I stood on the seventh floor of the dorm building watching a man get thrown to the ground by one of the officers. A box fell from his hands. It scraped across the pavement and its contents fell out. A gun, rag, and a bottle of chemicals were all lying on the sidewalk. Officers rushed towards them and blocked the lethal items from the man scrambling towards them.
I narrowed my eyes feeling disgusted with the rights he was being given. I wanted nothing more than to go down there and end this nightmare myself, but the officers standing next to be would stop me. They seemed to sense my uneasiness since one of them placed his hand on my shoulder. He gave a small smile, something that seemed to be half way out of apathy and just simple politeness. The officer probably felt bad that I had to be used as bait in case things went wrong.
“This bastard will get what he deserves, don’t worry too much,” he turned away from the window as the man was being forced into an officer’s car. “With multiple kidnappings, first degree murders, and attempted,” I flinched, “kidnappings and murders this guy will be lucky to get life in prison. That’ll only happen if he pleads guilty. Otherwise, when he’s found guilty, he’ll get capital punishment.”
“He deserves worse,” I muttered under my breath so the police wouldn’t hear my disdain and watched the car with him drive off from the dorm building I was standing in.
“I first noticed something strange when I received that first phone call,” I sat in the testimony booth, leaning forward to a microphone and speaking into it for the rest of the court room to hear. “I was in the middle of class, not really paying all that much attention. My thoughts were elsewhere. I snapped back to reality when my backpack started vibrating against my feet. At first I thought it was my mom and just ignored it. After class, I saw I had a voice mail. Getting slightly nervous, thinking something was wrong back home, I checked it while I walked to my next class. It wasn’t my mom.
“A man was talking over my voice mail. He wasn’t exactly articulate, and I couldn’t catch his name. However, I did catch that he had a package that he needed to deliver, and he wasn’t able to. I shrugged it off, and told myself that I’d call him after class to find out what the issue was."
“What was the issue?” my lawyer walked in front of me while questioning me. Danielle was her name. She brushed back a strand of curly blonde hair out of her face, and slyly looked at the defendant, knowing that the case was in our hands.
“He said that he wasn’t able to get into the dorm building. Which I thought was odd, the mail man has access to the building, and UPS delivers to the University Center. I did some research on what I ordered, and the website said that it didn’t ship yet. I then called the company. They said that they only delivered with UPS. Afterwards, my roommate went with me to the police to notify them of a possible situation.”
Danielle Sherrings walked towards where I usually sat during the court hearing and picked up a file before taking it towards the jury. She opened it and handed a few papers out. All of them had pictures of missing people that were later discovered to have been deceased. These people fell victim to the man’s scam and then were brutally murdered.
“And this is what would have happened to her,” Danielle motioned to me, “If she didn’t notify the police and met with him like he wanted.”
“Objection!” the defendant’s lawyer leapt out of his chair.
“Over-ruled,” the judge waved off. The judge looked towards the man, “With multiple kidnappings, first-degree murders, attempted kidnapping and attempted murder, and theft of credit card information, how does the defendant plead?”
I looked towards the man who could have very well ended my life. If he pleaded guilty he’d earn life in prison and avoid the death penalty. It wasn’t enough for me. The man deserved to suffer for what he’s done to those innocent people, for trying to get me killed. He deserved to die.
Drops of sweat started to run down his face. Some of it better get in his eyes. He loosened the tie around his neck, as if it took the role of an anaconda sucking the life from its prey. His face turned red, like the flames of Hell were already eating at his flesh. The man leaned towards the microphone. He doesn’t deserve to live.
“Guilty.”
