Her parents divorced in 1972 when she was 2. She grew up in Texas with her mother and then, after a brief stay with her father in Oxnard, lived with her grandparents in Mission Viejo, where she became a high school cheerleader. Wilsey told her manager, Nancy Pera, that her childhood was unhappy and that she had been molested. That is not uncommon for women who work in the sex industry, studies show. Many were abused as children. [Mike Wilsey] said his daughter never told him about any molestation.

The engagement had been scheduled to start Monday, but Pera said Wilsey was out late Sunday night partying and riding around in a limo with a young man who was housesitting for the band House of Pain. Pera said Wilsey had been dating one of the band's members.

Pera dressed and drove to Wilsey's house, not too hurriedly because she was used to late-night calls from Wilsey. When she arrived, she found Wilsey's body lying in the garage in a pool of blood.