Letters From Cages

Is it really possible to be at the wrong place at the wrong time? Can you truly be believed when you are telling someone that you don’t really know what had happened when you were there? And no matter how hard you try, you can’t explain why you don’t know what happened?

What does the saying “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt” even mean? How can you know, without a doubt, that someone is guilty of something they are accused of? Especially when you have no solid evidence other than a couple shoeprints, a shady alibi, and some unexplainable motive?

All of these questions soared through my mind and I watched my nineteen year old fiancé, the love of my life, my rock, holding his head in his hands as the juror held shakily, a small slip of paper in her frail fingers.

“We the jury, find the defendant, Carter Wright, guilty, of first degree aggravated murder for the crime of killing fifteen year old Daniel Cody.”

I sat there, shocked, each limb of my body felt like it was being consumed with a large fire, but a cold fire, a cold flaming shiver that I couldn’t bear any longer. Gasps were heard from the crowd watching the trial upon hearing the verdict. Nothing escaped my mouth or my eyes, I just sat there, stunned. Carter’s deep blue eyes looked back at me, almost pleading with me, but I couldn’t do anything, all I could do was sit and watch. Like some spectator, a bystander, someone who could do nothing.

Carter, hands in handcuffs, was being pulled up by two bailiffs, he didn’t resist, instead he hung his head low. They led him towards the door and I finally stood up. Everyone else was sitting as I stood, and I looked back behind me to see his mother, Martha Wright, crying in her husband’s shoulders. She couldn’t bear to look at her son. Carter’s eyes met my own again as he stopped at the door, his shoulders completely sunk and he opened his lips to mouth to me:

“I love you.”

And just like that, he was gone.