Chapter 17 - The Second Manslaughter Trial The second trial was narrower.
No need to relitigate every financial detail except motive and context.
No sprawling fraud story.
Question:
Did Robert recklessly cause Amanda’s fall through physical conduct?
The prosecution emphasized:
Two grabs.
Her demand to be released.
Stair proximity.
Bruising.
Recording.
Robert’s own admission his contact could have contributed.
Defense emphasized:
Amanda’s dizziness history.
Backward movement.
No evidence of push.
No witness.
Robert’s “could have” statement was moral uncertainty, not scientific causation.
This time Robert did not testify.
His first testimony was admissible in relevant parts.
Strategic.
No new confession.
The jury listened to the audio.
Take your hands off me.
Movement.
Crash.
I attended one day.
Fourteen now.
I wanted to hear Mom’s voice myself.
Julia offered to stop me.
I said no.
When Amanda’s voice filled the courtroom, I felt nine again.
Not because of Robert.
Because Mom sounded annoyed.
Alive.
Human.
Not funeral-still.
I left before the crash replayed a second time.
Outside, Naomi sat with me.
“Regret coming?”
“No.”
“Want to go home?”
“Yes.”
We did.
Jury deliberated two days.
Verdict:
Guilty again.
This time under a more precise recklessness instruction.
Robert’s lawyer announced appeal but later focused on sentencing issues rather than full conviction reversal.
The state did not celebrate.
Neither did we.
The judge reimposed a sentence adjusted for time already served and related convictions.
The manslaughter conviction remained.
Then something surprising happened.
Robert wrote:
Katie,
I will not appeal the factual finding again.
His lawyers still pursued a technical sentencing issue.
But he instructed them not to argue Amanda simply fell without his involvement.
Then:
I spent years wanting the law to say “accident” because I thought that word would make me less responsible.
He continued:
The jury was right that I created the risk.
I did not intend her death.
I did cause a situation in which she fell while trying to get away from me.
That was the first time he said it that plainly.
I did not respond.
But I kept the letter.
Then the evidence hold on the ring finally ended.
Amanda’s estate memorandum controlled.
The ring came to the professional trustee until I turned eighteen.
I asked to see it.
The trustee brought it to a conference room.
Tiny.
Delicate.
Nothing supernatural.
Just gold.
I held it between two fingers.
This object had stopped a funeral.
No.
I had.
The ring had simply given me something specific enough to question.
I returned it to the box.
“I don’t want it yet.”
The trustee smiled.
May you like
“You don’t have to.”
For the first time, I understood possession could wait without becoming loss.
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