After Before and After

Phase 4: Chapter 72

Dana Barnes finished off the week of March 29th to April 2nd 1993 with questioning of witnesses from Roger's more recent life. Pulled reports revealed that following his release from house arrest after the Flag State interviews landed him on psychiatric watch, Roger continued to commit petty offenses. He got into trouble almost every moment his parents weren't looking at him, which Barnes claimed was proof that he learned nothing from the island, and was at high risk of reoffending in the future. She claimed that Roger Conroy was likely to face additional murder charges in his adulthood. Reynolds' objection to this guess work did little to recover from the insinuation Barnes successfully planted in the juries heads about Roger's future.

On Wednesday, April 7th 1993, Dana Barnes wrapped up her case against Roger Conroy, at least in regards to Simon's death. She replayed the part of his Flag State tape that day, the part in which he admitted that his efforts to kill the monster was no accident. Roger essentially admitted that Simon was collateral damage, and that if he could go back and change what he did, he wouldn't, so long as he still believed Simon was the monster.

The next boy on the defendant roster was number seven; Mikey Dixon, another little one whose case was wrapped up in under a week. After Mikey was Larry, whose character witness list had already been done to death. For Larry, all Barnes did was bring in the physical evidence that placed him at the scene of Simon's murder, and proved his involvement. The hunting stick with his fingerprints on one end and Simon's blood on the other was reintroduced, just like in the preceeding boys' cases. Barnes established Larry's involvement in Simon's death in only two days, from April 12th to 14th, before moving onto the next case.

Steve was number nine on the roster, and a forth grader at the time of the island. His track record was nothing more or less than typical. He had only one incident report from the academy, and none others against him in all the records Barnes searched. His enrolment in military school had less to do with his behavior than it did with his own military father's desire to see his son follow in his footsteps. Steve's case proceeded from the 14th of April until the 20th.

Patterson and Andy, numbers ten and eleven on the roster, took a little longer to get through than the little ones did. They were ten and eleven years old when the plane crashed, and there was a sufficient amount of evidence against them in terms of establishing poor character. Andy sometimes got into trouble with his best friend, Tony, who was number twelve on the roster. The two of them were usually pretty good on their own, but put them together and trouble wasn't very far behind. Patterson, like Tony and Andy, made poor choices at times when he was hanging around certain peers too. Teachers were able to recall incidents in which all three boys were punished or removed from class on different occasions for minor bullying incidents, or simply being disruptive or disrespectful.

Barnes' cases against the three boys in question weren't nearly as solid as the ones she presented against Larry and Roger, but she never intended for them to be. All she had to prove was that they could be impulsive, quick to react, and were capable of doing something utterly stupid under the right circumstances. Proving that they may have made good choices independently, but poor ones when following a crowd, was hard evidence in the establishment of how Simon's death occurred. The boys' willingness to act impulsively and make bad decisions when other boys around them did was enough to prove that they could've easily done so the night Simon was killed.

Patterson's case lasted from the 20th until the 30th of April. Andy's started that afternoon on the 30th and continued until the 12th of May. Tony's was introduced in the afternoon on the same day, the 12th, and concluded on the May 27th. At this point, most of the boys and families were getting hot sitting in dress suits all day, and stepping outside into the high seventy degree weather after court most days didn't help. It was unfortunate that the courtrooms themselves didn't have working air conditioning.

After Barnes finished with Patterson, Andy, and Tony, she moved onto Sheraton. His record resembled young Steve's, who was the same age as Sheraton at the time of the plane crash. It took essentially the same amount of time to question his teachers, parents, coaches, friends, and other acquaintances as it did Steve's back in April.

Before the members of the court knew it, the weather was shifting from uncomfortably warm to borderline hot, and summer was in the not-so-distant future. Barnes was moving onto number fourteen on the defendant roster. Rapper Jones, third in command to Roger and Jack out on the island, would follow Sheraton as of Friday, June 4th.

Just as she'd done for the thirteen boys who came before, Barnes introduced her evidence against Rapper by comparing his DNA fingerprinting report against the prints found on the hunting sticks with Simon's blood on them. Rapper's DNA, like all the others who came before, was incontestably found on one of the hunting sticks; the one labelled 'Exhibit H14.' Barnes spent all of that Friday placing Rapper at the scene of Simon's death, and verifying that the human blood on the stick did in fact, belong to the deceased boy. Everyone knew it would match, because it matched thirteen times before. The dance was getting old after fourteen defendants, fourteen families, fourteen sets of teachers, fourteen mothers and fathers, and many more witnesses around them who knew at least some small version of them that existed at some point in time, no matter how insignificant or outdated.

It was practically summer, but at the same time, it had taken so long to get here. The boys would miss the entirety of their summer for the trial. The families would be lucky to get a few nice hours to themselves under the summer sun each night. It wasn't how any of them wanted to spend their third summer home after the island, but as Dana Barnes consistently reminded them, there were people on that island who'd never see another summer again.

It was a long spring, and the summer ahead looked to be just as long. But time was moving forward, and each day that passed was another one closer to the end of this messy trial. Some were excited for the end, others were far more anxious. But all twenty-two boys took the same stance on one thing; they were all looking forward to leaving the Chatham County Juvenile Courthouse behind.