The trial started in March. I was six by then. My mother had told me that I did not have to go, but I wanted to. I did not tell her why. I could not tell her why.
We sat in the back of the courtroom on the first day. Aunt Dana was there, and Daniel, and the detective, Maria Vasquez, and a woman from the state's attorney's office. The gallery was small and quiet. Ronald Kessler sat at the defendant's table in a gray suit that did not fit him. He did not look at us.
The prosecutor, Elaine Foster, stood up and gave her opening statement. She said that the defendant had used his position as a service technician to gain access to the homes of women who lived alone. She said that he had behaved inappropriately with four women and that he had done so with the knowledge that they were vulnerable
