After Before and After

Phase 4: Chapter 96

September 2, 1993. 2:38 PM.

The final day of testimony against Jack went by rather quickly. Dana Barnes initially anticipated the conclusion of her case against Jack to be reached on Friday, August 6th. However, she managed to squeeze in her final few witnesses on the Thursday, and by Friday she had moved onto Will.

Will's case lasted a mere week and a half in total. He was classified as one of the older boys which added weight to his alleged behavior on the island, but his track record pre and post island didn't take a whole lot of time to sift through. His history of making poor choices wasn't nearly as long as Jack or Roger's, but Barnes was able to dredge up a handful of incidents she classified as precursory to his role in Simon's death. If Barnes hadn't been trying so hard to convince them otherwise, Ralph was certain that the jury would've seen Will as an ordinary eleven-year-old. It was the island that turned him into something else; that turned them all into something else. Even Jack and Roger hadn't yet crossed lines deep enough to land them in front of a jury.

With all that Ralph's heard about himself and his former squadron over the last eight months, even he was beginning to wonder if they were ever normal kids. He knew that Barnes was getting into his head, but it was harder to shake off than he thought it would be. Month after month listening to testimony against the boys would do that to the best of them, which Ralph arguably was.

Barnes' case against Will lasted from Friday, August 6th until Tuesday, August 17th. That same afternoon, she picked up with number twenty on the roster, the formerly eight-year-old Johnny. The boy was eleven now, and would be twelve within the next six months. Even though he was older now, it was still his actions as an eight-year-old child that were under scrutiny. Naturally, like with the other little ones, Barnes didn't have much to go on based on the boy's previous records. After the island, little John regularly went to therapy, and eventually picked up where he left off pre-island to lead a normal life. Barnes concluded her case against him halfway through the morning of Monday, August 23rd.

The final two boys on the roster were numbers twenty-one and twenty-two, or as Ralph knew them, Rusty and Tex. They too were little ones at the time of the plane crash and the events of the island. Both nine years old and evidently introverted, Barnes didn't have much luck digging up dirt on them either. She wrapped her case against young Rusty on Friday, August 27th, and then Tex by Thursday, September 2nd.

By 2:30 PM that Thursday afternoon, the case of Simon Bennett's death had officially concluded.

"The third and final set of charges in this case pertain to the third and final death that occurred on the North Atlantic Ocean island; that of eleven-year-old Pieter Kingston. This one different is from the other two in a handful of ways, one of which is that it was no act of self-defense, no mistake made in the dark of night or of a cave. This sweet sixth grade boy was brutally murdered in the light of day; a pre-meditated act committed by a boy without a soul, incapable of empathy. Roger Conroy intentionally and thoughtfully killed Pieter Kingston in cold blood. And his best friend, Jack Merridew, helped him to cover it up. This crime, you will come to learn, was undeniably violent, purposeful, and heinous. It was an act of negligence committed by two teenage boys, the eldest of the survivors, one of who gave into a long withstanding, dark impulse, and another who aided him in concealing this act of horror in his own dark and horrific way. Pieter Kingston was a kind and caring kid, who his loved ones described as fueled by justice and a sense of morality. The story you are about to hear is no easier to stomach than the last, but is of equal importance to tell. Pieter Kingston, the third and final victim of these defendants, deserves the time and attention you've patiently shown Johnathan Benson and Simon Bennett. With all that said, the prosecution seeks to call our first witness at this time" Dana Barnes declarad in a shift from one case to the next.