Guilty Until Proven Innocent Pt. 01

[:::: Authors Note ::::]

Recently I've been reading a few stories about wrongful incarceration. A lot of the time, these people languish in prison for so long that although they are innocent, struggle to recover or find justice. Amid their trials, I love it when we find them using their inner strength to fight the overwhelming odds coming out better for it. This is one of my takes on those stories.

Now just to let you all know, there are some disturbing themes in this story. As I did with "Total Destruction", I've pulled back some of the initial content as it was too dark. I've also placed this as a 'Romance' story. Yes, there is a cheating wife involved, but this is about a man learning to live and love again after being forsaken by the world. The cheating and conflict between our main character and his ex-wife are secondary to the story.

I'm also going to write this from two perspectives. I haven't done this much in my stories, so let's see how it goes.

Now, as always, warning up front, I like long stories. This one is in two parts. I like dialogue and setting a scene. If you have read any of my previous stories, you will know what I mean. If you're after a simple story that is done quickly, this isn't for you. There are some steamy scenes, but they are further down the path of our tale.

As always, I have to thank my editing team, it is always a joy to have them help me get all the elements of the story told.

I hope that you enjoy 'Guilty Until Proven Innocent".

[:::: Mike ::::]

Devastated.

That is the only word that comes to mind in what I was feeling. Most people around me were screaming in joy, the euphoria of their lustful vengeance was at last fulfilled. The result was driving them to scream and shout, despite the sombre atmosphere a few moments ago. A small part of my mind noted that the mob certainly ruled as they pumped their fists and gave high-fives, their cheers drowning out the noise of the decades-old air conditioning in the room that matched the rest of the decor and had droned over most people's voices for days on end.

No one cared that I was shattered, in fact they celebrated it.

I had no real frame of reference for what was happening. I slumped in my chair, my hands shaking slightly but I was still chained to the desk in front of me. The table of the courtroom bench I had sat at for the last month was also bolted to the floor. My leg restraints, of course, would have stopped me from moving too far or too quickly, even if I wasn't shackled to the courtroom table. After all these many months, the interviews, the questioning, the court case itself. I was still bewildered; I still had no idea how I was the one that was in this position. I still could not comprehend how my life had fallen apart around me. I looked up at my court-appointed attorney, some young guy that was fresh out of law school and almost cringed as I could see even he was celebrating with the rest of the room.

He noticed my dour view, and as I sadly contemplated him, he lent down to me, smiling broadly.

"Tough break fucker," he said, patting me on the head before moving away to join the celebrations. Not very professional, but nonetheless, I doubt anyone no one would ever pull him up on it.

I sat in the midst of the courtroom's jubilation. The backslapping everyone gave each other at my guilty verdict was sickening; I had never felt so alone. I didn't want to turn around and face the gallery. There would be too many harsh stares from people I once thought cared about or loved me.

I thought back to moments before when the jury, in reading the unanimous guilty verdict, was both sombre and delivered the verdict with disgust. The judge, in his closing comments, had added that if the death penalty were still an option, he wouldn't have hesitated to sign off on it.

There was nothing else to do, I put my head down in my hands and sobbed.

I had been given two life sentences, no parole.

Sure, I could appeal and likely would, but no one would want to take my case. The crimes I had just been convicted of were too gruesome for any sane legal organisation to want to defend me, and most likely public defenders would tie me up in red tape.

I was lost, alone, hated and despised by an entire country. There was nothing, no compassion from anyone. In her assessment of me, the prosecution attorney, a warrior for justice from the Federal Court, Ms Victoria Brown, had not spared a single word describing my heinous crimes in excruciating detail. She had taken all the evidence, every interview, every implied witness statement and done her job exceedingly well.

If I had been a member of the gallery or part of the jury, I would have been so impressed with how she used everything, most of it circumstantial, against me. I would have easily been drawn into how she expertly rebuffed my attorney's half-hearted defence. She tore my explanations of my innocence apart as if she was enjoying a lighter-than-air souffle.

