I unfolded it slowly. “It said Marcus was never meant to be driving that night. He was supposed to be home. But he received a call from his closest friend, who was drunk at a party and preparing to drive. Marcus went there to stop him. He ordered an Uber for his friend. Paid for it with money he had saved for a school trip. Watched him get into the car.”
I turned toward Marcus. He was staring at the floor, tears dripping silently.
“What Marcus did not know,” I continued, “was that someone at the party slipped a drug into his drink. He thought he was drinking soda. Toxicology confirmed it—he had rohypnol in his system. He was drugged without his knowledge.”
A quiet shock filled the courtroom.
“He believed he was sober when he got into the car. He had no idea what was in his bloodstream until he woke up in the hospital after the crash.” My voice unsteady now. “He did not know he had taken a life. He did not know he had taken my daughter’s life.”
“When they told him, he attempted suicide. He dismantled part of the hospital bed and tried to hang himself. He was stopped. Placed on suicide watch. And every day since then, he has written letters—letters to my wife and me—expressing remorse, begging for forgiveness, telling us he wished he had died instead.”
I wiped my face with the back of my hand. At sixty-three years old, I was crying openly before a room full of strangers.
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