Chapter 7 - The Bail Hearing
Jessica appeared in court on Friday. The tanned, glamorous woman from Instagram was gone. She was wearing an oversized orange county jumpsuit, her blonde hair greasy and flat, her bare feet in cheap plastic jail sandals.
The courtroom was packed with local media.
Her public defender stood up. “Your Honor, my client is a grieving widow with zero criminal history. She poses no flight risk. We are requesting bail be set at fifty thousand dollars.”
The prosecutor stood up. “Your Honor, the defendant is an extreme flight risk. She was arrested attempting to return from a foreign country where she had just attempted to wire two million dollars offshore. Furthermore, the victim’s grandmother, Mrs. Evelyn Sterling, has submitted a victim impact statement.”
I stood up from the front row. The courtroom went dead silent.
I looked directly at Jessica. She tried to glare at me, but her eyes betrayed her absolute terror.
“Your Honor,” I said clearly, my voice ringing off the wood-paneled walls. “This woman did not make a mistake. She made a calculated decision to leave a fifteen-year-old child to suffocate in her own home so she could steal a dead man's money. If you let her out of that cell, she will run. And she will never face justice for torturing my granddaughter.”
The judge looked at the photos of Lily in the ICU, then looked at Jessica with absolute disgust.
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“Bail denied,” the judge slammed the gavel. “The defendant will be remanded to the county jail pending trial.”
Jessica collapsed into her chair, sobbing loudly.
