Sarah Kolb was found guilty today on all two counts murder and one count of concealing a homicide.
This is a trial I covered in the Quad-Cities for my last job. I was so relieved I started to cry at work. I am dropping the allegedly from my talk about it since there is a conviction.
Read the story at qctimes.com and qconline.com. QConline has a "Beyond Print" blog that's good to read.
It's amazing how much of my own emotion was wrapped up in this retrial. After sitting through more than two weeks of testimony - hearing about how they cut off her head, threw away her necklace, burned her legs, ate at McDonalds afterwards - I was not unaffected. After Sarah testified in her own defense, which she did not do at this second trial, I called Johanna hysterical and cried for most of the evening. I still have a tape of Adrianne singing at a talent show that I have been unable to make it through more than 20 seconds of.
The pain that both families are feeling right now is almost too much to bear. I talked with both families though not in depth. I feel for the reporters who have sat through two trials now. You write without bias but your heart is not made of stone.
Justice was served the second time around. But yet, what is fair? That despite a legal victory the Reynold's family will never see their Adrianne again? That probably this verdict, as relieving as it is, signals another ending in their journey of grieving, just surfaces more pain. Or that a 17-year-old who no doubt had potential could quite possibly spend her natural life in prison? Or that Sarah's family is forced to accept the fact that no matter what they believe happened that January day, Sarah won't be coming home for Christmas ever again.
Surely, none of that is fair.
It's been a long, long, long, long, long time...
9 years ago
1 comment:
I think this is one of the reasons journalists become cynical and fat ... because we do have to look at some of the most heart-breaking, unfair and disgusting parts of the human race out there and write about it without bias.
Inside we're screaming for someone to save us from having to look at that dead body at an accident scene or from hearing testimony like you heard at the Kolb trial, but there is no rescue. It's our job to be there and to listen intently to every detail so we sort out the most important information to report it to everyone else.
I hope I never stop wanting to cry after I interview someone who has just lost a loved one, had their home flooded or burned down, or is dying of breast cancer.
I hope I never become numb - because that's when journalism has eaten my soul.
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