I recently read The Devil All The Time and I have many thoughts about Sandy and Carl Henderson.
From the movie, we know it was Carl who lured Sandy into that life and it’s assumed Carl was always a sick fuck but the book explores their beginning more.
After they married, after a month of knowing one another, they decided to move to California because Carl had big dreams of being a real photographer. Instead they went broke and hungry and Carl then met guys who wanted to shoot a porno, using Sandy. So Carl got her drunk and agreed to let them use Sandy for $200. Sandy changed her mind and Carl kinda tried to get her out but the 7 or so men who were there shoved him back in his car and kept Sandy there, raping her for 2 hours and then paid Carl $20 because Sandy “wasn’t worth it”.
Carl’s who was more hurt than anything and he went out and bought a gun with the $20, and told Sandy he was going to kill the people who had done this to her. Instead he sat on a park bench and thought about killing himself because his dreams of being a big shot photographer were shattered.
They then start heading back home where they came from, and they pick up a hitchhiker who was apparently a “sex fiend”. The sex friend was friendly but asked Carl to have sex with Sandy. Sandy traumatized from the rape, stopped the car and almost made both of the men get out, but Carl flashed Sandy the gun and she started moving again.
Little else is elaborated but they killed the sex fiend and robbed him after Sandy had sex with him, all while Carl took pictures. And, according to Carl, Sandy had an orgasm while having sex with him which “hurt” him, even years later looking at the pictures.
Later, Carl mentions the picture where Sandy is holding a dead my like a baby in her arms and compares it to Mary holding baby Jesus, saying there’s a sweet look of innocence about her that he never saw again after that and that’s why it’s his favorite picture.
Arvin saw that same picture and said Sandy had a look of sorrow on her face.
Also, towards the end of their story, carl starts visiting a diner and starts chatting up the waitress the way he chatted up Sandy. Sandy catches wind of it and starts fearing he was going to replace her with a younger, prettier girl
Since the time they started killing, Sandy had resorted to prostitution, Carl didn’t let her use condoms with their victims so she’s caught a couple of STDs (the doctor told her one more time and she’ll never be able to have children), Carl had kept her hungry for days while they were hunting, and her teeth began to rot because all she could eat on those days was candy and smoke cigarettes.
But, carl mentioned at one point even if he could snag another girl to be his bait, no one would ever be as good as Sandy. Carl also never thinks of Sandy as anything but beautiful, even when describing her flaws. Her teeth were rotted, she had a bad vaginal infection that stunk out their car, and she was too skinny.
I have a lot of thoughts about these characters and I have to point out that as Carl lay dying after being shot in the gut, he thinks that he wanted to promise Sandy that he was done with killing. He started clawing at the grass because he could feel himself sink into the ground.
I think Carl cared for Sandy but not because she was his wife or the love of his life. She was a means to an end, and she held all her value to Carl as his bait.
Put simply, Sandy deserved way way wayyyyyy better than the life she led.
