on Radio Disney in 2011. She was also a longtime follower of Grimmie’s touring mates, Before You Exit. “When I saw they were touring together I was like, this is a once in a lifetime kind of thing,” she said.
Orlando was Bearup’s fifth stop on the tour, which the Georgia native had planned to follow to Los Angeles. Instead, she spent the day after the concert placing candles outside The Plaza to honor Grimmie’s memory.
As a fellow contestant on “The Voice” — and, eventually, Grimmie’s roommate on the show — Kat Perkins witnessed firsthand the singer’s devotion to her craft and her fans. Among the contestants, Grimmie stood out quickly, she said.
“We stayed in this hotel and they had an outdoor lounge with this fire pit — a propane fire pit — so she was singing some songs with people,” she recalled. “And people already knew her because of YouTube. So people were pretty starstruck by her and wanted to sing with her.”
The two became close — like sisters, Perkins said — and leaned on each other for support during the months-long grind of a televised competition.
“It made me laugh every time I would hang out with her,” she said. “Just the jokes she would tell. The mannerisms she had. She would make faces. We would take weird selfies. That playful attitude was something that was just right off the bat when I got to hang out with her.”
Grimmie “couldn’t believe” she had gotten the tour when she booked it, Perkins said — another milestone in a career that was on the way up. “I feel, as much as I know her and communicated, that her career was going in the right direction,” she said. “She was taking the next levels.”