Innocent.

This was the biggest issue; I was innocent. I had not performed the atrocities that were heaped upon me. Not one person believed me; no one wanted to hear it. Not my wife, my kids, my friends, my parents, or my siblings. Since I was arrested, none of them had said anything to me other than curse at me. Never once had any of them even asked if I was innocent.

During my time being held for trial, certain guards had enjoyed showing me excerpts of interviews in the media where my family had fervently thrown me under the bus to torment me, so assured they were of my guilt.

After the initial arrest and release of the charges against me, my family were all brought into a room where I was chained to the floor in a cell like nothing more than a rabid dog. Despite my pleas, my mother, my now ex-wife and my daughter had all taken turns slapping me as the prison warden, my sons, my brother, and my father laughed while looking on. Each of the ladies took turns slapping me until my cheeks were so red they were almost bleeding and their hands hurt. My father had then gone as far as gut-punching me as he told me to live a long and fucked up life in prison. My brother spat in my face, and then all of the assembled family laughed, telling me they were looking forward to seeing me dragged through hell, even as I cried and tried to tell them I had not done anything.

When my family was finished, the guards made a show of turning the camera back on, daring me to make a complaint. When I said nothing, they took me back to my cell and dumped me as I sobbed at being so alone.

No, as I sat there devastated after the verdict and sentencing, there was nothing behind me to look to; then again, there was also nothing to look forward to, so I just looked into my hands and did what I had done so often since this all began, I sobbed.

A few moments later, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I couldn't help it. I flinched. Any contact with people over the past few months had been nothing but pain. Under the cheap suit that had been provided for me, I had the bruises to prove it. So when I felt a touch, I recoiled accordingly. But we were still in a courtroom, so even with the world against me, I doubted I would receive another beating with the world's media filming everything.

I cautiously looked up, and the woman who ensured my sentencing was kneeling beside me. Victoria Brown had a strange look on her face. Throughout the case and preliminary pre-trial interviews, she was a bulldog. She asked question after question. It didn't matter that I pleaded my innocence. She bypassed the emotion and managed to get all the details of my life from myself and anyone I had ever associated with. She found out whom I hung out with, what I liked to eat, even the type of porn I watched. My friends and family assisted her with everything, and she used it to maximum effect.

That professional demeanour I had witnessed for the past few months was a complete contrast to the expression on her face right now. She looked at me with something that looked like concern.

"Mr Other?" she asked, waiting for me to give her my attention. I did slowly; I looked into her eyes, surprised at the look of compassion. "I can't say I'm sorry or surprised at the verdict, but I am sorry for my colleague's earlier comments. It was unprofessional and uncalled for," she said, referring to my own defence lawyer's comment that she must have overheard. She then gestured to the room as everyone celebrated behind me, frowning. "This... display, is also... wrong."

I didn't know what to say; an hour ago, she was tearing me to shreds, but now this. Compassion? It was unexpected in a room full of hate.

I nodded sadly.

"The case is over now," she told me. "Very soon, you're going to be walked out. Is there a message that you would like me to give anyone?" she asked in what I thought was an uncharacteristic question for someone who did their best to give me two life sentences.

For a moment, I thought, shook my head and then nodded.

We both knew that no one wanted to hear from me. I looked at her as she waited. Very quickly, I played back the last several months. I thought through the night where everything went wrong, then the proceeding events. My thoughts moved quickly to my first interview with Victoria Brown. Ever the consummate professional, she asked my name, a few basic details and then my story. Once I had told her, unlike the others before her, when she asked what had happened, she also asked if I had done the crimes I had been accused of. After again pleading my innocence, I told her.

"You need to find them," I said, recalling my voice choked with emotion during our first time meeting when she interviewed me and asked me about them.

"Them?" Victoria had asked, her brow creased.

I nodded, "Both of them, there were at least two." I had nothing solid. I had never seen them clearly, only the pain of the memory and the utter ruin they had caused me.

