Chapter 17 - The Trial Begins
Dererick and Vale were tried together.
The prosecution opened with the bedroom footage.
Jurors watched Dererick hand Anna tea.
They saw her pretend to sleep.
They watched him return in gloves, position the camera, remove the scissors, and kneel beside her.
Then Anna’s eyes opened.
The courtroom heard her question:
“What were you planning to do after I fell asleep?”
Dererick’s face on the screen remained frozen in calculation.
The prosecutor paused the video.
“This case exists because Anna Harper did not drink the tea.”
The defense argued that Dererick documented dangerous sleep behavior at Vale’s request.
Then prosecutors played the hallway recording.
Vale said:
“Destroy them.”
Dererick said:
“You said the dose was safe.”
Their own voices dismantled the defense.
Anna testified on the third day.
Dererick’s attorney asked why she remained married if she suspected abuse.
“I did not understand what was happening at first.”
“You secretly recorded your husband.”
“After a laboratory found sedatives in my blood.”
“You poured out the tea and pretended to sleep. That sounds planned.”
“It was.”
“So you intended to trap him?”
Anna looked directly at the jury.
“I intended to learn what he did when he believed I could not stop him.”
The courtroom became silent.
Vale’s attorney attacked her mental-health history.
Rebecca had prepared her.
Anna explained that the evaluations were written by Vale, the defendant accused of fabricating diagnoses.
The attorney displayed a video of Anna staggering through the kitchen.
Then the prosecution played the unedited footage.
Dererick had added medication to her drink thirty minutes earlier.
The edited reality collapsed beside the original.
One by one, the manufactured episodes became evidence against their creator.
Dererick stopped looking at Anna.
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Vale kept taking notes.
Neither man yet understood that Melissa’s testimony would be worse.
