Tilly was seven years old back then. She was a silly girl. She couldn’t remember anything correctly, could she? Why open up the case again because of an emotional, unstable teenager’s new testimony? Johnny and Betsy had killed the father in cold blood, and that was that. And for God’s sakes, the murdered women in the dirt cave could not be brought up in a new trial. That was irrelevant, unnecessary, it lent no new evidence to the case!

The judge, though, saw it radically differently. Judge Callie Tsoko scheduled a new trial for Johnny and Betsy, though separate, and the information about the murdered women could be brought in by the defense. She did not allow any foot dragging by the prosecutors. This time, with so much attention on the case, Johnny and Betsy received a gang of top-notch attorneys and their assistants. The lead attorneys were women, and they loved a fight.

The jury believed Tilly during Johnny’s new murder trial. They understood that she had been seven when she saw her father killed. They understood that she was traumatized and didn’t speak for years. They did not like it when the prosecuting attorney asserted that, since Tilly had spent time in a mental health center, she was crazy or imagining things or delusional.

The girl’s mother had been murdered, her father was abusive to her family, she saw her brother, or his girlfriend—there was some confusion there—kill the father in self-defense, so of course the poor thing would be traumatized! It didn’t mean she was delusional!

They also didn’t like it when the prosecutor intoned with dripping condescension that Tilly, who looked young and fragile, was lying to get her brother out of jail. They believed her when she said that Peter turned toward the gun cabinet to get the gun to shoot Johnny, for sure, and probably Betsy. He’d killed women before, why not now?

The jury didn’t like the prosecutor. He was an arrogant prig. He was a snob. One juror privately called him The Weasel. They would definitely not vote for him for governor in the future. The trial dragged on, the old case reopened, people testified, detectives and police, forensics, etc.

Johnny and Betsy both testified. After the jury heard questioning by the prosecutor, they noted that Johnny didn’t remember his father turning toward the gun cabinet, but he’d been hit in the face, twice, so how could he remember that? And Betsy hadn’t seen it, either, but she was trying to protect Johnny from the serial killer! The prosecutor tried to make it seem like a big deal, about the gun cabinet, as if Tilly was lying, but the jury wasn’t buying his snobby smack.

The jury was dismissed to deliberate. Didn’t take long, thank heavens. They’d had enough of this circus, the photographers, the press. And they were sure of their decision.