As it begins, so does it end. Guilty. Tears sprung to my eyes as I stood for the verdict. She just nodded. I don't feel bad, I don't doubt my decision in the slightest. Maybe it was in compassion for her and all that she will be facing now. Maybe with compassion for all that had happened to her and all that she had done. Because I do not believe in excuses but I do believe in reasons. And she has lead such a horrific life.

During her testimony she said that she was raped for the first time by her friend's father WHEN SHE WAS SEVEN. When I was seven I was chasing around boys and getting in crap for not doing my homework. At eleven, I was still chasing boys (the same boys, oddly enough), she was getting molested by her stepfather and stepbrother. She was living in a car at 13, I was worrying about the prom.

How is it possible that two people could live such extremely different lives?

Tina Marie Mitchell
killed Marjorie Gillan at 5am on September 2, 2004. She drank her booze and did her crack and then she picked up a bat and beat her best friend to death. I hope, I truly hope and maybe need to believe that Marjorie did attack her. I hope that the feared for her life as she struck the first blow. And I hope that she honestly and truly doesn't remember so that she doesn't have to see that scene in her mind, over and over, for the rest of her life. But what she did, and admits to doing, could never be justified. Under any circumstance. And I refuse to believe that I could ever, even in the most extreme circumstance, hurt someone the way she did. I don't think that I will ever forget those pictures. Of the bruises and the bits of brain that you could see through the mass of contusions on her head, of the crack in her skull and the stab wounds on her chest, of the cut across her foot, of the pillow. Oh, that pillow.

It was quite an experience. Seeing how the justice systems works and frustrates. Hearing such intimate details of people that I didn't even know existed. Crying for a woman that had led such a horrifying life that you wonder how she could have survived. And she still fights to survive.

Maybe that was what she needed. I have to believe that from every tragedy, some good must come. Maybe, if this were a movie, she would turn her whole life around. Stay off the drugs, lead a productive life, work to get her son out of foster care and stop the cycle. Stop the cycle.

What could I do, I wonder? Could I help? I really feel that I need to reach out in some way. I have been so blessed. But I've had my share of pain. I am fortunate enough to have friends and family who support me. And a real strength that I always took for granted. The upsetting fact that I am so different from other people is also, in a way, my favourite part of myself. I couldn't have one without the other.

Ah, it really is all about me, isn't it?
All the best, Tina. Godspeed. Godspeed.