**** Monday ****
On the first day of court me and Knox took our seats towards the front, right behind the desk where the prosecuting attorney sits. I grabbed onto Knox's hand, holding it tight because I had never been in a court room before and it was intimidating. Shortly after we got there I saw David and Keisha come in and they took a seat right behind us.
"Hey, how are you feeling?" Keisha whispered.
"Nervous," I whispered back, watching as some of Peggy's other victims were coming in too. Keisha gave my shoulder a reassuring squeeze and I smiled at her. "I'm glad you came." We hadn't seen too much of each other lately because she had been with David so much and I had been busy with knox.
Pretty soon the courtroom was full and the jury took their seats and then a side door opened and the Judge came in wearing a long black robe, taking his seat at the front of the room on an elevated wooden platform. He looked about sixty years old and he had hair so grey it was almost white and there were creases in his forehead and crow's feet around his eyes, probably from years of working a highly stressful job. He had a warm, friendly smile though, like he hadn't let the stress get him down.
The deputies escorted Peggy into the room and I noticed she was allowed to wear her regular clothes, not an orange jumpsuit like I had pictured in my mind and she also wasn't wearing restraints of any kind.
I leaned over and whispered to Knox. "Why isn't she handcuffed?"
"Because she's not being tried for a violent crime," he whispered back.
"Ahhh, okay," I nodded.
After Peggy sat down, she turned around and scanned the crowd and then her eyes locked onto me. Her expression was very blank and cold, with no hint of a smile and it gave me a chill up my spine. That look reminded me of a villain from a scary movie and I wondered what she was thinking. She stared long enough to make me start to feel uncomfortable and I fidgeted in my seat before Peggy's lawyer said something to her and she finally turned around.
The judge banged his gavel on a block to get the room's attention.
"Prosecution, please come forward and make your opening statement," the judge said.
The prosecuting attorney turned around and gave a smile and head nod to Knox before he stood up and walked to the front center of the room. He was a tall, good looking, clean-cut man in his mid twenties wearing a nice suit.
"We are here today to get justice for ten men who thought they had found the love of their life online. They dated her for months, talking and texting on the phone day and night. They opened themselves up to her and told her things they had never told anyone else. They had what felt like a very real relationship with her, many of them saying she became their best friend and the love of their life. One moved to this country for her so they could start their lives together. He gave her a hundred and fifty thousand dollars for a down payment on what he thought was going to be their first home together and paid for the extravagant wedding she insisted on having in Las Vegas. He was actually waiting for her at the altar and when she didn't show up, that's how he figured out it had all been a scam. She not only broke his heart, she destroyed his life and his relationship with his family for money. Another cleared out his entire retirement account, giving her every penny he had because she lied and said she needed the money for a heart transplant. He was willing to give everything he had to save the life of the woman he loved, the woman that said she would marry him. After he gave her the money she stopped answering his calls and texts, leaving him devastated because he thought she might have died. Another gave her over three hundred thousand dollars so her nephew could have life-saving cancer treatments, a nephew that never even existed."
I looked over at the faces of Peggy's victims that were sitting down the aisle from me. They were shaking their heads in disgust at her.
"This is not your run of the mill fraud case," he told them, pacing the floor with his hands behind his back. "This woman manipulated these men for months, and in some cases even years in a very cruel, heartless way to milk them of every penny they had. We have more than enough evidence to prove without a shadow of a doubt that the defendant was behind all of this. The police set up a sting operation to lure the suspect to a meet up location and Peggy was the one that showed up. We have a confession caught on video. A computer retrieved from Peggy's home had logged in hundreds of times to the social media profile that was used to catfish these men. Not to mention the fact that her hard drive contained pictures of Elodie Masterson, the woman whose pictures were used to create the fake profile. The defense is going to try to have crucial, damning evidence thrown out. They'll try to make you feel sorry for Peggy and make excuse after excuse for why she did what she did, but at the end of the day this woman is very guilty and deserves a harsh punishment for her crimes. Thank you."
The prosecuting attorney sat down and the defense attorney stood up. He was an older gentleman, in his late fifties and he was short, very overweight and had a bald spot on top of his head with a little ring of dark brown curly hair at the bottom.