Back in the moment, it was her victory and my defeat, we sat amidst the whirlwind media frenzy that had become my life, Victoria's brow furrowed further. My message was only for her. I had whispered, "Find them". She immediately knew what I meant.

As a crown prosecution lawyer, after the police and a litany of others had defined me as guilty, Victoria had been brought in to finish me off so they could legally bury me and throw away the key in front of the salivating media hordes. The pages and pages of evidence, reports and interviews, most of it contrived to fill the gaps she was handed, along with what I am sure were instructions to burn me, made her case against me easy.

That she was facing a wet-behind-the-ears public defence attorney assigned to me who never had any interest in helping me paved the way for her. In all likelihood, she could have passed on every piece of evidence, and still, the guilty outcome would have been the same.

But the thing was that Victoria had always been professional. Out of everyone that had questioned me. She never lost her temper and never let her emotions, which I knew were right there, along with the view of the country, get in the way of her job. She was also the only person throughout the entirety of the trial to ask me if I had done the crime. Victoria made sure that was entered into the record. It was the only point where she got a negative reaction from everyone around her. My assertion of innocence was ignored, and everyone except Victoria laughed at my plea of not guilty.

As I sat and continued sobbing at the verdict, I could only be described as a broken man. Victoria looked at me, really looked at me, concern evident on her face. But before she could say anymore, my guards ushered her out of the way. They unshackled me from the desk, beginning the process of leading me out, but suddenly there was movement behind us in the galley. I momentarily I hoped that it was a gun or something to take me out, but I was not that lucky. The balloon of sticky red paint crashed against the side of my head, bursting and covering me head to toe. The dark red paint was the colour of blood as the thrower screamed.

"MURDERER!"

Matilda, my teenage daughter, then laughed a maniacal laugh at the launch of her balloon. She had not said anything to me since that day in the interview room, at first hesitant but encouraged by her mother and my parents; her hand was throbbing as she left the room. But now, with the case done, she had given her final act of defiance, breaking a once loving father/daughter relationship.

As I turned my head, covered in the paint, I caught sight of May Bustoff, the victims' mother. She and her husband were the only other two not celebrating or laughing. Every day they had been in the room. They sat the entire time stoically. Now, with it all over, she had lost her composure and was inconsolable as her husband held her. Out of everyone in that chamber, they were the people I felt sorry for, more than myself.

Everyone else cheered and laughed as my guards almost dragged me from the room. Dripping with red paint, everyone patted my daughter on the back for sticking it to her convicted father. I briefly looked at her, and for a moment, I saw the conflict on Matilda's face, but it was a fleeting moment; then she was smiling and laughing again, being hugged by my former family as I was marched out like the condemned man I now truly was by my guards. I was pushed and shoved out the door to a waiting prison van.

Murder Mike the media called me. Before any legal proceedings, someone had leaked the accusations, the circumstantial evidence, my name and all my details to the media. I never had a chance, as in the eyes of the world, I was guilty before even the charges had been read in a formal court of law or even presented to me in the jail cell they threw me into.

Murder.

They claimed that I had kidnapped and brutally killed two sisters. Two young girls in the prime of their life. The crime was seen as so heinous that no one wanted to look further than the man found with them. No one cared that I was sobbing, holding my hands to their wounds tightly, having been unsuccessfully able to help them, to keep them alive. I cried as I recalled the final words of love that Maisy, the older of the two, spoke for her younger sister Tina.

I was surprised as the first responders slammed me to the ground, handcuffing me after I called out for help as I found them approaching.

I had fallen to despair over the coming days as each call I tried to make fell on deaf ears. Everyone needed their pound of flesh, and despite anything I said, it was universally decided that the pain and anguish everyone felt had to come from me, Mike Other.

The guards sneered at me as they loaded me into the van, still covered in the sticky red paint. I heard them laughing at the discomfort they were going to make sure that I was in as they slammed the door shut.

No light, no hope, no future for an innocent man...

