While the news about the confession in the Green River killings has been prominent, I am (peripherally) involved in another criminal justice story. One of my closest co-workers at the hospital was a 9-year-old girl out for a bicycle ride with her parents in a state forest in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1977 when her mother took a fork in the trail and was brutally murdered. Despite intensive efforts, no leads appeared in the case until the late ’90’s, due to dogged efforts by a detective in the Massachusetts Cold Case Unit who was fascinated by the case since he was a little boy and his father was the police chief of Plymouth when the murder occurred. The stuff of television, and in fact the case was featured in a 1999 CBS 48 Hours (scroll down to the last case). It took nineteen years to identify a suspect, two further years to charge him, and then five more years before the suspect came to trial. Today the prosecution wraps up the presentation of its case and it goes to the jury (the defense is not calling any witnesses). My friend and her family have had to endure reliving the events, confronting the depravity of her mother’s accused murderer, hearing grisly forensic testimony reconstructing the crime and her mother’s injuries, all with the knowledge that they may have to find from this some other closure than a conviction. Here is what she says as she heads to court today:

Please know that I am not expecting a guilty verdict. I am hoping people will keep their hopes and expectations reasonable. The DA and all those involved have certainly shown they have done the absolute best job they could do. There just may not be enough evidence to convict him, but we got this far and mom has had her days in court. For me, the verdict is a formality. It is for society. I know in my heart and mind what I feel and believe. My primary goal from this process was to get information as to what happened and I am getting so much more info than I ever thought I’d get…and so for me the process has worked.

My heart is with you and your family, Pam…