He walked to the front center of the room and turned around, facing the jury. "He said I'm going to try to make you feel sorry for Peggy and he's right, because you should. Peggy Johanson is a young woman who has had a VERY bad string of luck. Just a couple years ago she was a National Champion barrel racer who was very beautiful and dating the National Champion Bullrider. She was on the covers of magazines and had adoring fans. She had it all. She was on top of the world," he said with a big smile.
Then he paced the floor and his smile faded. "All of that was ripped away from her when she was stepped on by a horse, leaving her face disfigured. The man she loved said she was a disgusting monster and he was too embarrassed to be seen with her, so they broke up. She was too scared to barrel race anymore, so she also lost the ability to do the thing she was most passionate about. She became too afraid to leave her house because strangers stared and whispered and children said really hurtful things about the way she looked. That accident cost her the love of her life, her job, her friends, her ability to even leave her house. The Prosecution is going to try to paint Peggy as a monster and a horrible person, but that couldn't be further from the truth. She is an innocent woman that has been falsely accused and targeted. The detective in this case was bound and determined to find someone, anyone to pin this crime on because he wanted to solve the case and look like a hero to the woman he was secretly in love with, the woman that had her identity stolen by the catfish. He was SO desperate in fact that he coerced my client into a false confession without her lawyer present and set up a trap to make her look guilty. That ladies and gentlemen is entrapment. He may have even planted evidence. This is just another example of the horrible luck that Peggy has had to endure and we are going to prove without a reasonable doubt that she is the real victim in this case. Someone cat-fished these men, but it was not Peggy Johanson. She is just the poor scapegoat they are trying to pin it on."
Knox and I sat there stunned. I finally looked over at him and said, "Can you believe this?! They're trying to make you look like the bad guy and Peggy look like the victim! That's ridiculous!"
Knox turned to me and said, "There's no way the jury is going to fall for that if they're allowed to watch the entire video of the interrogation. I actually tried to talk her out of speaking without a lawyer, but she insisted. What the defense is trying to do here is plant a seed of doubt in the jury's mind. If they have any doubt at all they won't find her guilty. After all the evidence is shown though I'm sure there won't be any doubt left in their minds."
"I hope you're right," I whispered, letting out an exhale. "The thought of Peggy getting away with all of this makes me feel sick."
Now it was time for the Prosecution to call their witnesses to the stand to give their testimony. One by one the lawyer called the men who were cat-fished up to the stand and he asked them all about their relationship with Peggy, how they were scammed, for how much and how it had affected them. He was able to get through five of the men before we adjourned for a lunch break.
The courthouse had a large cafeteria and me, Knox, David and Keisha sat down at a table together. The prosecution lawyer sat down next to Knox on his other side.
"Elodie. This is Jackson Brown, the prosecuting attorney I've been working with to build the case against Peggy. Jackson this is Elodie Masterson," Knox said.
"Nice to meet you," Jackson told me, before taking a drink and sitting there thinking. "I've got to say Knox, I was caught off guard by the angle they're trying to take with this. I didn't see that coming," he said, shaking his head.
"Yeah me either. They're playing dirty. That's for sure," Knox said with a frustrated exhale before taking a bite of his food..
"I'm going to call some character witnesses to testify about what kind of person you are to prove to the jury you're not the type of man to frame someone for a crime just to get a woman. I'm thinking the police chief. I already had him on my approved witness list anyway."
Knox nodded. "That's a good idea. We also need to make sure they hear the entire interrogation video from the very beginning, so they can see where I tried to talk her into waiting for her lawyer but she refused," Knox told him. "That will prove that I'm innocent of what that asshole is accusing me of."
I chimed in and told Jackson, "And when you call me to the witness stand, make sure to ask me questions about our relationship. I'm the one that liked Knox first. The day we met I even hit on him and he turned me down. He actually turned me down a couple different times before we finally got together."
Jackson laughed and said, "I'm afraid the jury might find that hard to believe. Either that or they're going to think Knox is the biggest idiot on the planet. I mean look at you," Jackson said with a smile that made my face blush.
Knox turned and looked at me, thinking for a second before saying, "I know. I was an idiot. I don't know what the hell I was thinking."
That made my heart melt and I gave Knox a warm smile, saying, "I'm just glad you changed your mind, even if it took a while."