[:::: Victoria ::::]

I watched as they jostled Mike Other out of the courtroom dripping from the red paint balloon that his daughter, Matilda, had thrown. I grimaced at the display. His family should be devastated that he was found guilty, perhaps relieved that he was being put away, but the over-the-top celebration. I knew they would all be a broken family once they came down from the high. No family was perfect, and I know from interviews that Mike's certainly wasn't. However, this wanton display of jubilant celebration and shaming of a convicted man wasn't in any way honourable and would eventually lead to them being in a world of hurt regardless of his crimes.

I returned to my prosecutor's table, stepping around the drippings of paint on the worn blue carpet floor to several congratulatory handshakes and gave the requisite smiles in return. I collected my notes, placing them into my trial bag. Next week I would submit everything for archive and record keeping. I usually savoured the victory, but the knot of anxiety I felt as I packed away my paperwork wouldn't leave me alone.

From the moment I was assigned this case, I felt something was wrong. As court cases go, this was supposed to be my crowning moment. From the instant it was announced in the media, Mike Other had become public enemy number one. His brutal murder of the Bustoff sisters had set the entire nation on edge. Today, I had put one of Australia's worst murderers behind bars for life, where he would never be able to hurt someone again, I should be proud of that.

I had interviewed the man the media had dubbed Murder Mike several times. Like many of the criminals I had put away before him, he maintained his innocence. With the media frenzy surrounding him, his family, friends, wife and kids were quick to pull out everything he had done wrong. The missed events because he was working, the times he snapped at them. Things he had forgotten and their wondering about where he was and why he drove that particular route home that night. They easily explained that he was driving the long way when a highway cut fifteen minutes off the journey home rather than the back roads where he was found.

Despite his proclaimed innocence, there was enough evidence provided to me by the police. Mike's car had bloodstains on his seats and was found with the car doors wide open. Reports also told me that he was holding the two sisters when the authorities found him. But through it all, despite everyone trying to break him, Mike maintained his plea of not guilty. I'll admit I was disconcerted when a search of the immediate area turned up no sign of the murder weapon. Still, Police and several 'experts' testified that he could have discarded the murder weapon in any number of ways before being found by the authorities.

The emergency call to 000 by Mike was also perplexing. About forty minutes before he was found, Mike placed a call noting he was pulling over. He told us there was another car pulled over on the side of the road, doors open and a flashlight weaving in and out of the trees.

The call was validated as authentic, and a criminal psychologist brought in debunked Mike's innocence claims by telling the court that Mike was giving himself a mental free-pass by making the call.

But then there was the look in his eyes. I've seen a lot of criminal eyes over the years. Most of the time, the guilty verdict creates anger, sometimes guilt and sometimes even remorse. In one murder case I prosecuted, the killer was blissful, having taken care of a cheating wife and her lover. But Mike, from the moment I met him, his eyes haunted me. In a way, I hated that my job was to prosecute, never to truly investigate. My attempts to ask for additional evidence came up frustratingly empty. No one wanted to exonerate Mike Other.

The past several months, the stress and the pressure of getting a guilty verdict against him had been relentless. My superiors would accept nothing but a life sentence, and the public defender assigned to him was never dissuaded from giving a half-assed effort to make my job easier. I had seen Mike Other in videos, met him on several occasions, and despite a number of obvious closed-door beatings while he was in custody, he continuingly pleaded his innocence. To me, it was his eyes, as I looked at him again after the verdict. At that moment, they were not the eyes of a vicious murderer. They were the eyes of a victim.

'You need to find both of them.'

Again, I thought of those words. He told the story in the interview after leaving his car and shouting out a hello that he heard a young girl scream from the scrub, and without thinking, he ran towards the noise after seeing a torch flashing through the trees. As he told the tale, he noted that a half dozen paces from the clearing where he was found with the murdered girls, someone had clubbed him in the back of the head, and he went down for a moment. When he came too, he noted two moving shadows running back towards the cars and the moans of young Maisy and Tina in front of him. The specialists told us that he had hit the back of his head while struggling with the girls but that he was undoubtedly guilty.