Really? This is the angle he’s choosing? She drugged herself?
Jon David lets that settle for a moment before delivering his closing line, aimed at the jury’s sense of uncertainty.
“Thank you for your clarification. No further questions.”
He walks back to his seat, and I catch it. A flicker in the jury box. Unease. Not much, just a shift in posture, a glance exchanged. But it’s there.
They heard the science. They understand what Dr. Emerson laidout. But they also heard the seed Jon David tried to plant, subtle as arsenic.
The bailiff calls my next witness, and the jury straightens again.
Stephen Roberts enters the courtroom, a man in his early forties, navy suit, close-cropped hair, calm as a surgeon. He steps into the witness box, adjusts the mic, glances once at the jury, then at me.
“Please state your name and occupation for the record.”
“Stephen Roberts, senior digital forensics investigator with the Louisiana State Police Cybercrime Unit.”
Across the aisle, Jon David shifts. Not much, but I see the sharpening in his eyes.
“Mr. Roberts, were you assigned to examine the contents of a phone recovered during the investigation in this case?”
“Yes, ma’am. The phone was surrendered by a member of the fraternity.”
“And were you able to recover deleted content from that device?”
“Yes. Several files, including a video file timestamped the night of April fourteenth.”
A soft movement cuts through the gallery, a low rustle. The room breathes differently now.
“What steps did you take to verify the file’s authenticity?”
“We performed standard forensic protocol. Created a bit-for-bit image of the device, verified hash values before and after extraction, and conducted an integrity check. The metadata is intact with no evidence of tampering.”
I nod once.
“Your Honor, the prosecution moves to admit the video file into evidence as Exhibit 12 and requests permission to play it for the jury.”
The judge glances down, reviews the document briefly, and nods, admitting Exhibit 12. “You may proceed.”
The clerk dims the lights just enough to draw the room’s focus. My pulse ticks a steady, lethal rhythm as thescreen flares to life.
The camera captures every second—the laughter, the voices, the casual cruelty of it.
On the monitor, Emily Westbrook is unconscious, unmoving. Her limbs are slack, and her head lolls to the side. Her dress is askew and disordered, the fabric bunched in ways no sober, coherent person would ever be.
The men in the room treat her like an object, an accessory to their amusement. They laugh and joke.
One voice says, “Bro, she’s out cold.”
A second says, “Dude, she’s not even blinking.”
And then Evan is there—smirking, hands on her hips, guiding her body. No concern or question of her well-being.
Their voices echo, casual and carefree. Like they don’t know they’re being watched, like they’re capturing a moment to keep—not evidence of a crime.
Then the frame holds just long enough for every person in that room to see exactly what he does to her.
And then—cuts to black.
