There was a long pause. Sidney heard muted crying. Finally Grace’s voice came back over the line.
“Thank you.”
CHAPTER 38
Tuesday, July 11, 2017
THE PROCEEDINGS WERE PLANNED PURPOSEFULLY AND EXPEDITIOUSLYin order to avoid a circus of media that would converge on the small island of St. Lucia and bring more attention to the fact that the government was admitting they’d imprisoned a woman for a crime she did not commit. Grace’s call had set things rolling the day before, and when word leaked about a hastily scheduled hearing set for the following morning, the network execs knew they couldn’t miss footage of Grace Sebold being marched back into court. They splurged to charter a plane for Sidney and her crew, which departed at 11:30 p.m. Monday and flew through the night to land in Castries just before 4:00 a.m. They managed two hours of sleep before setting up shop in the courtroom. Sidney and Leslie, as well as Derrick and his camera crew, were the only media presence visible in the near-empty courtroom.
At 9:00 a.m., the Honorable Francis Bryan took his place behind the raised bench. He brought the court to order; and from a side door, Grace Sebold was led into the courtroomby two armed guards. She wore a blue jumpsuit, and her glasses were slightly crooked, as if she’d fallen asleep wearing them and had arrived straight from her bed. Her hair looked disheveled. Sidney had the impression that since Grace’s phone call, less than twenty-four hours ago, things had moved quickly for her. The St. Lucian government was doing their best to clean their hands of the situation.
Grace scanned the thin crowd, looking, Sidney was certain, for her parents and her brother. She settled on the only familiar face that was present: Sidney’s. Sidney lifted her hand in a small wave and smiled. Grace’s eyes displayed shock and confusion, still unsure exactly what was transpiring. She took a spot next to the court-appointed counsel while the high court came to order. The Honorable Judge Bryan spoke.
“Mademoiselle Sebold, are you of right mind this morning and properly represented by counsel?”
“Yes, sir,” Grace said in a muted tone. She didn’t mention the fact that her actual lawyer, Scott Simpson, was in fact not present to represent her, but instead the man who stood beside her was the St. Lucian attorney who had so badly fumbled her case years ago.
Derrick captured the courthouse scene. Two other cameramen recorded from different angles to catch Grace, the judge, and Sidney.
“Under St. Lucian statute,” the Honorable Judge Bryan continued, “in accordance with the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court, as well as the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and in light of new evidence provided to the court by the government of the United States, and reviewed by the St. Lucian authorities and this high court, it is within my right and is my final decision, along with the prime minister and the governor-general, to reverse the ruling on June 29, 2007, of murder in the first degree. All previous and formal charges, as of this day, 11th of July, 2017, are annulled andremoved, and you, Grace Janice Sebold, are hereby granted clemency and exoneration of formerly charged crimes.”
Despite the thin attendance, murmurs filled the court. The Honorable Bryan did not bother to silence the crowd. Instead, he offered a quick apology to Grace Sebold, directed the guards, and banged his gavel. He was up and gone through a rear door, having spent less than five minutes on the bench.
Grace looked back to Sidney; tears ran down the inmate’s cheeks as the guards pulled her toward the exit as her counsel whispered in her ear. The entourage of constables ushered her through the side door from where she had emerged; a mere seven minutes after the court was brought to order, Grace Sebold was exonerated.
* * *
The proceedings had moved so swiftly that Grace’s parents were absent when their daughter was released from prison. Their flight was scheduled to land that night, and without a soul to welcome Grace when she was released, Sidney found herself late in the afternoon waiting next to a taxi in the parking lot of the Bordelais Correctional Facility when its gates opened. Clanking chain link rattled and whined in protest, but finally parted to grant the thirty-six-year-old prisoner, who had spent more than a quarter of her life within its walls, her freedom.
Along with a handful of local press, and a one-man camera crew fromThe VoiceandThe Star—two of St. Lucia’s largest media outlets—Derrick rested the camera on his shoulder and captured the gates parting and Grace Sebold’s face as she walked into the warm, sticky Caribbean air and looked up at the sky, as if she hadn’t seen it in years. She had, though, Sidney’s voice would eventually narrate to the audience, in the prison yard and through the dirty windows of the mess hall. But today was the first time in more than ten years that she was seeing it as a free woman.
CHAPTER 39
Tuesday, July 11, 2017
WHEN FORMAL WORD OF GRACE SEBOLD’S EXONERATION LEAKED, THEInternet went wild. The biggest real-time documentary in television history got bigger, despite the fact that what was sure to be featured in the final episode had just been spoiled. The final installments started writing themselves in Sidney’s mind as the taxi pulled from the Bordelais Correctional Facility and onto the main road.
Without a credit card or a dollar to her name, besides the St. Lucian currency she was issued just before she was released, Grace Sebold was as helpless as a newborn when she walked from prison.
“Thank you,” Grace said. “I don’t know where to go. My counselor said they’d pay for a taxi, and I got the impression they just wanted me out of the prison as fast as possible.”
“It’s no problem.”
“Not just for picking me up, though. For everything.”
Sidney nodded. “You’re welcome.”
The taxi clicked into a higher gear as the driver merged onto the highway.
“Listen, Grace. There’s a reason things happened so fast. The St. Lucian authorities wanted you out of their hair before the press started to swarm. The documentary has become very popular back home, and the Internet is already buzzing about your release. They wanted you out of their courts before the cameras were raging and journalists were shouting questions. It looks bad for them, for the St. Lucian government. A large portion of their economy depends on tourism and they want badly to avoid being painted as a tropical island that unjustly imprisons vacationers. They want you out of their country as fast as possible. In time, they’ll hope that America and the United Kingdom and every other country whose citizens vacation on their tiny island will forget that St. Lucia once wrongly convicted you.”
Grace nodded. She stared out the window of the van, lost suddenly in the lush rain forest that blurred past.
“You’ll soon be the most sought-after interview in the United States,” Sidney continued. “Later today, journalists will arrive in St. Lucia and start looking for you. I’m sure they know when your parents’ plane is landing. As soon as your parents step foot off that plane, there will be cameras in their faces and journalists asking for their reaction to your exoneration.”
Grace didn’t answer. Her freedom, Sidney believed, had overwhelmed her.
“I reserved a room for you at a hotel near the airport. I used an alias, so if we get you there quickly, I think you’ll be okay until you get to the airport tomorrow.”
