Chapter 24 - JUDITH’S APPEAL
Judith appealed.
One obstruction conviction was vacated because the jury instruction had improperly combined two different evidence-handling acts.
The homicide convictions remained.
Child-endangerment convictions remained.
Sentence reduced modestly after resentencing.
Headline:
GRANDMOTHER WINS APPEAL IN TWIN DEATH CASE.
I nearly threw my phone.
Rebecca laughed when I called.
“One count.”
“I know.”
“Then stop reading headlines.”
Everyone in my life eventually became Rebecca.
Legal correction mattered.
Even for Judith.
The rule of law is not loyalty to victims.
It is accuracy.
I wanted accuracy now more than vengeance.
Mostly.
Judith wrote Emma when Emma turned eighteen.
The letter began:
I put something into your brothers’ bottles because I believed I knew better than their mother and doctors.
Specific.
Then:
I continued after Trevor warned me.
Specific.
I washed the bottles because I knew I had done something wrong.
Specific.
Then:
At the funeral, I blamed your mother because I hated that she would not let me control what happened next.
No God.
No family survival.
No excuse.
Emma read it.
Then asked:
“Do I answer?”
“Only if you want.”
She wrote:
“I remember asking Pastor because you scared Mom. I don’t remember being brave. I remember being scared.”
Judith replied:
May you like
“You were a child. You should never have needed bravery from me.”
That was the first thing she wrote that Emma kept.
